Carter's First Haircut

With Carter's 2nd birthday approaching we decided to finally get his haircut. He sat perfectly still through the whole thing. It sure does make him look older.

Halloween 2008

The kids had a good time trick or treating this year. We went to the nursing homes first and it didn't take Carter long to catch on. He was very excited to get candy from everyone but trying to make him understand that he was only supposed to have one was a different story. After the nursing homes we hit a couple of different neighborhoods in town, but after about an hour the pumpkins were full and the kids were tired so we called it quits.

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY CARTER!!!

Tomorrow is Carter's second birthday so I thought I would post a then and now picture. How fast 2 years has flown by!

My Boys

Here is a rare picture that I caught the other night when the boys were sitting together on the couch sharing popcorn.

Pictures from this weekend

Mom and Ed were back this past weekend and we got to spend some time with Mom and also got to go see Grandpa and Grandma's new house. Here are a couple of pictures from our weekend.

The weather

We were again under a tornado warning tonight. Mom is here, well staying in Grundy, and they were under it too! Nice welcome home. I am so tired of seeing my basement I could go crazy. Everyone is a little gun shy this summer of the weather though. I never thought I would say this but I think I am looking forward to winter. However, I do remember a few years back when we had a tornado warning in November when I was driving home from Christmas shopping so I guess maybe this season will never end this year. Needless to say I haven't had to water my own garden at all this year! Todd said that if there was any chance ever (not really though) of them moving back to Iowa that after this summer Lisa says no way!!

More Pictures

Just a picture of Carter being Carter

Jack's 6th Birthday

Enjoying a nice day having lunch outside!

Michael working hard in the garden


This past few weeks have still been kind of busy for us. The kids enjoyed a week of swimming lessons, we have been to the library, to the park several times and of course the pool lots of times. This last week we went to Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines. We of course picked the hottest day of the week to go. We went with some friends and had a picnic lunch, spent the day looking at the animals, and then stopped for ice cream on the way home. A job opportunity has come up for me or I guess I should say something I felt like applying for. The elementary school secretary resigned suddenly a week ago and now they are left scrambling to fill her position. I know there are going to be a lot of people interested in the job but I am hoping I have a chance, at least I would like to get an interview. I have a couple of things going for me, I have been a substitute for the secretary for the last 1 1/2 years and the job requires a strong accounting background because she does the accounting for the district's nutrition program and I do have an accounting degree. We will see what happens. I am trying to find a job that I think I will like because with 4 kids if I am going to go to work then I better like it. Not much around here to do though! Anyway nothing else much going on around here. School starts a month from tomorrow not that I am counting the days or anything! We will have to make the most of their days of freedom they have left!

New (some kind of old) Pictures

The first picture is of Olivia's b-day in March. I know a little late. The next one of Olivia is when I was trying to get nice pictures of the kids to put on the blog. We then have Michael and Carter eating frosting beaters after I was done decorating a cake for a friend. Carter love doing easter eggs as you can see in the next photo and the last one is of Carter July 4th. We went up and did Riverbend Rally and then went on a picnic at Foster Park and then went to the fireworks at the riverbend. This photo was taken after that when we got home and were doing sparkelers with the kids. He was very tired.

We are still around

Summer has taken us by storm. We are so busy but I just wanted to let everyone know we are still out here. The job I had didn't quite work out - as Todd put it -we can put insurance salesman on my list of things I don't want to do with my life. Anyway, I am very much enjoying spending the summer with the kids instead. We are at the pool as much as the weather will allow us to be. Mother Nature was not so kind to us as our usual trickle of water we get in the basement turned into at least 6 inches of standing water. That has resolved, but know we get the fun chore of pulling down moldy sheet rock. Lucky for us anything that is of importance is in totes down there so nothing really a big loss, a few odds and ends. This weekend will be spend cleaning up the mess. Yuck. Anyway it could have been worse, we don't use that room for anything but storage and laundry it isn't a nice finished space. Other than that the yard could stand to be mowed every other minute it seems and there seems to be some weed pulling to be done. The garden that got tilled got next to nothing planted in it do to all the rain. We have a few things. Hopefully over the next few weeks all will be back to normal around here. We started painting our living room and have that to finish as well. That is the last big paint job for a while. Next it will be to work on the boys' room upstairs. If there is any conclusion I have come to with all this cleaning and moving around rooms is that my children have WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY too many toys. Lord, I don't know what to do with then all anymore. They are taking over my house. Olivia alone has: Barbies, My Little Ponies. then the littler version of the My little ponies, Littlest Pet shop buildings and animals, a tote of baby clothes for her dolls. a tote of dress of clothes for her, a large tote to hold all the accessories that go with her two dollhouses. not to mention all the dolls that she has, books, doll accessories cradle, stroller, carseat, booster seat etc. Oh and let us not forget the dreaded Polly pocket. It is insane in her room. I want it to look nice but it is becoming harder and harder to contain all the toys. That doesn't even begin to talk about the babies toys or the boys toys. Did I mention that 2 of my boys have birthdays in the next two months. YEA!!!!!! Okay, I have to get to bed. I will have some pics to post soon.

Yes we are still alive!!

