mini vaca

We were in Goodland a few weeks ago and also got to see some of Ben's sisters when we went on to Denver area.

summer time highlights

Here are a few summertime highlights. Ben's brother dan coming to visit with Jessi and Caleb. It's always fun to see cousins playing together.
Tucker and I had some time together in which we shared an ice cream cone. Ben and I are starting to try getting intentional time with them.
Jill Sornson, my dear friend and former roomate got married in June at Lake Tahoe and had a Kansas reception a few weeks ago in which Ben and I had the best night out ever and stayed up till all hours of the night talking with her and her new husband Preston in Wichita.
My dad and I at my favorite place on earth to eat, Saigon. Vietnemese food is my favorite. Really anything Asian. I treasure the time with my dad.


Ben's sister Lianne was driving through with the Nikkel clan. It was great to see them. We got to spend the night with them on our Colorado quick vaca...pics to come later.

Sandi and Kevin also came to have dinner for an evening and we made pizza on the grill. I am so bummed I didn't take a picture. But I always treasure my time with Sandi and miss her. It feel like we can always pick up where we left off and I don't have any problems about going deep with her.
Jaiya at her 4 day dance camp this summer called Creative Movement.
Making crowns. Weve made a few different ones this summer.
Watercoloring when its just too hot to go outside. I also try and do something with J while T naps before she has quiet time.
Painting with our garage sale art table. Unfortunately this table was recycled back into another garage sale because it took up too much space and we didn't use it much, so we broke even on that one. Sandi here is T in the onesie you got him. He wore it alot this summer.
This little guy started to potty train this summer. We are starting slow but so far he goes often, maybe at least once a day. Going to try and get more consistent with it soon....
Dancing with scarves while listening to classical music, We also made shakers out of cups and rice for some instruments.
In July our Life Group Ladies took a night to relax on the Plaza and lay by the pool and eat out and shop. It was very enjoyable! I love these girls!



We have done several experiments with homeade popsicles. So far the favorite ones were half juice and half yogurt that we froze. I also did a seedless watermelon puree batch but they were not very good, I probably should of added a bit of sugar.
First day of preschool swim lessons. That was a long 2 weeks for us. She worked so hard and learned all her strokes and kicks, she is much more confident in the water, but still is wearing a life jacket in deep water of course. She took fabulous naps during her lessons cause she was so worn out.

More pics of our quick visit family / speed vaca to come!

Happy Father's Day to Ben

These are a few of my favorite dad's life pics of Ben...in random order...

Ben and Jaiya when she was just a newbie. She was born right before a big storm. Most people lost power, but we didn't. I have such great memories of us snuggling her by the wood burning stove......night after night when it was so cold out. But she warmed our hearts!!!

Ben and Jaiya hanging out on the couch!

Ben and Tuck cuddling up. My sweet men!

Last summer playing outside in our pool on a hot summer day!

Ben and Tuck when T was just a wee little man.

Daddy reading them to sleep one night.

I think he was planning worship in this one and she wanted to sit and help him. She loves it when he plays guitar or sings....both are fun!

This is a pretty recent one. I really love it....captures all of their personalities so well!
I love this man. So much. He is such a great dad in so many ways. He notices things that I don't, he wants to include them, show them what he is interested in.

They come running to his truck sometimes when he pulls his truck up to the street. This man is a whole lot of wonderful and I am so thankful that I can share the delight of being a parent with him. Also that he is such an encouragement to me on the days I need some words of affirmation. I knew when we were dating that this guy would be one amazing dad. I am thankful that God has allowed us to be the parents of Jaiya and Tucker. We are not a perfect family at all, but I feel like we are faithful and we allow ourselves to fall in God's grace. Here a little bit of what I see in Ben....

Faithful and Fearless
Available and Athletic
Tenacious and Teachable
Heart Warming
Encouraging and Energetic
Rock Star Dad

Planting the garden and getting dirty!


Playing in a box that someone from life group gave us. Ben made a house out of it. It lasted until recently, then it got cut up.... and taken to Howies...

Reading Big Red Barn before bed.



Happy Father's Day Ben. I love to watch you with the kiddos. I always wondered as a little girl what my husband would be like. Parenting is not really like what I ever thought it would be. It's much more raw than the perfect fairly tales. But its hard and real and our life right now and I love it. And there is really nothing else that I would rather be doing with my life than parenting these two kiddos with the man I love!

Apple Pie, Oh My!!!!!

So this was the finished product before we baked it, I forgot to take a picture of it after we took it out of the oven.
Here Jaiya is helping form the crust

Mixing crust...
Combining apples with cinnamon and sugar mixture
Little stinker kept eating the apples while I was chopping
Right before we added top crust


So Jaiya has been loving to help out in the kitchen lately. She got a book from the library about pies and was asking about pies repeatedly a few weeks ago. We weren't doing a whole lot around here because Tucker had a fever, so while he was sleeping we made an apple pie from scratch! It was super yummy too!!!

