Its time.....

...to return to school!! Elijah was way more excited than Caden was. I don't think Caden enjoys school nearly as much. Elijah has a brain alot like Nick...and can remember things so easily and is a smart boy! Im so proud of him and all he has accomplished with testing 6th grade level in reading and 5th grade math. Way to go!! My sweet Caden...you remind me alot of myself. You do your best, and you do so well at all you do buddy. I understand how hard it can be but you too are also smart. Not testing higher than your grade level, but thats exactly how I was. School never came easy for me and I can see that in Caden.
Nick stays home later on the "first school day" to make the boys breakfast and walk them to the end of the lane. They requested waffles for breakfast.

Elijah all ready...hair done and dressed...waiting for bus! I smile, because he is really becoming his own little man. He has requested that we not cut his hair(although I told him if it gets to his ear lobes...it will be cut). He asked for some gel, hair spray, a pick, deoderant, and some mouth wash for the new school year....oh how you are growing up. Im excited for this year and to watch you continue to grow!!

And my sweet little Caden....all ready...as ready as he can be....for his first day. He not long ago got his hair cut, but after watching Elijah's grow out...he has now requested that his hair grow long too!! Nick and I just smile at each other, cause he really does try to be like Elijah in certain things. He doesn't know it yet, but we aren't letting him grow out his hair to much....at least not as long as Elijah's is. It is long for him right now, and he is happy to style it each morning, but as soon as he starts complaining about doing his hair...we are going to recommend cutting it.

Walking down the lane....you will notice our "new pet" in the picture. This cat's name is Shadow. Our dog is no more....lead poisoning as nick called it:).

Bus is here....have a wonderful day! As I always tell my kids each morning after I give them each a kiss.... Have a good day. Obey your teachers the FIRST time, be a good example, and HAVE FUN!!!

I love you boys!!

Busy Busy Busy!!

So our busy busy time started on July 30th when the waibel family drove down to Tennessee for a mini vacation. We stayed at Wilderness of the Smokies and had a fun time in the sun and pool. This post is long, so I'll just highlight a few points as the pictures go on. This first picture is of the boys who got themselves ready to go ride a Monster Truck with Uncle Nate. They decided mohawks would be cool. We told them that was fine, but that we won't be wearing our hair like this for other times.
Nate and the boys on the truck!! It was empty that day so the guy took them around the track 8 times instead of 4 times and then sold us a cd of ALL SORTS of PICTURES for 25$. Great deal. Nate was able to pose the boys however he wanted.

Caden pretending to be run over!

Elijah pretending to be run over!

They each got to take turns sitting in the drivers seat for a picture too. Here is Elijah in the drivers seat. That truck is BIG!! Nate is a tall guy and he just barely is above the tires.

The next two pictures are nick and I's bathroom and bedroom at the condo. It was a suite with four bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. Mom and Dad and Kelli and Nate got the rooms with bathrooms joined and the kids and nick and I got the bedrooms that had double beds and bathrooms across the hall. (Nick and Kelli played rock, paper, scissors for the rooms...kind of funny).

WHen we got there they were having a little craft area out back of our building so the kids got face paintings, decorated pet rocks, had snacks and drinks and got balloons. A storm blew in(with tiny amounts of rain, so it all got packed up and put away pretty quickly), but still the boys had fun.

So you ask what we did all day for 4 days??? We sat in the sun and we swam till we turned into prunes. They had 3 different water parks here at the site. Two of which were outdoors and one was indoors. We spent the majority of the time outdoors until we had all had enough sun for the day but still wanted to swim...then we moved indoors. It really was relaxing just sitting by the water with your feet in it to keep cool, and watching the kids play and catch waves(in the wave pools).

We would come back each day for lunch at the condo and while we got lunch ready this is where you could ALWAYS find the kids....sitting on the couch watching tv.

At first liam was a bit scared, but after a couple times down the water slides with nick he was saying "gin" over and over. He really did love it!!

The indoor park had this surf pool so Elijah, Avery, Caden and Nick all took a shot at it. I only have a picture of Caden and Nick....Elijah fell right away(and lost his britches) so no picture for him.

Liam loved the small kiddie pools with slides too. He was brave. He even would lay on his back head first and go down them. Silly boy!!

Nick standing and surfing. He actually had to sign a waiver/release form to do this(incase he would get hurt). It took him two trys and he got it!! Good job babe!

We returned from vacation on Wednesday evening. I basically had time to get things put away and laundry washed, and then it was time to think about our next event in the family. Nicks brother Austin got married on Saturday to an amazing girl named Karis!! Yeah....its nice having another sister on the waibel side!

Rehersal practice on Friday night. Don't they just look adorable in their coordinating outfits. Karis's dad is the pastor at Faith Baptist so he actually had the service for them on saturday.

Rehersal dinner...it was good food!!

The big day and these kids were so excited. Elijah and Avery passed out programs at the door and then Avery ushered in Great Grandpa and Grandma Wyss and Elijah ushered in Grandpa and Grandma Waibel. Caden and Alivia were ring bearer and flower girl. To cute!!!

