Daddy Daughter Day

As I said, the other morning, dad and I went fishing. It started off so peaceful with a soft breeze. We were the only ones in the area of the lake we were at.

I caught the first fish and you can see from the deep dimple in my cheek, I was very proud of it. (according to Sean, it was not much bigger than the lure)

Dad caught the next two, which was wonderful because he has been "skunked" the last several times.

I took several pictures as the sun was coming up. Enjoy the photos.

Slacker, Thy Name Is Erin

I have to admit, I've been falling behind on my blogger duties.

Here is an update on each of us:

• Noelle: was part of the make-up crew for the school play, has been busy with friends, played paintball with the youth group, attempted to ride a mechanical bull while on the paintball trip which caused her to nearly break her hand, thinks we are unfair parents
• Michael: continues with soccer, is excited to find out that with indoor soccer there is no such thing as out of bounds~which means you can play the ball off the wall, is making some really cool sounds on his guitar, thinks we are unfair parents
• Sean: has bid on a few jobs, organized the shop, will have ads with coupons printed on the back of some register receipts from the grocery stores in town, thinks we are fair parents
• Me: have not worked much as of late due to the census being low (I believe this is the hospitals way of having the nurses used to having 6-8 patients so when the census picks up and there are more patients, we are already used to having 6-8 patients so "nothing has changed"), remembered I had a cross stitch I started last year and started working on it again, argued with insurance companies, went fishing with my dad~(pictures of our "big catches" to be posted), think we are fair parents

Sean and I are also attending a "Scream Free Parenting" class at church. I have really tried to follow the things we are learning and believe it or not, this guy is right. Things have been much quieter at our house lately. One of the things we learned is that "kids need their room". The night we had this lesson, we came home and told the kids that their room is their room and if they want to have a messy room that's fine, but they have to keep the door closed and no friends can go in their rooms.

This has actually worked pretty well. You can imagine how this went over with Noelle's friends. Not only does she get to write on one of her walls, but now she is not constantly told to clean her room.

We may be unfair parents, but we sure are cool!

Has It Really Been That Long?? Part I

I guess I haven't blogged in a while. Boy does time go fast.

In the past few weeks, we have so many things going on, there needs to be two of me.

The kids had their pictures taken by Teresa VanVooren. They are amazing!! It's hard to decide which ones to get. I'm thinking of taking down the pictures I have on the wall that goes upstairs and replace them with pictures from this shoot. Any one in the Kansas City area should really give her a call. We met her at a beautiful park and she many different pictures of the kids in various areas of the park.

Last weekend, Amy and Jon went with their friends Dave and Micci for their annual "get out of town and ditch the kids" weekend. Mom and dad watched the boys, (along with help from Noelle) Friday night, the kids and I watched the boys Saturday night and mom and dad watched them again on Sunday night.

The kids and I took the boys to Deanna Rose Farm on Sunday. I wish I had known about this place when the kids were little. There is so much to do there. All of the kids fed the big goats feed from their hands, (it was fun to watch the boys do that) and fed the baby goats milk from bottles.

The boys are definitely at that "what can I do in public to make you look bad" age. This was very evident when we were leaving this lovely 1901 school house. Each of the kids had used one of the little chalk boards and chalk that students would have used in school at that time. When it was time to go, Jack grabbed Noelle's hand and they headed out the door. Michael had left just ahead of Jack and Noelle. I go to take Riley's hand so we can follow the others and let the next group have their turn in the school.

Quickly, Riley pulls his hand away. I reach back take his hand we have this exchange:

• Loving Aunt Erin: "Riley, you have to hold my hand"
• Riley: "No, I hold Michael's hand"
• L.A.E.: "Riley, Michael's outside, you have to hold my hand"
• Riley pulls his hand away again, I grab it.
• L.A.E.: "Riley, you have to hold my hand. You can hold Michael's when we get outside"
• Riley makes attempts to pull his hand away again, but can't get his hand away.
• Riley: "You're hurting me"
• L.A.E.: "Come on Riley"
• Riley: "No hurt Riley, Ewin. Owie, OWie, OWIE"
• L.A.E.: "You're ok Riley, let's go" (I feel the eyes of 15 people looking at me)
• At this point, Riley is turning into a noodle, one leg starts to drag, he is now yelling "OWIE EWIN, OWIE, OWIE EWIN" at the top of his lungs with tears.

I could not get out to the building fast enough to find Michael. Riley quickly got over his "owie" due to the fact our next stop was the big white barn where everyone had ice cream. I believe that Riley has learned two things from that exchange:

1. if you embarrass the adult you are with you get what you want
2. ice cream makes everything better

I know those are not the appropriate things to teach a soon to be three year old, but you know what, I'm the aunt. My job is to spoil, spoil, spoil.

Has It Really Been That Long?? Part II

In addition to watching the boys, Sean and I had our anniversary, I had my birthday and the shop opened.

It's funny how our anniversary and my birthday are exactly one week apart. You know when you're in school and you write where you think you will be at various stages of your life? I had written down that by the time I was 25, I would be married. I honestly didn't think about that at the time.

As most brides know, the actual day you get married has several different factors added in, the main ones being when is the church available and is that the same date the reception hall will be available. That's pretty much how we arrived at 9-24-94. (plus, the date sounded neat) It just so happened that my 25th birthday was exactly one week later.

The shop opened on our anniversary. It's still so hard to believe it's open. Sean's had a couple of jobs since it's been open. It'll be slow go, but so worth it. Word of mouth does wonders. We also try to wear out shirts everywhere.

They actually have been pretty good advertising because we have passed out a few cards wearing them. The front of the shirt says "got dents?" in the "got milk?" font. On the back, it says the name of the shop and some of the services we offer. We are going to a car show at a town just north of here Sunday. Hopefully, we can make some contacts.