Jenna's new ride

We gave Jenna her birthday present early (we didn't know how to hide it)....

1st we distracted her with a bubble gun, while Bruce took it out of the Tahoe

The we asked her to come see us:

She was pretty excited and kept saying "mine?mine?":

Ready to go for a spin:

Andrew joining Jenna to check things out:

Whooooohooooooo:

She even gave Andrew a turn:

Memorial Day weekend

We had a great Memorial day weekend, and hope that you did too. We didn't go anywhere, just hung out at home, but had a lot of fun, and got a few things done too.

We kicked off the weekend with planting the garden. Considering we had 2 'helpers' it went well. I now understand why my parents limited our 'help' to the making the mounds for the pumpkins, squash, and cucumbers, and then eventually planting the seeds with supervision. We finished our plantings last night (Monday) with Bruce and I planting the strawberries, and raspberries after the kids were in bed. Now we just need some rain....

Sunday Chad, Christy & the kids came up for a quick visit. It was warm enough that we pulled out the water toys, which everyone expect Jenna seemed to enjoy. She was not all that impressed with being squirted with water, and didn't seem to get why the big kids thought it was fun. She insisted on taking her shirt off when the boys took of theirs....I think we may have issues when she gets older! We let the kids make hot dogs over the fire for supper, and ended up having the neighbors come over to join us.

The girls swinging:

And they're off!

Monday, we had a nice relaxing day. Bruce started the day off with going fishing on the river with our neighbor. After lunch & naps we stopped at a few nurseries/green houses to start buying flowers for my pots, then my parents came up for the evening. The kids liked playing with Grandma & Grandpa Bongers. We finished the weekend off with a trip to Coldstone with them, what a great way to end the weekend :)

Here's a pic of Jenna & Grandma playing play-doh:

Jenna has decided she likes Thor now (a lot). I think he's wondering what he did to deserve all the excited screeches, giggles, hugs and kisses. He's still not sure what to think of the 4 wheeler & truck, but does seem to enjoy digging in the sandbox with the kids. Thor and Sadie were VERY ready for us to go to work on Tuesday. By the end of Monday you could tell they were both exhausted.

Here's how I found Thor on Monday morning....I think he's tired - don't you? Either that or he was trying to hide from Jenna :)

Andrew's 1st sleepover

Last night Andrew spent the night over at Will & Aaron's house (the neighbor boys)....it's hard to believe that he's old enough to be staying at friends houses, but he did great. When he was potty training, having a sleep over at our house, and staying over at Will & Aaron's house came up a lot in conversation. Our response was always "once you go on the potty all the time, then you can", since he's potty trained we had to keep our promise.
While the boys were picking up all the outside toys last night they hatched the plan of having Andrew stay over, and since they did a great job picking up and listening, we agreed to it. It sounds like they had a blast playing Wii, and eating popcorn. They stopped over this morning at 9 to drop off his stuff before going over to one of their friends houses to play. During the drop off of his sleeping bag and back pack, there was mention of going to their cabin and having Andrew come with, so we'll see how that pans out.
On a side note, Sir Thor (Lynn & Tom's dog) is staying with us for the week. Jenna is adjusting to having a much bigger puppy than Sadie around the house, and Thor is adjusting to not being able to pick up all the kids toys and eat them! It's been pretty funny to watch Thor and Sadie. After Sadie tires of him following her, she heads up to the back of couch where he can't reach her. You can tell he'd love to join her there, and it's obvious he's considering making the jump, but so far he seems to be remember that he can't go on furniture.
We hope that everyone is having a great Memorial day weekend - we are!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Bruce is officially another year older now. We had a nice night enjoying the amazingly warm weather. This also means that we are in birthday season at our house....next comes Andrew's (just ask him he'll tell you the order of all of them). Here are a few pictures from the night:

Bruce & the kids w/ his cake:

The cake:

Family pictures (I couldn't decide which one I liked better):

Later in the evening Jenna found her snow boots in the closet. She then went up to her room to find socks, and proceeded to put her boots on. She refused to take them off, and we decided that if she wanted to wear boots when it was almost 90° out, she could. After going outside she added to her 'look' with her sparkly sunglasses....makes me wonder what the neighbors think when they see her dressed like this ;)

We hope that everyone in the MN/WI area that had the great weather for the past 3 days enjoyed it. The wind was a little much on Wednesday, but that didn't stop us from going outside and enjoying the warmth. We only wish we had turned on the air instead of leaving the windows open all day.....40+ MPH winds all day left us with a fine layer of dirt on every surface in the house - YUCK!

Happy Pre-Birthday Bruce/Dad!

Sunday, Bruce's parents came up to have a bit of an early birthday celebration (his b-day is Tuesday). The weather was gorgeous yesterday so we tried to spend as much time outside as we could. Barb/Grandma made a cake for Bruce so we enjoyed that as an afternoon snack then we headed outside to play. The kids enjoyed being pushed on the swings, and playing in the sandbox with Grandma & Grandpa.

