First Day of School

Today is the first day back to school! Amelia starts kindergarten and Ethan 3rd grade. Both were excited about seeing friends and starting a new year, although Ethan won't admit it. :) Both have wonderful teachers that will keep them busy and learning lots. Hope I can keep up with two kids doing homework this year!

I asked them to stand close so I could get a picture of them together, this is as close as it gets I guess.

Amelia looking sweet and super excited for school!

Ethan looking a little sleepy eyed, but still ready for a new school year!

Yesterday we had back to school night, Amelia got to pick her desk and chose to sit next to her cousin John, I don't expect this seating arrangement to last long. :)

Ethan had the best seat in the class, the one closest to the window! With no AC this is an added bonus! (Cousin John helped him put his supplies away) :)

Summer Project #2

We started the big project of re-siding our house in July. Mark spent many days working in the track-hoe followed by evenings of tearing off siding. The kids and I were his clean up crew, throwing all the boards and waste in the dump box.

This is our before picture. As you can tell we have two different types of siding and the wide stuff was rotting off the house in some areas. The skinny stuff was losing paint pretty bad.

The first thing Mark did was pull out the bushes. Any landscapers out there? I don't have a clue what to do with this space next!

What started out as a siding and 3-5 window replacement project turned into a lot more windows being replaced! I'm very excited about the windows, I can actually open them, and the weather has been beautiful!

Ethan is a big help! Here he is taking off storm windows, I think Amelia mainly supervised.

Tearing off siding sure makes things ugly!

We had a big weekend last weekend thanks to the help of my dad, brother and a neighbor who helped Mark all day!

I think we're halfway done!

Ethan had lots of jobs, first pound in any nails that didn't get in quite far enough. Then he had to raise and lower the skid loader bucket since they needed the bucket at a certain height and he was the only one skinny enough to squeeze out the door when it was at that height. Finally he did lots of running, filling the staple guns, caulk guns, handling hammers and nail guns up to the guys too! I'm so thankful he can be helpful!

Competition

Over the last month we've entered a few competitions starting with Ethan, Amelia and I entering projects in the Southern Iowa Fair. This week was registration for school, it's the same evening as our towns Sweet Corn Serenade, we make a evening of it and like to go up town for supper and to visit with friends. This year I remembered they did a pedal pull for kids, so three of the four participated in that. Finally yesterday Mark raced in his second hare scramble race. Ethan and I went along to cheer him on!

Ethan got Best of Show on his bird house, it was a kit he got for Christmas and put together himself.

Amelia got all blue ribbons on her crafts and a red ribbon for her flower.

Elijah couldn't fully touch the pedals, but wanted to do the pedal pull anyway!

Amelia got to pull in the rain!

Ethan got to use the biggest tractor, he placed 3rd.

There was a big crowd in Fremont yesterday for the Hare Scramble! I don't understand why so many people like to beat themselves and their bikes up riding hard through the woods on a very hot day!

Each rider puts a bar code sticker on their helmet and gets scanned in each time they cross the check point. Mark placed fourth in his class. Not to bad considering he broke his clutch handle on his last lap, 6 miles from the finish line deep in the woods!

Amelia's Birthday Party

Last week was Amelia's 6th birthday. To celebrate we had over one of her cousins and a couple friends. Amelia loves to do crafts so we made sure to include this hobby at her party. She is growing up so fast and is looking to starting kindergarten in a few weeks! Happy Birthday Amelia!

If you ever need to come up with a birthday cake idea just do a "image" google search on the topic and let your kid sit in front of the computer. Amelia loved doing this and found this Little Pet Shop Pony cake for her party.

Poor Amelia, I think it took her at least 10 tries to blow out her candles, and they weren't even trick ones! :)

The girls enjoying the water balloon flip flop craft we made.

The finished product!

This was the best group shot I got, silly girls!