Okay, sorry about the length between posts. Life has gotten the better of us lately. For now it is just text, as I do not have my camera with me. I promise some pictures soon! What has been going on in our lives? First and most changing I got a job. Yes, I know a job, me!! It is okay. It has caused us to do a lot of adjusting in our lives however. I really do miss all the free time that I used to have, and now I have no time to do anyting. That's what I think anyway. It is sure that the computer has been one item that has had to go by the wayside. I am working at our local Farm Bureau Insurance office as a Sales Associate. Technically, I won't be an associate until I pass my licensing tests which are coming up at the end of April and beginning of May. I will then be licensed in Property, Casualty, Life and Fire in both person and commercial lines. Yea! Other changes that have been forced then are that the older three kids have to go to the after school program and Carter is going to daycare. I got a really nice lady from our church who has been doing daycare for a long time. He absolutely loves it there and adjusted really nicely. The kids like the activities at the afterschool program and they never want me to pick them up until it closes at 5:30 even though I get off at 4:30. Laundry is more of a challenge as are getting meals ready but we are managing.

Another change has been that we moved the bedrooms around in our house. For those of you who have been there you will understand. We moved all three boys upstairs into the giant bedroom up there. It is really almost like two seperate rooms and we are eventually going to put a wall up and give Michael his own room. For now Jack and Michael are very cute because they treat it like two seperate areas and they consider them each having seperate rooms. This however made a need to paint in our house, especially since Jason and I moved into the Nascar room the boys had previously been in. We also needed to paint the room that we use for Carter's toy room and the living room needs to be repainted too. So a few weeks back we re-started our repainting project that we started last year when we redid the bathroom and kitchen including floors and painted the dining room and hallway. The toy room is now painted and our bedroom is now painted and the living room is scheduled for this weekend. Hopefully then all the little stuff will get finished like the fact that we have no base trim anywhere in our house.

Michael also recently competed in the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby. He came in 5th in his group which wasn't too bad. It was better than last year. He and Jack also just started soccer, and they really like it. This is something kind of new being offered here this year. Olivia declared it a boys sport and is happy just sitting on the sidelines watching.

Carter will be 17 mos old tomorrow and I don't know where the time has gone. He is very mischievous and into everything all the time. He also seems to be afraid of very little which comes in very handy with his need to climb everything. Still not a lot of hair on top but he is working on a nice mullet.

Not much else to report now. Thanks to all who bought GS cookies. Olivia sold 100 boxes. I am her troop leader and all together the seven of them sold over 700 boxes so good job to my girls.

I will try to keep up better now that our lives have taken on a new busy nature. Hope all our friends and family are doing well.

&%*$!@ SNOW

Seriously- Enough snow already. The last time my kids had a full week of school that was not somehow affected by snow was the first week the were back after Christmas break. And even that week they had two already scheduled early dismissals. So really the last full week of school was in December before Christmas. Come On!!!!!

Fun with Cakes

A friend of mine asked me to make her son's 3rd birthday cakes. I have on occassion made a cake for another friend but it isn't something I do for others very often. I like to make them for my own kids. Anyway, she needed two cakes because of the size of the party. She had bought a little set that had a tractor, fencing and trees for one cake and then told me to do whatever I wanted for decorating them, just that it was a John Deere party. I thought I would toot my own horn a little because I thought they turned out really well.

Michael (Jordan) Halsey

Maybe the J in Michael's initials should have stood for Jordan instead of John because when it comes to basketball he seems to have some talent. The month of January he had basketball practice and games. He really enjoyed it and he seemed to do really well. He can dribble and shoot and understand the rules of the game. It was really funny to watch the different boys and how they handled it. There was the one boy who just prefered to use the basketball as a pillow to lay down on, and one other who covered his head with his hands and ran away everytime the ball came near him. There were a couple of kids however, you could tell had been exposed to the game and were very excited. Funny though how you can watch these little kids play and just about pick out which ones are going to be the kid who always wants to take the shot and not pass it because they think they are so good, and also the ones who are going to be to aggressive when they play sports.

Sorry about the poor quality of the pictures. The lighting in there was bad and my camera battery was nearly dead!

Carter the Crazy

For some time now it has been evident that for as good and calm of a baby that Carter is he also has a wild streak in him. He is very adventurous and doesn't seem to be afraid of anything. Just this week alone he has climb on the dining room table, gotten a screwdriver down and then fallen with it in his hand, narrowly missing his eye but cutting the skin just below it. That same night he decided that he could stand in the engine part of his Amazing Animals train. There is a small square area on it for an animal to fit in, and Carter was able to get both of his feet in there however it was short lived as it slipped out from underneath him and he fell backward and hit his head on the hardwood floor. (I only saw the part where he was falling out backward and couldn't get to him in time), and later that same night he decided that it would be fun to stand on his ride-on bulldozer he got for Christmas. He has always loved to stand on things he isn't supposed to. He would stand up on the seat and then yell "dada" for Jason to look at him and then he would jump up and down and sway back and forth saying "whoa" until he fell off on the floor. This continued for a long time. Yesterday morning I had gone into my bedroom to get dressed and when I came out he was in the living room laughing and standing on top of the end table next to the chair. I guess we could say that life with Carter will never be dull! I have included a picture from a few weeks ago when I couldn'f find him and finally saw him behind the end table on the floor with an entire new can of Pringles dumped out on the floor and eating them! Also, I included a picture from last weekend when I decided to not tear up his doughnut and just give him half at a time to eat. Needless to say it required a bath afterward!

What We've Been Up To! Part 1

Sorry it has been so looooong since my last post. Things have been very crazy around here lately. I will try to update you on a few things that have been going on. The weekend after Christmas we went to Marv and Sue's in Ames. Josh, Beth, and Ava were there along with Matt, Kim and Benji. We had a lot of fun visiting with everyone. It was fun to watch the kids, and also the parents, because it was soon obvious that they were used to life with only one child, and the four of mine were very entertaining. Benji seemed to like to watch them the most. I hope that with Matt and Kim living closer and Josh and Beth soon relocating to Cedar Rapids the visits won't be so few and far between. Carter and Ava are only about 12 days apart in age!