Happy Birthday Evan!

Thursday was Evan's 5th Birthday!!  This is a busy time of year for us, plus our internet has been having trouble, so this is the first time I was able to get the pictures up!  He had a great day of preschool.  He got to pass out birthday treats and they sang to him.  Then he came home and had donuts for lunch!  :)  For his birthday dinner he requested donuts, cheese, applesauce, and salad with dip.  Since I thought that the combination of those foods would most likely make us all sick, I decided to do the donuts for lunch, and the cheese and salad with dinner (and hope that he forgot about the applesauce- which he did- but I did have a jar on standby for dinner, just in case.)  For dinner he had stroganoff, salad (with dip), rolls, and Watergate salad!  He thought that it was all very yummy!  After dinner came present time.  That was, of course, his favorite part! :)

This picture just cracked me up.  They were both being silly.  It looks like they were not happy, but that was not the case.

Evan loved all the cards and gifts that his brothers and sisters got for him.  Weston got him a chocolate bar that he was selling for band in addition to the gift that he got for him.  Evan loved that.

Weston and Evan are good buds!  Weston always gives Evan the Pokémon cards that he doesn't want anymore and Evan thinks that is the best thing ever!!

Brian also gave Evan an extra gift.  He had a few dollars of his own that he took to Dollar Tree and so he bought Evan something extra with his own money!

I think that this is about the only picture that I have of Evan that he is halfway looking up for!  Such sweet brothers.

Then it was Amber's turn.  He loved the glow sticks that she got for him!

Silly girl putting bunny ears on her brother!

Then it was time for the presents from Mommy and Daddy.  All day he had been saying, "I don't remember what I wished for!  I hope it is something good!"  But he has been wishing for months for a BIG scooter that has 2 wheels instead of 3 and that is just like his big brothers!  He got one!!  He was really excited about that!

He also got a few small Spiderman things.  He thinks that Spiderman is so cool, even though he has never seen a Spiderman show or anything.  :)

After we tried out the new toys for a bit it was time for cake and ice cream.  Evan requested chocolate cake with red lettering since his favorite color is red!  :)

Make a wish and blow out those candles!! 

Happy birthday to my sweet little Evan from Heaven!  I am so thankful that he is my sweet little friend.  I love his big hugs and his pizzazz.  I love that he loves to be with me all the time.  I love that he is such a great little helper and loves to read!  I am thankful for my sweet little boy!  I love him soooo very much!

First Day of Preschool

I tried to get this up a few days ago, but my computer was not cooperating, and then we have been busy getting ready for birthday season!!  :)  At any rate, enjoy.

Tuesday was Evan's first day of preschool!!!  He was soooooooo excited!  The pictures from my camera didn't really turn out well, so here are the ones from my phone!  :)  Evan goes to school on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 9-12.  It is a very small preschool.  There are 7 children in his 4 yr old class and 6 in the 3 yr old class.

We went to an open house last week for preschool where Evan got to see his class and meet his teacher, so he was all set.  We went on downstairs and Evan hung his backpack up on his hook.  He then found his name and sat down at the table.  His teacher, Mrs Beth, told the kids that they could color a picture or look at a book.  Evan wanted to color.  He looked up to smile at me and then promptly said that I could go.  :)  He had a great day.  I was so excited to hear all about his first day.  As soon as he got in the car I asked him how his day was.  He answered with a "GREAT!!!"  And then I asked what he did.  His answer?  A typical, "I don't know."  I kept prying.  Finally he did say, "Well, we did take a bathroom break."  Oh my!  :)  I also got that he went to the center room and his teacher read him a few books.  All week he has been excited to go.  Today he got to take in a birthday treat and celebrate his birthday!

Since birthday season is upon us, I took advantage of the fact that I only had 1 child to go and run some errands that first day while Evan was at school.  Poor Katelynn, she likes to just take 1 nap, but can't really make it all the way to noon time.  On Tuesday she fell fast asleep at 10 on the way home from errands.  I hoped that if I laid her on the couch after we got back that she would wake up and then take a good nap after Evan got home.  It was not to be.  She slept all the way until 11:45 when I picked her up to go and get Evan from school.  I learned my lesson though, so Wednesday and Thursday she took a nap as soon as we got back from taking everyone to school.  If I can get her to nap at 9, she usually will sleep about an hour and then will nap again after lunch too.  We are still working on the whole schedule thing.  It is very busy this year with having children in 4 different schools.  Nap time is very limited.  I am sure we will get it all figured out soon enough!  I am so glad that Evan had such a great first week of school!!!!

Labor Day

Today for Labor Day, we decided to take a drive over to Maysville, KY and then to a place called Blue Licks State park.  It was a terribly humid and hot kind of a day with LOTS of pop up storms, but it was nice enough between times (though still very humid) that we had an enjoyable time.  Maysville is a very old town and everything was shut down for Labor Day today.  The city dates back to the 1700s and has some really cool buildings.  It is also on the Ohio River and has history dating back to the Lewis and Clark trail.  :)

We parked by the quaint downtown area and went to see the river.  They had the neatest mural paintings here on the river flood wall!  I just loved them!

