Anton & Elijah

My sister-in-law Becky came over the other day to take pictures of Anton for his 1 1/2 year and Elijah for his 3 year. She did a great job! After getting Ethan and Amelia's school pictures back this week she'll be getting another call for the older two! Seriously disappointing school pictures this year!

Visiting Ang & Dan

The kids had a short week of school last week so we decided to go visit Dan and Ang for the weekend. Grandpa & Grandma VDB joined us and Mark stayed behind with the two little boys to combine beans. We had a busy, fun couple days and look forward to going back!

First on the agenda was Geo Cacheing, Ang has GPS on her phone and we used it to find a few Caches in Bunceton.

Our second cache had little trinkets in it, which the kids loved.

We couldn't find the cache at this site, but the view of the river was worth the drive!

Saturday we went to an Apple Festival in a near-bye town. Amelia got a pretty pink feather in her hair.

Next was a trip to Jacobs Cave. The kids hadn't visited a cave before and really enjoyed it.

We enjoyed the view of the ceiling full of soda straws!

Ethan found this little guy running around the gift shop after the tour.

The cave was hosting an Animal Swap meet so we thought we would check that out too. It was quite the experience! Lots of people riding around on lawnmowers and 4-wheelers selling and trading all sorts of "treasures".

Ethan is checking out this guys turkey's.

These people hauled their chickens around in a wagon. The sign say "Sell or Trade".

Harvest 2011

Harvest is underway for most in the area, and so far things have been going very well. Monday the guys were working at our house for part of the day until the rain got to heavy. The kids and I always enjoy when the guys are working near home! The field averaged around 190 despite a wet start and dry summer, we are very thankful for the better than expected yields in many areas!

A truckload of kids ready to ride in the combines!

I love having all the grass and weeds mowed!

Mark and Kurt at our home farm.

Here's a fun one of the guys!

More to come on this picture at a later date.

Another fun picture of Mark and his brothers.

Someone's happy about harvesting! On a side note Elijah's eye is doing much better! If only he would let me pick the dried glue off the top.

Day 2 harvesting at our house, a much brighter morning after getting rained out Monday evening.

Karl finishing the last few rounds before moving on the the next field.

Another Ouchy for Elijah

Mark took Elijah and Anton on a little 4-wheeler ride while Amelia and I enjoyed some time together making terrariums. We were surprised when we saw Mark drive up with Elijah covered in blood! While on their way back to the house Mark hit a bump and Elijah hit his head on the front of the 4-wheeler, cutting open his head. Mark brought him to the doctor to make sure it didn't need stitches and thankfully it didn't. We did that last month, it fact I think that was in my last post. :) Anyway, the doctor just glued the wound shut. The bad part was that Elijah's eye got glued shut in the process! When he blinked some of the glue got on his eyelash and then on the skin around his eye. Mark said he did great until the doctor had to try to pull his eye open. At this point his eye is still glued shut at least half-way so we're hoping if we keep it moist he will be able to open it soon. (sigh) :)

Glued back together again.

Elijah was pretty sad when he got home. We tried to get him to keep something moist on his eye to make it feel better. He refused everything, except the Mt. Dew, I guess that makes everything better. :)

August

In addition to the posts I all ready did for the month I had a handful of pictures that didn't really justify their own post. So here's a little re-cap of the little things we did last month of summer!

One of these things doesn't belong... Anton is such a pest to our cats, I'm truly surprised at how much they tolerate him! If you're in need of a good cat that will take lots of "love" from kids we have one more to find a home for!

Elijah fell off his bike and needed two stitches. He did a great job for the doctor and his chin has healed nicely.

And I wonder why I'm running the dishwasher twice a day! Seriously, 6 spoons and two bowls and he's eating with his hands!!!

We've had a small tree frog invasion, so far we've removed three from inside our house. They seem to like hanging out on our toilets.

Like I don't know your hiding in the corner eating a doughnut hole Elijah. :)

Our church has added a new addition with two nurseries which I helped with. This is the artwork we painted in the toddler nursery.

We almost have the bottom of our house finished with siding! The kids saw the improvement and wanted to update their playhouse. So I found a gallon of 11 year old white house paint in our basement and with Grandma's help they were on their way to a nice clean white playhouse!

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!