This last week...

Livi was caught going through my purse.Making herself familar with credit cards.
What??

John at the football game last Thursday.John The fans: Grandma and Grandpa Ribstein and Grandpa Stan and Grandma Elaine came up to watch John play football. It was a great day, temp wise, which doesn't happen often for football. Unfortunately, the team lost - but it was still fun to have the Grandparents there.
Livi just loves her babies now. She gives them kisses and hugs and will carry them around. She is starting to walk on her own now. Mostly from point A to point B (dad to mom, or furniture to John), not from room to room. She is pretty proud of herself.

Makynna at gymnastics, she is in the foam pit.Jumping into the foam pit.
She is jumping from lilly pad to lilly pad.

Makynna started Cubbies this last week. It is a church class (Awana) on Wednesday's for 1 1/2 hours. It is at Jody's church and Ellie was in it last year (but is in Sparks this year). She loved it, and has been asking when she gets to go back. Waking up and asking if it's Cubbie day today, Wednesday can't come fast enough. She said her favorite part was singing this song that they were able to stick their tongues out for. "and I didn't even get in trouble" Funny, what amazes her at this age.

More from the photo shoot...

Additional shots..

I even got one of John, without his permission - of course.

The Gingerbread Man

So I pick up Makynna from Preschool today, and she is super excited to tell me about her day at school. Normally it's the usual, played with this...made that... She said that they read the book "The Gingerbread Man"....and she actually SAW the gingerbread man. I said "Really?". She said "Yeah, I saw him run by our room. He's real mom, I saw him. He took our box of cookies. We found a note in our room that said he was there and took the cookies and to come to the Start Room. When we went there I found another note, that said he wanted to check out the office. So, we all went to the office, and it took us awhile to find it, but there were our cookies." I said, "Wow that was an exciting day." She said that it was and "that the fox tricked the gingerbread man into climbing on his tail and then his back and then his nose - and ATE him. It's not nice to trick people is it Mom?" It was so cute.

Chelsea and I were taking pictures of the kids on Friday. I wanted to get some shots of Livia for her 1 year old pictures, and took some of Jaden, Zachary, Makynna and got a couple of John. I'm having trouble loading some so I'll try the others later. We ended up with 300 pictures and narrowed it down to 180 some. We had a great time!

Jaden, Chelsea's youngest, he'll be 3 in November.
Makynna...
Zachary, Chelsea's oldest, on the train at the depot.

Makynna and Livi at the fountain.
Makynna on the "coolest" tree at Concordia.
Livi - I just love this picture.

....more to come.

Livi on the dock out at the lake. She loves the water, and would actually jump in if you were to let her. She isn't too fond of the boat right now either. The life jacket makes her mad, and the fact that I won't let her go over into the water doesn't make her too happy either. Hopefully next year will be better.
Brad reading the girls a story before bed. It appears that Livi is going to share in Makynna's love for books. Makynna starts her new preschool tomorrow and she is so excited. She received a postcard in the mail from her teacher, saying that she was excited to have her in class and that they have gotten all the books, dressup, dolls, trucks etc ready to start the year. She will go M,W, and F from 9 - 11:30. She has been writing on post-it notes (tons) she writes to: (whomever) From Makynna and writes the words: Mom, Dad, Dog, Cat. She has one for her teacher too.
Cute picture of the girls before bed.

This is a hornet's nest that was on the boat trailer at the lake. It was HUGE!!


We were playing dress up this last weekend. I thought this was hilarious. Makynna has her glasses on that are missing one of the eye pieces and she was putting on lip stick for at least 5 minutes.
Liv enjoying playing dress up too. Livi has been starting to be brave in the walking area. She'll try and walk from Brad to me and make it a few steps before getting ahead of herself. She will also walk by just holding one of our fingers. I don't think it will be long until she's walking on her own. Brad's determined to have her walking "good" by the time we go to Disney World. She is getting her top 4 teeth all at once, so hasn't been the happiest baby this last week. But I'm not blaming her, it's gotta hurt.
I am trying to get her new found "drama flop" on video and attach it, but I've been too late. If you put her somewhere or go somewhere she doesn't want to go she sits on the floor and flops between her legs to the floor and cries.

John's first day of High School was today. I dropped him and a friend off at school and I think I was more nervous that either of them (shocking, I know). He said that he had a good day, and likes most of his teachers. I hope this year goes well.

He's been doing really well on the football team this year. I'm not sure if I mentioned, but there are 52 guys on the freshman team and they only have one team. The first game he played all the defense plays (as a corner) and some of the offense as a wide-out. He is really enjoying it.