Cooking with kiddos is such an easy way to incorporate math, science and sensory into spending time with them. This is actually the recipe I used to use at Smart Start when I used to work with Child Care Providers. I made this recipe with a provider and I kept the recipe. It is kind of fun that the first time I made this pie with kiddos I was pregnant with Jaiya and here I am now making it with her!

Here is the recipe....
pie filling:
4.5 cups (about 6 apples) any kind, we mixed green and red
2/4 cups sugar
1 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp lemon juice

crust:
1 cup butter
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup milk
2 tbsp vinegar ( i used apple cider)
(makes enough crust for top and bottom crust of pie)

from www.cooks.com but i altered it a little

Preheat over to 375. Make the crust and form 1/2 crust mixture to greased pie pan. Form crust on bottom and around edges of pie pan. Slice the apples, then mix in sugar, flour, salt and cinnamon in measuring cup. Stir until apples are coated. Add lemon juice, stir and add to unbaked crust. Cover with top crust. Cut slits in top of crust. Bake 375 for 50 minutes.


I TRIED to let Jaiya help as much as possible. After I cute the apples, I had her put them into the bowl, let her dump in all that I measured out. The crust was hard for me. She was smearing the dough everywhere...but she did a pretty good job! It was so fun for her to watch it go in the oven unbaked and see it come out bubbly and smelling like apples and cinnamon!

Delicious with a glass of milk or some vanilla ice cream!!! My grandma used to make the best homeade pie ever.....

Miss Annabelle is ONE

Let's get this straight, my daughter is in love with birthday parties....and all that comes with them.
B and Carter looking oh so cutie pie.
This is what its all about right here folks. She really dug in good. It was fun to watch. She loved it!
Loving on Hannah. She was Little Miss thing in her tutu.
Cake before getting devoured. Sorry pictures are in wrong order. I am still trying to figure out how to get them in a different order....
Lots of fun decor...Amy is good at that.
Fun with counsins!!!!
What's a good party without balloons??? I mean really...

Loved the creativity with the streamers!!!!


Here are some sweet pics of Annabelles Party. It was so much fun! What fantastic decorations and great monkey theme Amy. Annabelle is my cousin Amys daughter....and she's a little sweetie.

I have some more pics coming of Carter's bday but I forgot my camera for that one and the pics are on Ben's phone.

Happy Mothers Day

I had a great day today! It started with Jaiya waking me up saying, "Mom can you make me some food?" That is kinda my 7 o'clock wake up call, she loves breakfast. Loves it.
So we did waffles and I admit this morning to making her breakfast and turning on Busy-town Mysteries with Richard Scary and then climbing back into bed for a hopeful 5 more minutes. Then she came right back in and wanted me to pick out her clothes. So I decided to help her get ready then get myself ready before the boys got up. Ben is always the first on up but today he was battling a cold so he got a little extra sleep. But he did ask Jaiya to bring me something, and she opened the envelope that said #1 mom and it was the cutest card ever! It was a recordable voice card that had Jaiya's sweet little voice saying, "Happy Mother's Day mom, I love you, you're so beautiful!" I listened to it alot today, it is just so stinking cute the way she says it. Wish I could play it for you all! Inside the card she signed her name, dad helped a little but I am so proud of her for writing her name because we have really been working on it and she gets real frustrated with the J. Inside a was gift card to I tunes for some new songs to work out to! I was so excited!! Go Ben! So we got ready and went to church. Afterwards Ben told me I could pick where we had lunch, we decided on take out because neither one of us have been feeling to good this weekend. I have random hives that keep showing up each night and he has a cold. It was a long week for him, a softball game, yl golf tournament, and fusion b ball fundraiser tournament. Plus I woke him up at 3 am Friday morning freaking out because I had hives all over! He Googled it and told me to take Zyrtec because we were out of benadryl.

Back to lunch.....my first choice was rockabelly.....its my fav. But it was closed. sad.
So we headed to get Chinese. Moment of silence please now that Happy Valley is closed. Today we went to a new drive through Chinese place and it was good. But not Happy Valley! After lunch the kids rested/napped and Ben and I worked on my work out play list. Then we went outside with the kids to work on the yard and decided to start the garden. We wanted to get it done earlier....but what can I say.. chunks of time to plant a garden these days....its hard to find. The kids loved helping dig and plant. They got so so dirty from it but loved it! I'm so OK with the getting dirty part if I know we can go right into the tub! So here are some really fun pics of us gardening! I love the memories I had of my family garden growing up, it was HUGE and we always had a ton of veggies. This year we did tomatoes and cucumbers...mmmmm!

Happy Mother's Day everyone. I'm feeling thankful!