It was such a peaceful place down there on the river.  Such a beautiful small town setting without all the hustle and bustle and big buildings that come with a big city.  That is Ohio across the river.

The kids had a great time stretching their legs and running all along the landing and even venturing out onto the dock there too.  I loved all the rolling hills and trees.  It was so pretty.  We tried to stop into a few of the quaint shops downtown, but, like I said, the entire town was shut down for the holiday!  :)

This was looking down the river one way.  This was the dock that the bigger kids walked out onto.  And here was our funny story from the day.  Evan and I had walked all the way to the end of the riverfront sidewalk.  Amber came running up to me grinning as big as can be!!  "Mommy!  Mommy!" she yelled, "I found it!  Look right over there!"  she said pointing to the factory that you can see in this picture, "I finally found where all the clouds are made!!!"  She was as serious as can be!  :)  It was adorable!  I hated to burst her bubble, but did tell her that it was just a regular factory and not where all the clouds in the world came from!!  So adorable!!!

Looking down the Ohio river the other way.

After visiting Maysville, we headed about 30 minutes down the road to the state park.  It looked like it could rain at any minute, but the rain held off.

We wanted to visit the pioneer museum that they had there, but once again, it was closed for the holiday.  The kids had fun posing on the rocks outside the museum though.

We took a few short hikes.  One was down this buffalo trace which was a trail that the buffalo made from the licking river to the salt lick area.  That led to a road.  We then tried to hike down to the Licking River, but it was so muggy and it was more like a rock path along the side of a road than a hike down to the river.  After about a mile and a half, we turned around.  The little ones were moving pretty slow by that point in the day (it was getting late in the afternoon) so Barth and the big kids hiked faster on up ahead to the van and I hiked slower and sang songs with the little ones while Barth went and got the van and brought it closer up so we wouldn't have to hike as far back.  :)

We also took a very short walk down to a monument there at the park.

This area was the sight of a Revolutionary War battle and there were soldiers that died and were buried here.  I snapped a few pictures of the kids with the monument.

And here was the big monument itself.  Our day trip wasn't quite what we thought that it would be, there weren't nearly as many trails and things to walk and see as we thought that there would be, but we still had a fun time, just being together as a family and getting outside.  After we got home, we finished out our day with Barth grilling us hamburgers and hot dogs.  We had chips and watermelon and corn too!  And after 10 months of no wheat, now that Katelynn is finally weaned, that hamburger tasted pretty darn good!!  :)  We hope that everyone's Labor Day was a good one!

Around the house

 Life is back full swing into school mode over here at our house.  I forgot to post a picture of Weston on his first day of seminary!  Here he is getting ready to head out the door to that.  Seminary is held at the seminary teacher's house.  It takes 10 to 15 minutes to get there.  For right now, Weston has been getting a ride with a boy in the ward who is a senior at his same high school.  He then gets a ride to school from seminary with that same boy.  He is liking it so far.  This year they are studying the Doctrine and Covenants.  :)  We have been studying the same thing in our family scriptures, but we are almost done.  We only have about 10 more sections to go as a family!  :)

 I have been enjoying the last few days of having both Evan and Katelynn home.  We have been reading lots of books, doing puzzles, playing outside and going for walks to the park early (before the heat hits- it has been in the 90's here the last few weeks and super humid).  Katelynn has been on a bead kick lately.  She almost always has necklaces on these days!  :)  She loves all things girly!!  I am glad that I have 2 girly girls in the midst of all these boys at my house!

Evan has been playing Angry Birds most mornings too.  He loves to sit and do puzzles and can even do the 48 piece ones now!!!  But he loves to build different things with the few Angry Birds sets that we have.  This day he was doing the car launch one.  :)

 This week he will start pre-school.  We went this past week and saw the school and met his teacher.  She seems very nice.  His class is small and they have a new playground this year to play on.  While he was there he got to make a tiger craft, have some cookies, and see the library and centers room.  He thought that it was all pretty neat.  He will go Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 9-12.  I know he will have a good time.  This year is a busy one for me with lots of running around.  I have children at 4 different schools this year with 4 different pick up times as well as having one at home!  :)  These are the busy days for sure.  Katelynn is really going to miss having Evan at home to play with.  It will be strange to have just her at home.  The last time I had just only a baby at home was when Weston was little.  And even then I baby sat a few days a week.  Everyone is growing up!

