Hoyt Lakes Minnesota July 2009

We spent a lovely 4 days in Hoyt Lakes Mn in July with the family...when I say family I really mean family! Almost all of the Ken's mom's family was there with us! There were Grandma and Grandpa Welch, his Mom and Mike, his brother Matt, RuthAnne, and Nephew Christian, his Aunt Sandy, his cousin Carlin, Cory, and their son Cedar and his other cousin Andy, Katie and their 2 kids, Karlee and Camden and our family of 4! There were a ton of us and it was a wonderful time!

We all spent a lot of time outside(obviously!),playing with the kids, fishing, and cooking on the fire! The kids seemed to have a wonderful time playing and interacting with one another, Jake and Karlee are the little story and joke tellers of the group! I don't think a minute went by with the 2 of them together that was quite...not even our meal times! Cam of course tagged along with them where ever they went, glad to be with them but quiet and observant!

Tyler and Cedar were two little peas in a pod, playing on the blanket and enjoying each others company. While Cedar tended to stay put on the blanket, Ty took off exploring everything around him whenever possible!

All in all we had a wonderful weekend and couldn't have wished for it to go any better than it had...I suppose the weather could have been a bit nicer, we had wet fairly rainy weather in the mornings and late evenings, but it was still very nice. We (all the adults) even managed to get a break and swim out to the island across from the campsite one afternoon, it was amazing and felt wonderful!

Ty playing in the lake, we couldn't keep him out of the water!

Jake doing what he does best...he found all sorts of places to explore!

Cory and Cedar enjoying the day with us!

Cedar made a wonderful little man to take pictures of! He couldn't take a bad picture!

The 3 amigo's telling "jokes"

Ken's mom and Mike!

Grandma and Grandpa Welch

I can't believe it has been so long....

SO....it has been ages since I last posted and boy do I have some catching up to do somehow!

The brisk fall weather has been with us for quite a few days now and I am hoping that it is a wonderful sign that fall is right around the corner! Fall seems to be the favorite of the seasons in our home and we cannot wait for the weather to remain cool, the leaves to start changing, and the warmth of the holidays around the corner!

Jake is off to preschool in just a few short weeks, he will be in school 4 days a week from 12:30pm-3:00pm, and while I am very sad to see how much he has grown up and to send him off to preschool I am thrilled to see the excitement in his eyes to be going to school and to be a "big kid" I am no where near ready for that but will hold his had while he starts this new phase in his life.

Tyler, well what can I say about Ty! He is almost 18months old and keeping us busy every second of the day! He is off and running, doing everything he can to keep up with Jake! He does a pretty good job of it, though he gets frustrated sometimes when things don't quite seem to go his way! He is also getting used to the idea of using "words" instead of screams and yelps when he wants something, though I have to say that most often we still get a pretty good yell from him when he could have used a few words, we are working with him though to change that around a bit!

Ken and I are as always just busy as can be! Planning for fall, Jake's birthday, family vacation, and of course the Holidays! We are hoping things go smoothly for us this fall as we take on all these things in a very short period of time. Though we have faith that we will make it through with little trouble and lots of smiles!

I am trying to make it a priority to update this a little more often than I had been doing before(the last time I posted it was just after New Years!) so with anyluck I will succeed!

Crazy Times

Wow....we have been so busy I don't really know where the time goes somedays. We are now midway through January, I know so hard to believe isn't it? Either way, work is still going well for both Ken and I we are blessed to both have stable jobs that make it easy to provide for our family and enjoy the things we want out of like. Nothing to complain about there....

I don't even know where to begin, I wanted to write a little about the New Year and the such, but really there isn't much to say aside from wishing everyone a wonderful year filled with love, health, and happiness. There are so many things that Ken and I wish to accomplish this year it is crazy but we have the drive and energy to do it so I have no doubts that all will get done....I will share that list later..it may take awhile to write up, though I want to so I know where we stand, plus who couldn't use a quick reminder sometimes right?

We will be arranging to have Tyler baptised soon here, we were so torn as to what and how we wanted to do things as our previous Pastor had retired while I was pregnant with Tyler. He is the same Pastor who confirmed Ken, married us, and baptized Jake. We really aren't too fond of the new Pastor at our church, so we have been waiting and working with Pastor Hofmann. He is going to do the Baptism for us, though it is a lot later than I may have liked it to be. He is after all retired. I guess we're not too upset about the time it has taken to get it all set up, we just want to get it done sooner than later at this point. It does look though like it is going to be done here at our home, unless we can get the Church for a short period of time, thats what we are waiting on now....Man I never figured it would take this long to get some scheduling and planning done. Oh well...there are worse things I suppose!

Tyler had his first truely scarry moment ever today, he managed to find a small clear wrapper from a peppermint and got it into his mouth without me noticing immediatley, it scared the crap out of me....there he was on the floor playing like everyother baby does and then he started to gasp/cry....it was a wierd sound and not one I am likely to forget any time soon. I heard the crackling of the wrapper as he was trying to breath, luckily I was able to get the whole thing out of him mouth right away, but it was a terrifiying experience for him and for me! I will forever be sure to get down on my hands and knees and check under furniture edges for little things, Jake drops things without realizing the danger sometimes, but it is okay, we will both learn from this. We are just very fortunate that I was able to catch it right away, I wasn't too distracted by the living going on in my home....as is normal in my house!