First Day of School

Today September 4th was the first day of school for my boys.  This year they are attending Cornerstone Private Christian School.  They were super excited.  It will be a change for us all, as I now will be driving them 20 minutes each way to drop them off and pick them up from school.  They start school at 8am and are finished at 2:30pm.  I also get the honor of packing them a school lunch everyday, except wednesdays plus get my other two kidos up and out the door by 7:30am.  Ready or not....here it comes:)

 Both boys posing by the front door.  They have "uniforms" as well.  Jeans, any shirt with a collar and no decals, and tennis shoes.

 Daddy stayed home this morning to help make breakfast of Puff Pancakes, sausage and oj.

 

Then it was time to get into the school bus.  Waibel School Bus #5

Elijah decided it was #5 due to the fact that there are 5 people in the bus.  Front seat is reserved for 5th graders, middle row is reserved for nonschoolers, and back row is reserved for 2nd graders.

 Next stop.....Cornerstone School !!!

 

And of course a picture infront of the school doors.

 Boys~ May God bless each day as you attend school.  Be Godly examples, and put your best foot forward and work diligently and hard.  Love you two!!

Labor Day Camping 2012

Labor Day Camping this year was fun and wet!  With the drought this year we kept our boat home.  The lake was 3.5 feet lower than normal which isn't bad, but we also knew it was calling for lots of rain.  And the weather men were right!  The kids wanted to go to the beach, even though the sun was not out, and the water was cold.  They played hard and had fun, and even went back the  next day.

 The rains came, the floods came, and the kids got on their swim gear:).  Here is liam catching rain water off the awening. 

 Thankfully lemans brought the "smoke tent" so we could keep the fires burning while it poured!!

 So this is where the fire was until the floods came.  Then we found some dry land and rebuilt our fire elsewhere.  The kids thought this mud pit looked fun.......

 The kids took turns riding their bikes through this puddle over and over and over again.

 ......and so these kids (mud buddies) dove right into this mud pit and came out with some healthy skin (don't they say mud is great for the skin???)

 Our new dry fire area with some grass around it:).  Was a bit muggy out after the rain so we sat far away from the fire:).

 The kids, minus Ellie, that sure had a fun time.  Even though at times it was a headache and a half for us parents trying to keep mud out of the campers and getting meals ready with rain pouring down.....these kids made some amazing memories they probably won't forget.  Such good friends they all are too which makes camping that much more fun.

 

 

And now for the video of the mud buddies!!!

Till next time:).....

Almost There!!!

Oh so CLOSE!!!  That silly little arm is still in the way.  I just had to post this, because I found it pretty cute she was waving hi to me at the end of the video:).

4 months!!

Wow, yesterday she turned 4 months already!!  This is definitely the fastest any of my kids have grown up to me.  I am really enjoying this stage, this time around.  Usually I am anxious for them to grow up and be on the move, but not this time.  She is the most perfect baby.  She rarely ever cries, she is always happy, she is full of smiles(just look at her and she will give you a grin), and she sleeps and eats like a champ.

She weighs a whopping 12 lbs!!!  I know, what a peanut.  She is ONLY 24 inches long which her new cousin Jacki was born at 22inches so Jacki will soon pass her up I am sure.  I really love this dress that she got from a good friend Mindy but it is just swimming on her.  I went ahead and took pictures in it anyways and hopefully when the cool months come I can find a little white sweater to go with it so she can wear this dress to the fullest.  And I got this cute flower for her hair from a good friend Stacy.  Oh and just for the record...she got 2 shots today and she still gave me smiles for her mini shoot:)!! What a miracle baby I have!!

Thank you Jesus for this very calm, sweet baby girl you gave to us!!  We are so VERY BLESSED!!

Niece #7

This past saturday we took a little drive to Ft. Wayne to see our newest little niece on my side.  Its hard to believe this makes 7 nieces for us and only 1 nephew on the Gutwein side(I'm the one who has all the boys:)!!

MEET  Jacki Loretta Huber.  She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz(just like Ellie), and was 22inches long!!  (thats long folks:).  I think she looks alot like her uncle Andrew Huber thru the eyes.  But I do think she has Joy's forehead.    We all had to take turns holding her of course.