 Around here there are LOTS of fossils!!  Evan has been on a fossil kick lately.  He found a big fossil rock in the yard and went to work "excavating" it with a little tool and paintbrush.  He was hoping that he might discover a dinosaur in it!  :)  I told him that there probably weren't any dinosaurs, but that he could find some cool shells and sea creatures.  And he did!  :)  So, now every time he goes outside, he finds all the fossil rocks he can.  These were the ones that he found this last week.  He wanted to line them all up to look at.  I just had to take a picture of his collection.

Katelynn thought that they were pretty cool too!  Evan told me that he named all of these fossils "Evan" except the last one.  That fossil's name is "Simon James Alexander Ragesdale III."  That is just like a song on one of our favorite cd's.  There is a song on the cd named "Bob" and in the song, the person has 15 animals and he names them all Bob except the turtle and he names that one Simon James Alexander Ragesdale III.  :)  Evan does love music!!!  I am thankful that I get to be at home to spend lots of time with my little (and not so little) ones!! 

Annual Uncle Aaron Fish-out

 Tonight for Family Home Evening, we had our annual Uncle Aaron fish-out!  :)  We like to fish around his birthday to remember him.  We were going to do it last Monday night, but it was stormy.  We have been having hot, humid weather lately with quite a bit of rain and storms.  Anyway, I thought that we were going to get quite a few fish because as soon as I baited Evan's hook and he got it in the water, he caught the fish above.  I then re-baited his hook and he caught another that got off once he got it all the way up to the dock!  Silly fish!!  But, those were the only 2 fish that were caught!

 The fault was mine.  We didn't have any hot dogs.  And I was too tired today to go and get some.  So we used bologna (because I figured it was kinda like hot dogs, but trust me, it's not the same) and bread.  The evening started out sunny enough.  There were clouds and darker clouds scattered here and there.  But it was mostly sunny and very, very humid.  The kids didn't care though.  They were having a great time baiting their hooks and fishing.  For the most part, the kids are pretty self sufficient these days when it comes to fishing.  I just have to help Evan and Amber and keep track of Katelynn.  But Barth was there to help too! :)

 All of the rain that we have had lately has certainly made everything quite green!  :)  Weston was fishing with his cool bait that he got at scout camp.

 Evan and Aaron were trying so hard to catch more fish!

 Katelynn was really good and sat in the stroller just watching things all around us.  

 And then all of the sudden, it started to pour!!  Just my two little die hard fishermen kept fishing.  Evan was having a grand old time.  He didn't even have bait on his hook at this point, but that didn't stop him!

 And Amber was bound and determined to catch a fish too!  I think she was the most wet by the time we headed home!  :)

 And then Weston decided that he would go ahead and fish too once the rain got a little bit lighter.  There was no lightening or thunder, just showers.  The ducks thought that the weather was nice.  I brought an entire loaf of bread so we decided to feed them since we weren't catching any fish.

 Thankfully the dock has a covered gazebo part so we were able to stay dry for the most part.  Aaron was trying to throw the bread really far out to the ducks so he didn't have to get wet!  :)

 I asked Amber if she was having fun and this is what she did!  :)  Crazy girl!  She had a great time!

 Katelynn giving me the "cheese" face!

 And then the white ducks decided to come up by where we were at.  And oh boy, did Katelynn love that!!!!!

She kept reaching for them and growling at them.  Katelynn is so funny!  She growls for every single animal!  We try to get her to say quack, or moo, or neigh, but all she does is growl!  It is soooo funny!  Even though we got rained out and didn't catch that many fish, it was fun to go fishing in remembrance of Aaron.  Afterwards we came back and talked about Aaron and about eternal families.  I really am thankful for our fun family tradition!!!

Last few days harvest

Finally our garden is producing!!!! I put up a fence this year to keep out the rabbits, but they kept coming in. I spent the better part of 2 weeks chasing the rabbits out at dawn and dusk. But finally they left the beans alone! :) The tomato plants have been growing like crazy and producing lots if tomatoes, but it hasn't been warm enough until this past week for them to start turning red. The cucumbers must like the hot and humid weather too because they are growing like crazy! We picked two days ago and then today and this was what we got! It looks like I need to find a good pickle recipe! :) I can't wait to eat all of our yummy goodies from the garden!!!!

Tallest slides EVER!

The other day I had to take Weston to a park close by our house that I had never even heard of before so that he could do tennis for YM. Barth had to take Brian and Aaron to the stake center for their scouts, so I took Evan, Amber, and Katelynn with me. The kids had the best time playing on this playground while I sat on the bench while the baby slept in the stroller! :) The slides were honestly the biggest slides I have EVER seen at a playground. If you look closely, you can see that there is a full grown man at the bottom of the slide on the left to catch his child.

Amber and Evan had so much fun. They had cross bars, slides, spinning things. They had more equipment next to it for little ones. And then a third set of slides and climbing equipment as well as teeter totters and swings! So fun! This place was about 15 minutes south of our house. Once the weather gets nice again (it has been pretty warm and muggy with a lot of rain) I think I will have to take the kids back for more fun! :)