Layne had a great first day of school. There are 4 new kids in his class and he said he is friends with them all already, one boy's name is Brenden! Layne is having a very exciting week, he gets to test for his orange belt tomorrow. He is super excited! Tim is going to get to go with me and watch this time. I will be sure to post pictures!

Layne has his first day of second grade tomorrow. I am praying that God will bless Layne, his classmates, teachers, and helpers. Let all the students grow in their knowledge and skills. Let Layne have a successful year with few hurdles to over come. Let him also be a good friend and respectful student. Amen.

Had my first accounting class today. He went over what we are going to learn over the course of the semester and it should be a cake walk for me, which is good because my two online classes could prove to be hard. I really do learn better in a classroom situation so I wish my two hardest classes weren't online. I guess the saving grace is that my psychology teacher will let us retake tests until we achieve the grade we want!

I really do have the best kids! I think they are going to adjust to this new routine really well. Dee Dee, our daycare lady, said they were really good today and played really nice with the other kids. That makes this new chapter in our lives so much easier!

Layne had an awesome time in Minneapolis with Mandy and Ryan. He got to go miniature golfing, to the Como zoo, and to Lego land at the Mall of America. He also had a great time fishing and riding bikes with Gloria and Paul. I am so happy that it worked out for Layne to get to do this! Brenden missed his brother so much. He woke up on Friday morning and asked where Layne was and I told him he wasn't home yet and he said "where is he hiding". Do you think they play hide n seek much? I have never seen Brenden as excited as when he saw Layne on Saturday night. So cute!

I start classes tomorrow. I am not sure how I feel right now. A little excited, a little scared, a little overwhelmed. I have Religion-Old Testament and Fundamentals of Public Speaking (shouldn't be to hard for me huh?) on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays and Accounting 1 on Tuesdays and Psychology and Economics online. I have taken all these classes before (well not religion, but come on I don't think it will be too hard) so I am hoping it won't be too much!

Well it isn't going to work out for Tim to get that job and I am okay with that. They just couldn't afford to pay him what we need. He did say that he would keep him in mind if anything else came up. So it just means God has something else planned for us. Now if I can wait patently until He lets us know what that is things will be good:)

I took Layne and Debbie to the airport this afternoon so they could fly to the cities. They had some really bad weather in the cities so their flight had been delayed, but the flight that was supposed to leave at 1:30 hadn't left yet so they were able to get on that one. They left at 4:00 and got there at 5:45 so they must have hit some bad weather because it is usually only a 1 1/2 hour flight. Brenden was really upset when we left the airport, he cried for his "Layner" the whole way home. He made me so sad, so when we got home I gave him some candy even though it was only an hour before dinner. I think that Brenden is going to have the hardest time with Layne being gone.

It was so nice to see Mandy and Ryan yesterday...even if it was only for a couple of hours. All the boys couldn't get enough of her, they all climbed up in her lap and stayed there for a long time. Scott and Debbie came over after church and we had a nice breakfast.

We are heading over to Joe's house tonight to pick raspberries, hopefully I will get enough to make more jam. He has tons of produce that is ready so who know what else I will come home with!

Layne leaves Wednesday night to go and spend some time with auntie Mandy and uncle Ryan. He is so excited! He gets to spend time with his third cousin once removed (or something like that) on Thursday and Friday so that should be really fun for him too. I know that there are two little boys who are really going to miss him though!

TOO HOT TO BLOG!!

So when Tim got home from work tonight he sat down on the couch and the kids crawled up in his lap. He yawned and Brenden pointed in Tim's mouth and said "baby dinosaur". Tim and I couldn't figure out what he was talking about so he asked Brenden to say it again. He puts his finger in Tim's mouth, opens it, and points "baby dinosaur". We figured out he was talking about the hanging thingy in the back of his throat. Guess we need to get him some dinosaurs.


P.S. check out my earlier post and the slide show!

It was finally a nice day. So this morning I took the boys over to the park. I had forgotten that it had rained last night. So the first time Brenden went down the slide he got soaked. I thought he might get upset, but he didn't. He ran over and showed his brothers and before I knew it they had gone down the slides and got soaking wet. Oh well, it was really fun! After the twins took their nap we went outside and I set up a sprinkler for them. The twins learned how to kink the hose and they would all take turns kinking the hose, they even got Layne in the face a couple of times when he was trying to figure out what was going on!

Today was my sisters first day of work here in Bismarck so she came over for lunch, unfortunately it took her 15 minutes to get here so she won't be able to come for lunch as often as we had hope, but it will still be fun to see her family more!

I love this time of year. My garden is starting to produce some great stuff! Last night we roasted some green beans with butter salt and pepper ( thanks for the idea Mandy), today I made raspberry jam from my very own raspberry bush! Now I am working on making pickled yellow beans and tomorrow I am going to make zucchini Parmesan for dinner (thanks for the recipe Pam). I also have a recipe for zucchini quiche I want to try. Before I know it I will have ripe tomatoes that I will hopefully make salsa and spaghetti sauce out of and lots of purple and green beans to do something with!

The weather has been cool so we have been spending lots of time outside. Tim was home tonight so we went for a walk and guess what we ended up at a park! So we played for a while and we had to bribe them home with a bubble bath!

It has been a long time since I have blogged. I have been busy, tired, preoccupied, running errands, doing laundry, cleaning, playing, and on vacation. So now I am back!

We had a great trip. The boys were really good on the way to the cities. It is always hard when I go some where by myself, and I worry that the boys will get bored and restless. The family reunion was nice, there weren't very many of us this year, but it was fun all the same!

We were at the lake for 7 full days and of those day we were able to swim one day. The weather was really crappy, rained on and off most days, was really windy too. We played outside alot, even in the rain. Scott's cousin and her family came on Wednesday. Gretal has a son that is the same age as Layne and a daughter that is 5 and all the kids really played nice together. We had some really great food over the week. Jody made some pork that was wonderful, Layne wants me to make it for him. De made homemade mac n' cheese that I have been dreaming about. All in all is was a very good vacation!