Soccer time!

Brayden started kindergarten soccer last week. He had his first game this past Saturday. He has been having a lot of fun meeting new friends and learning new skills. His team is the "Panthers". He has one of his good buddies, Tanner on his team, so that is makes it even more fun!
He was very excited to start out the first game as goalie. We were quite proud that he blocked two goals!

8 months old!

Ella Ruth is 8 months old today! What a busy month she has had!





New skills:
*Figured out how to use "pincher's" to pick up food. She is crazy about cheerios, and Gerber fruit flavored puffs. She is also getting quite adventurous with her taste buds too, as she has tried most fruits and veggies and now working through the meats. She likes to try our food as well. Some of her favorites are mashed potatoes and watermelon!

*Can now get from sitting position to belly,(just not too sure what to do when she gets there, so she cries....)

* Actually started playing with her toys versus trying to eat them all!

*Daddies personal favorite new skill is that she has learned to "dance"! Anytime there is music on or someone is humming or singing, she will bounce. I must say it is quite adorable!

*Mommy's personal favorite is that she now says "mama"! She actually says it about 1000 x's per day, and if it doesn't achieve her desired results she will switch to "dada".

* A couple skills that we must admit are not our favorite, but very normal for her age are that she does not like to see you walk out of a room and leave her. She also has discovered that going down to bed at night is not so fun either. So we have begun the journey of letting her cry a bit. Her brothers are not at all thrilled about that because they perceive it as being cruel and mean to their baby sister!

Some skills that we are still working on are:

* Crawling (she is currently rolling all over and scooting backwards. She also puts herself in a bizarre push up position, and again doesn't know where to go form there!

* Drinking out of a sippy cup. We have tried 3 different kinds of cups and she thinks they are great to chew on and toss over the side of her highchair. Not exactly the proper use! But we are working on it!

Plans for the upcoming month:

Ella will be introduced to Tulip Time and will even be forced to wear a dutch costume!
Ella will be dedicated at our church on Mother's Day.

Back to the land of the living!

Well it appears that our family has survived the dreaded flu. It was absolutely horrible! Spanning a 13 day period each child, including myself, took turns passing the stomach flu. Luckily, or should I say amazingly, Nate did not get it! He was a real tropper being on 24 hour nurse and laundry duty. People often ask us how we manage a large family. Our response is typically, "we know no other way, we just embrace each day." Well it is times like these that we tend to question it ourselves!

Cake hobby

I have kind of taken up a new hobby of baking cakes. It is sort of funny because as a rule cake isn't even my dessert of choice (which is probably good), but I love the idea of making something that is almost to pretty to eat! I don't have much time for TV as you can imagine, but when I get a chance I like to catch The Martha Stewart show. People often describe her an over the top domestic goddess, but I personally feel like she has very practical and user freindly techniques, and recipes. Here is a cake that I made from one of her recipes. It is a white cake with a lemon curd filling with 7 minute frosting. The frosting is very unique, you actually cook it and beat it when it is 160 degrees. It is almost like a meringue....YUM!

Jakob turns 11!

Jakob celebrated his 11th birthday this past weekend. His birthday actually fell on Easter Sunday. On Friday night he had a few of his good friends from school, Alex, Connor, and Issac over and Nate took them to a hotel over night to have some "guy time". They had a really great time, including a few pranks on good ole' dad! I think we are in for a few more of those in the years to come!
On Saturday Jakob and dad went to a local store and custom made a REAL skateboard, (as Jakob describes it). I am not sure who it was more of a gift for, Jake or Nate! The only frustrating thing about it was that we had gotten a spring snow storm that left us with 10 inches of snow the night before, making it impossible for him to try it out!
It is hard for us to believe that eleven years have passed since our first child was born. Although the "pre-teen" years bring us new parenting experiences, it is fun to see Jakob begin to grow into a young man!