Christian graduated from preschool last night – so cute! I uploaded the pictures (along with several others) to the gallery this afternoon. http://www.pastorsfamily.com/April6-May222007/ (or you can click on the family album at the top of the blog.) We had over 1000 pictures from the last month and a half so it took a bit to weed through all those! I got it down to 175. LOL

This afternoon Matt is taking Christian to his soccer BBQ and I am taking Ryan to T-ball. (and I guess Dane is coming with me as well). Soccer is done, and now we’re on to the next sport. It is just Ryan this time though. I don’t think we will do soccer with Ryan next year – he has done it three years in a row now and he just doesn’t seem too into it. I’m not sure what we are going to do when we have three different things to be at at once! Maybe by then Ryan will be old enough to drop off at his practice or whatever. Hopefully by the time all three boys are in activities the price of gas will go down. (probably wishful thinking) With the distance it takes to get the kids to everything it adds up quick. This morning it was $75 to fill up with my 22 gallons. YIKES! That’s about $300 a month just for my car to have gas in it.

Yesterday I learned that in 90+ degree windy weather clothes dry out on the line in about 20 minutes or less. I had never really dried an entire load of laundry on the line before, but since it was so warm I decided to give it a try. Worked like a charm and everything was so nice – the t-shirts looked like they had been ironed. Now if I can just get my wash machine to work faster…. I’d be in business!

Our neighbors called a couple days ago to let us know that they wanted to give us a little 50cc four wheeler that their kids had grown out of. It has carb. issues apparently, so that has been a new project for Matt. Boys and their toys!

I continue to enjoy the garden. My acorn squash finally started popping up today. I was starting to wonder if it was ever going to. I am surprised more flowers haven’t come up as I plated a ton of seeds – maybe there is still time. The strawberries are looking really good along with the pumpkins. Even a couple of the raspberry twigs (as I refer to them) have started to show life and they say not to expect anything for 4-6 weeks on those, so that is great!

I have been going to Weight Watchers meetings, but am still kind of at a standstill in that department. I’ll keep working at it though.

I’m in the middle of a brand new website project with my business partner, Susanne. We hope to launch June 1st. We just got off the phone after a 2 hour training call. The information is excellent, but I think I will have to listen to it again to really soak it all in.

Well, I guess I better go fix my hair a bit and get ready for our evening.

C-

How did it get to be May 15th already? We have officially been here a year. Matt is entering his second year of services – I think he first service last year was Mother’s Day. He says it is nice to say “last year we…” and have memories from here.

I can’t remember if I announced this already or not… I think I did, but Dane is officially potty trained! He even gets up by himself in the middle of the night, goes potty and gets back into bed all by himself. Such a big boy!

Christian has 3 more days of preschool and he is a big Kindergartner! Ryan has a week and a half and he is a 2nd grader.

The garden is planted, I put in the last row today (sweet corn). It’s so incredible to watch the little plants push their way through the course soil to stretch towards the sun. Watermelon, spaghetti squash, cateloupe and cucumber are beginning to poke up. The strawberries are also starting to show some life. We had our first rain in a couple weeks today. It was quite the store. It got as dark as dusk, the wind blew strong and then it was gone almost as fast as it came. We did get a good downpour, so that should make the crops and gardens happy.

Weight loss is kind of at a standstill lately. I need to stay motivated one way or another. I went to the Weight Watchers meeting tonight, but it had been cancelled as the leader had some sort of storm related emergency.

My recent goal is to try to cook one meal and at the same time prepare the same thing again and pop it into the freezer for later use. I would like to not have to cook so much in the summer, and this seems like a quick and easy way to do it. Last night I made “Lazy Lasagna” (recipe is on the www.themenumom.com blog). Even Ryan ate it and he claims he doesn’t like Lasagna – in fact he had seconds! So it is a keeper for sure.

Dane has a bit of a cold and I think I am catching it, so I am going to jump into bed.

Our prayers are with you. We hope you are doing well.

C-

All right, I think I have opened up this site four times to sit down and write an update and then I always get distracted with one thing or another.

Matt and I worked the majority of the weekend and all day today on our garden. First Matt tilled it all. Then we both made raised beds. Today the electric fence went up. Let’s see I plated the flower bed, cucumbers, watermelon, spaghetti squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, raspberries, strawberries, lettuce, garlic radishes, peas, beans, broccoli, caulifower, and Matt plated an entire row of peppers.. And no, we’re not done… we still have sweet corn, popcorn, ornamental corn, acorn squash, ornamental squash, sunflowers, onions, carrots, rhubarb, zucchini, pumpkins and I’m sure something else I’m missing. Yup, it’s one big garden! We’re tired and sore. My grandpa Ole would be proud.

The rest of our four acres got planted this morning as well with field corn. Christian and Dane got to ride on the tractor for that. They had so much fun. It is a nice guy from church who takes care of that for us.

The best part about the garden is the kids had a chance to play outside all weekend. I had to wake Ryan up this morning to go to school – I think that was the third time all school year I actually had to wake him up. They were worn out. Matt and I were just discussing the other day how this is the perfect place to raise kids – tons of room to roam, and great people We are most certainly blessed.

I haven’t been doing as well with my weight loss journey the last couple weeks. I decided to start going to the actual Weight Watchers meetings last week, hoping that would motivate me… but it still hasn’t really kicked in. I don’t know what my deal is. I need to pull myself together and get some motivation I guess. You can pray for that for me.

I had a huge cold sore last week. I always forget at the beginning of warm weather to wear sunscreen on my lips and it never fails I end up with one in late spring. Thankfully it went away fairly quickly, but there were a couple days there that I felt pretty yucky. It covered 1/2 of my bottom lip. I read online to try peppermint essential oil, and it just so happened that I had some so I tried it and boy, did that relieve the pain well. I am going to have to remember that trick!

Nothing else too major is going on here. We still spend half of each Saturday at soccer. Christian loves it, Ryan says he likes it but doesn’t really act like it. Next up is Tee Ball in June for Ryan so we’ll see if he seems to like that better.

Yesterday marked a year since we arrived here in IL. Tomorrow marks the day the moving truck arrived. Wow, this year seems to have flown by! A month from tomorrow Christian will be five. I can hardly believe it.

This week Wed. we have soccer practice, Matt has council and after the kids go to bed I have a business interview. Friday is half a day at school and then awards night and PTL elections. Somehow I ended up on the ballet (no one ever contacted me to ask if I’d be willing to run…. I found that kind of strange) Anyway, I am up against two other ladies that are pretty well known, so I am hoping I am safe.

I am in charge of VBS this year, which is the first week in June, so I have been plugging away on that a bit as well. There realy isn’t a ton to do as we are having a team come from the Bible School and this church is so good with volunteering that pretty much everything is taken care of. I don’t think I have ever planned a VBS that has been so easy. (and I’ve planned my fair share) I just have to make sure the team is taken care of and take care of the administration type stuff.

Well, I think I will jump into bed. I hope everyone is well!
C-