Our new Swingset

We got a new swingset this past week. It's actually a funny story. A good friend of ours who is an expert at getting deals on things (she's a single mom) found this swingset on a yahoo group called freecyclefishers. She requested it and went to look at it for us. She gave me a call to see if I was interested and obviously I was. It has been wonderful.
Ethan obviously loves it. He loves to swing. He'll do it for hours. We have a pretty hilly backyard, so it was difficult to find a level placeto put it. Luckily one of the only level places is right out my bedroom window. So when it is relatively cool in the morning, I open my bedroom window and let Connie take him out and swing him while I accomplish laundry and such. These pictures were from a pleasant evening when we were all out.

Here's a picture of the whole swingset. It's pretty nice and my children and their friends love it. It's pretty weathered, but it came with two swings, a baby swing and the rings. Perfect for our family. We're going to stain it and replace a broken ladder, but otherwise who can beat the price!!


Here's Kyler going down the slide. He likes the slide. With a broken ladder, he just climbs up the slide. He thinks he's pretty clever. They also wanted to be rid of a sandbox. The sand in it was pretty much ruined, so we plan on refilling. Right now, it's like a ball pit and Kyler likes that too. He also thinks it's cool to swing with his baby brother.

Lastly, the little second mom with her baby brother. She takes him out to swing quite a bit. He thought swinging this way was so funny.

Piggy boy

I just wanted to post this picture because I think it's so cute. This is how much Ethan loves food. Crawling all over with a pizza crust in his mouth. He's a funny boy.

Independence Day

This fourth of July we had a chance to go to the Symphony on the Prairie here in Fishers. It's held here at a place called Connor prairie, which is sort of like a history museum. There are some reinactments of historical towns and such. It was really fun. We brought in a picnic dinner and enjoyed the evening rain-free, which was lucky!There a the sympony they had an Instrument Petting Zoo. It was cool, you could try out all differnt types of instruments. Kyler played a violin, but I didn't have the camara yet when he did that. So, here are some pictures of the kids trying out some of the different percussion instruments.




Ethan just enjoyed being outside and flirting with people who were around. He was really cute the entire evening.





The one frustrating things about Ethan was that he kept climbing into the chairs. We have these wonderful chairs that are backpacks.
It was great because the older kids going carry their own chairs on their backs. They aren't the most stable though so we had to keep a grip on them when Ethan climbed in. He's such a climber.


The evening ended with The 1812 Overture with real cannons and then with a patriotic medley with fireworks. Needless to say this was a little disconcerting for our very noise-sensitive Kyler. We weren't sure how Ethan was going to do with the fireworks either, but we had barely changed him into his pajamas and then laid him down in his carseat with a bottle when they started. He didn't even care, he just laid there and watched.Kyler, on the other hand, was not so good about it. The good thing was we were prepared for this and brought his headphones and my iPod. He enjoyed some music while watching the show. He only freaked out at the end with the finale. It was pretty loud even for me, so you can imagine how he reacted.
This is a horrible picture of me, but funny of Kyler and how he was (not)watching the finale. It was pretty spectacular and made for a very enjoyable evening. Enjoy the brief video of the final fireworks for the evening.

Catching up with Ethan...

Ethan is the same old cuteness he has always been. He's getting more and more mobile and thus is more and more of a brute. He is everywhere and into everything. I'm sure that my mother is happy to know that he is a climber and gets to whatever he wants that way. He's the most determined little person. He hardly ever cries when he can't get to something, he just keeps trying until he does it. It's pretty funny. To continue the pictures of our children on the caching trip, we have Ethan doing what he was doing almost the entire time. Sleeping. Jason carried him in this hiking backpack carrier and he promptly fell asleep. He was so tired and apparently that carrier is comfortable. We had to try to stuff blankets around him so his little neck was not crooked the wrong way.

Ethan loves to be outside. As is the case with most babies. For a long while there he hated the feel of grass. It was great because I could put him on a blanket outside with a few toys and it would be like a playpen. This one beautiful day we sat outside while Daddy was grilling some hamburgers. We love summer cooking as Daddy does a lot of it on the grill. He's very good at it!!

