when your hot, your hot

Firefighter pics taken at station.

say "cheeeeese"

So I'm waiting for Nick to get home from work. I feel like yuck. Nate sees me talking on the phone, I put the phone on speaker so he can talk to Nick and this is what I get. "ooooh" Silly boy. This is our gangster child wearing his McDonald's visor - he has a little play cash register, here he is saying "cheese"!

NB decided to have the tree lighting BEFORE Thanksgiving, why? I don't know. If I was on that board I would vote against it and vote to have the lighting the Friday after Thanksgiving. This is ridiculous. Anyway, we did decide to participate because Nate would enjoy it. It was great fun as long as I didn't remember it was before Thanksgiving. The weather participated too, it was rather cool that evening. I believe around 50 or so. We met G & P at there house and walked to town. At the plaza we met Pauline, Mike, some of friends, Sasha met some friends, and Nate met some friends down there too, I don't have any friends so I didn't meet anyone there. O.K. so I do have friends but my close friends weren't going so I didn't really plan on meeting anyone there. Nate is completely enamored by the FIRE TRUCK. And the lights of course. Oh and Santa did come to the plaza via fire truck, Santa who?

As you can see, Papa is trying to get Nate to look at Santa, Nate doesn't see anything but FIRE TRUCK LIGHTS. I think the child is brain-washed.

Nate and La-la having a night at home. Dad-dad and momma are out on a date :) Thanks La-la.

I am very thankful for my children, family, and friends, without whom I could not be here sanely :) Hugs for everyone!

I'm tired

Hi everyone, so I know you aren't seeing any new pics lately. I accepted a long-term substitute position which I am enjoying and finding that I can't keep up with much of anything else. When I get home all I want to do is play with Nate, visit with Nick and Sasha, and sleep. I am so exhausted yet we still need to keep up with the day to day chores. I know many of you can relate! I need to find a part-time job, I don't think I can take all of the anxiety and stress of full-time work right now. Our schedule is to hectic with Nate, toddler life, and Sash, teenage life, and Nick, rotating schedule, and family, want to see you, and church, a priority, and house, ugh, and fun as a family, huh what's that....I know I'm not saying anything many of you don't already experience. Pray for me and I will pray for you too, God knows we need it. I had to have my annual allergy testing. The week before I was having some allergy issues, then I had to be off my allergy and asthma medication, then testing. Not a good prognosis. Now I am struggling to recover from my testing. I think my physical state, tired, has something to say about my recovery. It usually takes me a couple of days to get over my allergy testing but I think its getting worse. I need to go back to the doctor. Nate was sick too. Now he has a terrible diaper rash and we don't know what to do! He is allergic to so many creams because of the fragrance they insist on including in the ingredients. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. We are at a loss. Well I just wanted to let you know that I will update the pictures soon. Probably this weekend since we have the Thanksgiving holiday and a few extra days off of school. Hope you are all doing well. God Bless, us.

Wurstfest pic

an evening at Wurstfest with gang! Here are the kiddos! It was a fun time again this year. We didn't get to go on our yearly trip with Jacob and Chantry, but we missed you! We had a great time for you. Hope Chesney's birthday was good! Here are Sasha, Nate, Blake, Zak, and Dylan on Tuesday when we went for the Chamber mixer. It was real busy with the mixer and the election on the same evening. As you can see we had a lot of fun and so did the kids. It was a 10 day fast and furious week of fun!

Why do we start Christmas early?

Dear America,Have you lost your mind? Why is there already Christmas everywhere? IT'S NOVEMBER. Christmas is in December. Don't get me wrong I love Christmas, the season, the Reason, the feeling, all of it, I just feel the need for giving thanks and preparing for Christ.

Trick or treat, smell my feet

So, I don't know what happened, but for some reason, when blogspot uploaded my pics it reversed them! Really, I have this down and today, its messing with my mind. So please be patient, I'm trying too! Anyway, this section starts with Nate in the cute cuddly lion costume. Nick and I searched, we spent a day together earlier this month and one of the things we wanted to do was get Nate his costume. Last year, he was really into roaring, so I wanted a lion costume but we couldn't find one we liked. This year, we found one and had to get it. Actually, Nick had to get it, I wanted Nate to be a sheriff - he didn't want to keep looking for Nate's size so we went with Nick's LION. So I dress Nate on Thursday evening, Sash and I were planning on taking Nate to Oakwood. Let me just say, CRAZY. There were lots of people, which we expected, but it was rather crazy. Nate was terrified. Anyway, let me get back to the story. O.K. so I dressed Nate in his cute cuddly lion costume, yea he didn't like it. He kept telling us, "hot". He was too hot. Then he pulled the sleeves off and pulled the mane of, he was just unsnapping as quickly as we were resnapping so we took it off. We pulled out the old stand-by, his firefighter costume. He gladly pulled on his favorite boots, and the coat. He even wore his favorite helmet, but we took the soft one instead of the hard one he likes to wear at home because when he takes it off and drops it, usually on someones toe, it hurts. So while we did manage to get one cute cuddly lion picture for the scrapbook, Nate the Great was a firefighter this year for halloween. We went to visit Grammy and Papa. Uncle Jr, Arla, Bianca, Brianna, and petting zoo. We went to visit Uncle Mike and Aunt Pauline on Friday when we were headed to the high school trick or treating, but then we decided to go to dinner instead. Hey, this year we can pull it off, maybe next year, but after that we will have to trick or treat. When we got to Grammy and Papa's. It took him awhile to say trick or treat. He did. Then he threw his pumpkin and picked up the bird seed bucket, he wanted to fill the feeders. Priorities.

again...

O.K. so these are kinda out of order, but I think you're smart enough to follow the story line:) We went to visit Abue when we got home after going to Oakwood. He said "trick or treat" very well. Then we had dinner with Abue before coming home for the evening and getting ready for bed. While we were at Oakwood, we saw our friends the Dudley's. Karen, Jay, and Helen the Octopus. Nate de-tentacled her. He ripped them right off, they were velcroed. He also was very interested in her eyes. Helen didn't quite know what to think of Nate poking all over on her. She was thinking...PERSONAL SPACE...he doesn't know what that means.

Nate got on this little tractor ride and the jumping castle. Lala told him to "hold on" and placed his hands on the side of the barrel. He kept his hands there just like she said. They zoomed around about 5 times. When they took off, they were going rather fast. Nate had the same look on his face the whole time. Sasha and I were afraid that he wasn't going to like it because he wasn't showing any emotion. Once he got off and we walked to the jumping castle, he said "again". We didn't go back though, the crowd of people really scared him.

When we went to trick or treat at Grammy and Papa's house, he wanted to fill the bird feeders. So Papa took him out and they did chores. He likes spending time with Papa especially when he can help.

How cute is that? Doesn't that just make you smile :) Amo Papa.

Helping mom pay bills

Need help momma? Nate loves to play on the chair behind me when I work on the computer. I know where he is and he just climbs on and off of the chair. One day, I will let him schedule all of the bills that need to be paid for the month, YIKES, yeah right.