 Caden was the first to jump up on the couch and hold her.  But this didnt surprise me, as he is the first to take notice to his sister too.

 Elijah was holding her, but she wasn't very happy in his arms sadly.

 This was as close as Liam got to holding her.

 Of course we then had Ellie do her "holding".  I just LOVE this picture.  Ellie thinks she is big stuff, and well....Jacki isn't sure she feels safe in her arms.  Oh they will be great friends.....only a little less than 4 months apart!!

 We are so happy for you Jason and Joy and Jayla.  You have a keeper and we are so thankful everything went well for joy and the delivery.  I just have to say she did great.  No epideral, got to the hospital and had her water broke.  She was 7 cm dialated and was NOT in PAIN!!!!  1 hour later she started having contractions and in 45 minutes Jacki was born.  AMAZING!!!  (we just love our delivering baby genes:))

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies??

So about a month ago, we went to visit Joy and Jason in Leo.  After done touring Gateway Woods, Nicole Weigand was so kind to share some wonderful cookies with us.  They were the normal mini sized cookies and were so yummy.  I asked her for her recipe and she informed me that this was what she followed PLUS added 2 T. of flax seed.  Yeah, now they were even healthier.  So today Elijah and I set out to make what we invisioned some mini chocolate chip cookies.

As we were making them we thought it interesting how small of an amount of dough sat in our bowl??  And it says it makes 48 mini cookies??  How was that ever going to happen with this tiny amount of dough??

When we got down to the final instructions of putting the dough on the cookie sheet we realized exactly why they could get 48 mini cookies out of it........

.....it called for 1/2 TEASPOON of dough per cookie.....huh???  1/2 TEASPOON???  Was I reading that correctly?  Never heard of such a thing.  I then noticed that this was a Weight Watchers recipe as well.  Which then made this all alot more funny.  Elijah and I were rolling in laughter as we kept throwing out funny comments over these tiny little morsels!!

"Don't choke on these!" "Don't eat it all in one bite!" " Be careful, you might only get one chip in each cookie", "OR maybe each cookie will just consist of one chip and no dough". "there are many mini chocolate chip cookies on this tray(48 in be exact).  Anyways, it got to be so funny I was almost in tears laughing so hard. 

 Yes, we actually used a 1/2 teaspoon to measure out the cookies.  It took a LONG time, when really we could have used a normal mini scoop cookie scoop and been done in 3 cookies:).

 Now tell me weight watcher fans out there......how in the world do you eat just ONE of these coookies??  One cookie = one point!!  Guess I just ate myself 4 points in cookies.

Yep, I even had to get out the quarter to show the size of them.  I think the recipe should say Barely There Chocolate Chip Cookies.

PS....they were so good.  Soft and yummy!  Next time I plan to triple the recipe and actually make mini chocolate chip cookies!  (They were NO WHERE near as good as Nicole Weigands though).  Gotta ask her what else she did to hers.

Ellie's and Elijah's Room

So when we moved into this house back in 2009 this was Liam's room that was already painted light blue and light yellow.  We left it and he continued to have this room until we knew of the arrival of our 4th child. (take note to the picture leaning against the wall on the floor..its blue and it had pictures of a horse and bear on it)

Before our 4th child arrived, we painted the room a neutral tan color and figured whatever the sex of the baby would determine the additional color we would add to this room. (yes I expected a boy and yes thats a blue sheet on the crib mattress).

At last,  we got our baby girl and so pink was quickly painted onto the walls:).  The next several pictures are of Ellie's room as it is today.  Im not sure what else, if anything, will be added yet.  Im pretty satisfied with it. (I did my very first DIY project and its that picture that was in the above photo with blue on it, that now sits in Ellie's room....its pink and now has flowers on it).

 These are just close ups, so it can be seen a bit better.

 Of course Elijah was very ready to move over to his very own room.  I had previously painted this gray and orange as the guest room.  I told Elijah he could have his own room, IF I didn't have to repaint it(since I loved the colors of it).  He gladly agree'd and made it his very own Basketball themed room.  It has turned out very nicely and he has made his bed everyday since!!:)  I was so thrilled to find this comforter that had gray and orange in it.  Very boyish looking for sure.

Now that we have everyone settled into their rooms, we are hopefully set for many years to come.