In final catching up with Ethan news, he is getting marvelously close to walking. I'm actually getting excited about the walking because I hate to let him crawl around a lot outside because I don't want his poor little knees to get skinned up on the concrete. He has this little dump truck toy that he pushes around. It's so cute. Enjoy the picture and the video. I apologize for the token mom "what are you thinking" comment to my other children. They are not supposed to be jumping on the furniture at all and they know it!! :)

Catching up with Connie

Connie has been good. On Memorial Day, we all went geocaching with my sister and her family. It was very fun. We found a little park and went for a walk around it. It was a lovely hike and the weather was good for it. Connie had a good time. We saw a lot of exciting things for her, like a Mommy duck with one of her tiny ducklings.



Towards the end of the school year for her, she had a 1st grade field trip to a park called Cool Creek Park. It has a nature preserve and trails to play on. It was a GREAT field trip!! The 1st graders from her school were the only ones there so it wasn't crowded at all. That was the best part! I was lucky enough to be a driver for the field trip. It was good, I got to enjoy the field trip and get paid for it! The first activity on the field trip was a bug catch bingo game. Connie caught the first bug. It was a butterfly. Here are some pictures.
Here's a picture of Connie and some of her class listening to this wonderful naturalist talk about land turtles. She was very good at what she does. She managed to keep a whole class of 1st graders focused on her for 1/2 an hour about a turtle. She was awesome!!
This is Connie painting a cast of an animal print. It was a rabbit. She used the clues from some parents to guess that and she was the only one to guess correctly on the first shot! A little detective.

Like Kyler, Connie also enjoyed the Christofferson children. KayLynn (I'm not sure I spelled that correctly) and Connie played wonderfully together. We were a little surprised as they are both pretty dramatic little girls, but apparently they had just enough in common. They had a lot of fun!!

Catching Up with Kyler

It's been a while since I posted, so I need to catch up. Starting with Kyler. Kyler had his 2nd kindergarten fieldtrip to the zoo. It was very fun and enjoyable. I helped another mom with Kyler's group. It was ok, but there was one little boy named Lucas. I remember his name well because I said it so many times. He was a rascal and loved to escape and try to go places on his own. The other mom and I tried to take turns chasing him down. It was a little exhausting and the zoo was very crowded that day.

We did get to see things that I had not seen yet at the zoo, like the forests. I don't know why but we'd never been in there. We saw peacocks and tigers, but were just a few days early to see the new koalas that were coming. The kids were disappointed about that. Then we went to the deserts and saw the meerkats, which had arrived while I was pregnant so I had not seen them. They were very cute and fun to watch.

Kyler had a great time. We saw the dolphin show and had so much fun. A funny thing was to watch him with the other kids. I think he is getting so big until I see him next to kids his own age. He is so little. Here are some pictures.

Just before the school year was out, Kyler had a beach day. This is simply Kindergarten's way of doing field day. Normally it is done outside with lots of fun water activities. But, on the day that Kyler's class was supposed to do it, the weather was horrible!!! So, they improvised and had an indoor games thing. It was fun. I manned the games center, but managed to escape a bit to get a few pictures. Again, it was interesting to see Kyler play with his friends. He's so funny about playing with people. Kyler plays at people, even his friends. It's cute.

Finally, we've just been playing for summer. We did have some super fun visitors a couple of weeks ago. My best friend, Debbie, and her husband came to visit. They have two children close in age to my older two so the kids had so much fun together. They stayed with us for 3 days and the children only had one little incident! We considered that amazing!! We'd never met her husband either, so it was great to see her little family. They are truly wonderful. Her husband is very sweet and good for her. I was so happy to see her happy. Their son Ellis is the same age as Kyler and they played wonderfully together. Well, Kyler played wonderfully at him and Ellis enjoyed playing with Kyler.

Okay, all caught up with Kyler...