Pumpkin Patch

P umpkins sitting in a patch.

U nder a sunny and bright blue sky.

M any children walking through.

P icking and choosing the perfect one.

K eep the seeds, they taste so good.

I t's time to take our pumpkins home.

N ext the pumpkins will have a face.

S ome will be spooky, some will be sweet!

~ Julie

Mother's Day at EPCOT

Wow! Mother's Day was 5 days ago and I am just now getting a chance to post something about it. When did time start going by so fast? It seems like months go by as fast as weeks, weeks go by as fast as days, and days just don't have enough hours in them. I keep hoping that we will get to slow things down a little and just relax, but with 2 seven-year-olds and 1 ten (almost eleven) year old, I don't think that is going to happen.

Anyway, last Sunday we packed everyone up and spent the day at EPCOT. I love going to EPCOT for Mother's Day because it is right in the middle of EPCOT's annual Flower and Garden Festival. This year was just as nice as always. We had perfect weather and the flowers were in full bloom.

Here are a few pictures from our day...

Caitlyn and Caley posed for a picture inside the front entrance of the park. I love the flowers and trees that they put in this planter. They look like the ones that are found growing all over Minnesota in the summer. It makes me want to go home.

Caley and Caitlyn walked through the "Fairy Garden" to find rubbings for Tinkerbell and her friends. Inside the garden they had topiary's of all of the fairies.

Caley stopped working for a minute to show her rubbing/coloring page and pose with one of the fairies.



This is one of the hundreds of butterflies inside the butterfly exhibit. I was checking out the plants inside the butterfly garden. I am trying to turn a corner of our backyard into a butterfly garden. I got some good plant ideas from EPCOT's garden.



CJ "willingly" stopped for a minute to have his picture taken in front of this garden that is planted to look like dolphins swimming in the ocean. Disney comes up with so many cool ideas.




Three crazy ostriches and three crazy kids. At this point the kids were thinking about their empty stomachs and asking to get some dinner. Ahhhh....I am so glad they appreciate the flowers!

Happy Mother's Day to Our Mom!

Happy Mother's Day
Love Chris, CJ, Caitlyn and Caley

Our Hero

On Thursday, we were invited to one of the Orange County Fire Stations to see our daddy being recognized for saving a life while on duty back in April. I always think it is funny that they choose certain "heroic" events to recognize police, fire fighter's, and EMT's. These people do heroic things everyday, but I guess some events stand out over others.

On Thursday this group was being recognized for working together to save the life of a young woman who was involved in a car accident. Chris's partner was the first to arrive on the scene. She found the victim in the backseat of the car with blood shooting out of a cut on her neck. Gloria jumped in the backseat to apply pressure to the wound. Meanwhile, Chris was speeding to the scene to help out. He took over with attending to the wound, until the fire fighter's and EMT's arrived. Chris actually rode in the ambulance, holding the neck of the victim, until they got to the hospital.

The victim could have succumbed to her wound, but with the quick work of Chris's partner, and all of the others involved, she survived to tell her story.

Congratulations to everyone involved!!!

Family photo with "Our Hero."

The kids got a chance to see the fire station, and some of the firetrucks.

They were the only kids there that day.

I think it was really good for them to see the result of the work that their dad does everyday.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Enjoy Your Day!

A Tale of Two Cities

While the boys are in Buffalo, NY for the weekend visiting family, eating at their favorite restaurants, going to a hockey game and getting a little taste of winter...

The girls stayed in Orlando to do some craft projects, go shopping(what would girls weekend be without shopping?), go to the Celebration Art Festival, and go to a birthday/pajama party.

All-in-all...a pretty good way to end Spring Break! Does it really have to be over tomorrow?

Welcome!

Welcome to the family!

Yesterday we got the good news that a new baby boy was added to our family.

Congratulations to my sister-in-law Sarah, my brother Jay, and my nephew Devan on the newest addition to their family!!!

Sarah and new baby Owen.

Super proud big brother Devan, grandma Carol, and baby Owen.

Could Devan's smile be any bigger!?

Only In Minnesota!

Only in Minnesota do you go sledding wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a vest on January 31st.

He said it was 45 degrees outside.

When it is 45 degrees in Orlando we are wearing several layers of clothes, a jacket, gloves, and anything else we can find!

It looks like lots of fun.

Wish I was there!

United Through Reading

United Through Reading is a non-profit public benefit organization. The goal of this organization is to unite families who are physically separated by giving them the ability to record themselves on DVD reading books to their children. The DVDs are sent to the children and the child can then see mom or dad or a grandparent reading a favorite story to them. This program is used primarily for military families with a parent who is currently deployed. They also have a program for grandparents. Many grandparents live more that 100 miles from their grandchildren. This gives them the ability to connect with their far away grandchildren.

I found out about this program when I purchased Kellogg's cereal at Target. Kellogg's currently has a promotion running in which you purchase two Kellogg's cereals with a special token on the box. You mail the tokens in for a free book. You can also purchase additional books for $5.00 each. The $5.00 is a donation to United Through Reading. There were no shipping or handling charges included, so it truly was a FREE book. When the book arrived, I got a letter from Kellogg's telling me about United Through Reading and a $1.00 off coupon for another book to be purchased at Target. Both Target and Kellogg's are sponsors of and contributors to United Through Reading. 80% of all proceeds that United Through Reading collects goes back to support their program.

You can find out more information about this program at http://www.unitedthroughreading.org/ or on Target's website at www.target.com/community.

Weekend FUN!!!

WOW! What a crazy weekend, and it carried right over into Monday. Saturday we started the day with selling Cub Scout Popcorn door-to-door in one of the local neighborhoods. It was mildly successful and very HOT!!! The girls tagged along and surprisingly, handled it pretty well. Immediately after Popcorn selling we ran home, changed uniforms, and headed out to baseball practice. Again, IT WAS HOT!!! After practice, we ran some errands and went home to catch up on all of the domestic stuff that needed to be done there.

When Sunday came around, it was time for some fun. We packed up and headed out to our favorite place, where else...The Magic Kingdom. It was a nice day and not too busy. We stayed for a few hours, hit some of our favorite attractions, saw the 3:00 parade, and headed home. What a weekend!!!

New Beginnings

The end of summer means the beginning of many new things. This, is certainly true in our house this fall. Everyone has something new to start and a lot to look forward to.

CJ is starting fourth grade with a new teacher and many new classmates. He is also starting a new year of Scouting as a Webelos Scout, and has signed up for Little League for the first time. He has wanted to play baseball for a long time and now he will get his chance. I will keep you up to date on his progress.

Caley and Caitlyn are starting Kindergarten!!! They went to Pre-K last year, but I still can't believe that they are in kindergarten already. They love their new teacher and are having fun learning new songs. This week they have been singing the days of the week, put to the "Adams Family" theme song. It is really cute!

Chris is working a lot, as always, and is taking classes to finish his AA degree.

For me, blogging is my new adventure. I am just beginning this adventure, but I am really excited to get going. I think it will be a great way to keep in touch with everyone, let you know what is going on with us, and try a new venture. I have wanted to try this for a long time, and this summer I got motivation from a friend to give it a try. So, here I am. I hope you will find my blogging fun, interesting, informative, and maybe inspirational. Check back often, and let me know what you think.

Thank you Kelly, for inspiring me to give this a try!!!