Here's a picture of Jenna helping Daddy make lunch (she ate the pulled chicken while 'helping' but refused to eat it once it was on her plate! She's going to drive us crazy with her eating habits!)

Bruce & the kids w/ the cake:

The Fullerton boys:

Ready to blow out the candles:

Later, while we were outside Jenna & Andrew headed over to the swing set to swing.....Jenna wanting to be just like the big kids, has been taken notes on when they swing on their bellies. Ironically I happened to be taking a picture of the two kids when she made an attempt that didn't go so well....

(she wasn't hurt, just stood up & brushed herself off in typical Jenna fashion)

Here she is doing what she intended.

She's pretty funny to watch because when the swing starts to slow down she jumps up and takes a little hop to get on it, so it starts to go faster again.....I'm pretty sure she'll be the 1st one we take to the emergency room for some type of injury. Andrew has been doing an awesome job with swinging this year; he figured out how to pump! He can get himself fairly high too, so I'm hoping that he isn't paying too much attention to the neighbors when the jump off the swing.

firetruck & our garden

No, we did not have a visit from a fire truck...we went to a kids thing that had a fire truck and ambulance for the kids to explore & ask questions about. We initially planned on going as a family, but then the neighbor boy was over when it was time to go, so we had him come with. While we were getting Will's booster seat, Nick(another neighbor boy) stopped by, so he joined the crowd, and while getting his booster seat, his younger sister Delaney asked if she could go too....By that time we were up to 5 kids, age 6 and younger - you should see the looks you get with a crew like that! The kids enjoyed climbing all over the firetruck and ambulance. They also spent sometime bouncing in the bounce house, and we all enjoyed some pizza for lunch. Miss Jenna even ate her pizza just like the big kids (mainly because we didn't have anything to cut it with!).

Bruce spent a lot of time on Saturday (in the cold & wind) prepping an area for our garden. It's not huge, but it's big enough for us. We are hoping to plant some seeds in it this week (if the weather cooperates). So far we're planning on green beans, peas, carrots, cucumbers, pumpkins, lettuce and strawberries. It's been a long time since I've had a garden (since I lived at home), so wish us luck. Andrew is very excited....hopefully he won't be disappointed!

Here are some pictures from Saturday:

The kids checking out the front of the fire truck (Nick, Andrew, Lanie, Jenna, Will)

The Boys (Nick, Will, Andrew)
The Crew (Jenna, Will, Lanie, Andrew, Nick) - we have no idea what Andrew was looking at!
Bouncing away!

Weekend Highlights

Bruce and his Dad were up north fishing this weekend for the MN opener, so it was just the kids and I all weekend. It sounds like they are having a good time up north, and the fish are biting (which always helps).
The kids and I had a fun weekend here. We didn't do anything too crazy, but just had fun hanging out. We built forts, played outside, made cookie dough, picked weeds, washed windows, did a lot of coloring, and finished the weekend off w/ a chocolate cake that you make in the microwave. Overall I think all 3 of us would say it was a good weekend :)

Here are some of the highlights in pictures (and video):

Jenna in pigtails......She finally let me put some in & didn't pull them out right away! Isn't she cute? I know I may be slightly biased ;)

The kids being silly:
Having a snack in their fort:

Here's Andrew singing....he entertained himself like this for 15-20 minutes:

Here's some video of Andrew on his scooter (he loves riding it):

Here's miss Jenna.............saying Grandpa, and of course Andrew, which other than shoes, and "no, no, no" seem to be her favorite words.

On Friday when I picked the kids up, I was asking Andrew how his day was, and what he learned, etc. etc., when he suddenly blurted out "You're awesome Mom", which made me laugh. He then proceeded to explain to me that HE is awesome and cute too. He's such a character. Then on Sunday without any prompting he came up to me in the morning and wished me a Happy Mother's day, and gave me a huge hug. When Jenna saw that we were hugging she ran right over to join in.....I have such great kids - I am truly blessed!

We hope that everyone had a great Mother's day weekend - we did!

bee b's

Andrew has a new thing.....he's convinced that he's scared of bee's and fly's. We think it stems from his bee sting last year (we were eating push-ups, a bee landed on the handle, he didn't see it, moved his hand and got stung). So now he's very unsure about going outside, at least initially; once he's outside and playing he's fine. Tonight after we got home, he was asking if there are bee's and fly's in our yard. I told him that "yes, there most likely are bees & flys in our yard". As he was heading inside to drop his back off, he asked me "Are baby Bee's called Bee B's?"
I couldn't help but start laughing....turns out that they were learning that some baby animals are not called the same thing as their parents (i.e. dolphins = calf's, kangaroo's = joey's, etc.) at daycare. Now we have a new one to add to the list, Baby Bee's = Bee B's.