Our family with Austin and Karis...its nice the kids finally get to call her "aunt Karis" now.

The very beautiful couple!! We are so glad to have you as part of the family Karis and we wish you and Austin a beautiful, happy life together as one!!

Garden Progress!

Well, its July and we are finally getting produce from our slow starting garden. We lost our tomato plants a couple times to deer, but after using Liquid Fence we never saw another plant uprooted or eaten down to the soil. Our tomato plants are just now getting tomatoes on them, but we are sure enjoying some of the other items. Our broccoli never did anything thus it was uprooted and we planted another 2 1/2 rows of beets so those are just coming out of the ground(I planted them on June 28th). Figure it will be nice to have a second harvest of those. We have almost eaten all the khalarbi (we have two left) and boy have they been good. We had our first pick of green beans last night and those were put on our lettuce salads and our shrimp packets on the grill. We also picked a zucchini which there will be plenty more of those coming soon!!! We have harvested lettuce(which was a last minute plant cause my mother had left over seeds) and we have cut it twice now. We have all eaten at least one a piece of the banana peppers and Im thinking I might get to pickle them if they keep coming like they are. We also ate one green pepper in our shrimp packets last night....yummm!!! Our rhubarb did NOTHING!!! Didn't even come out of the ground!! Guess I'll replant rhubarb next year. Our 4 cucumbers we planted we thought died and so I replanted 12 seeds and out of those 12 seeds 2 came up!!! REDICULOUS!! Well, those 2 new plants just died again last week, but to our shocking surprise the original plants are still alive and so we have 2 VERY LATE cucumber plants. In fact we have one little tiny cucumber coming and about 4 flowers...so we might be lucky to get a cucumber this fall:). Well, thats my update on the garden front. Here is a picture of our garden as of today:)
(starting at right is where khalarbi was, then its green peppers, green beans, 3.5 rows of beets, banana peppers, okra, lettuce, yellow and green zucchini, tomatoes and cucumbers)

I just simply love this!!!

June 20th, 2011

At 8:30 am a storm came rolling in. It woke me up, but thats probably because for the past month we have had some nasty storms here and quite frankly have been pretty serious, so I was thinking...this one sounds like the others. I was about seconds away from getting all my kids up and in basement, but decided to just wait it out. Storm was over and Elijah noticed a tree out back on the ground. We ventured out to see what tree was down. Needless to say, we didn't have one, nor two, but 4 tree's that I could tell were visibly damaged. My heart sunk as I noticed that part of some tree's were atop the treehouse as well. I could NOT tell if the treehouse was damaged or not.
This large tree had its top removed thus taking out the tree's in its path as it fell. So if you look closely you can see two other skinny tree's that were broken off on the tops too. This large tree top also took off the top of the treehouse's tree so now our treehouse sits on a tree that is all sunny and broken apart. Which you can see in the picture below how the top of the treehouse tree is missing.

Here is what we saw when we walked outside to check on treehouse.

My dad, brother, grandpa, sister joy, nick and I all cleaned it up one afternoon. We got the majority of it done that afternoon, but my dad and brother had to come in with the backhoe and remove the top limb that was still attatched to the top of the tree on the treehouse tree. The picture below is of what we got finished the first day and you can also see the large log hanging above the roof (this is what had to be removed with the backhoe).

We are thankful it wasn't any worse. The treehouse needs a little attention. We have a hole in the roof and some siding is torn, but for now the kids still play in it. The actual tree is not nearly as straight as it once was so we will find out in a few years if the root system got torn up if the tree starts to die in a few years. If so, not real sure where our tree house will end up at??

Need some wood anyone??? We have an abundance of fire wood now. Its sad to look out back at our woods and see SUN shinning brightly thru it. When all work was said and done we ended up with 5 tree's damaged or uprooted in from this storm. And yes that is not counting the two tree's we lost prior to this storm in another one of our nasty storms this past spring. Im praying for some nice weather the rest of the year thru. No more straight line winds and please no more tornado's!!

Can't go without....

a post of our season's first boating! Of course this post is probably just like the past several years post, but its part of our life and I know I'll enjoy looking back at the different years we had on our boat.
The typical place Elijah and Caden sit for lunch. Oh how they love "boat lunches".

Liam's very first time tubing. I was glad to go with him as I am not terribly fond of tubing so it was a nice lazy ride which I enjoyed.

Elijah enjoys himself some wakeboarding, however not so much this day. He took a spill and the wakeboard came up behind him and smacked him in his head. He did a little damage by splitting open his head a bit. Not to big though, cause after awhile he got up and was back out on the water.(once the blood clotted of course).

Now that liam is older he is way more fun to take on the boat. Last year when the boat stopped he would cry so it was kind of annoying when changing out skiers. This year, he has enjoyed it and has usually been a happy boy. AND he loves it when the boat stops cause he thinks he can SWIM!

The water was pretty cold so he didn't want to ski this day, but he was glad to kneeboard.(although he doesn't look like he enjoyed it here)

Caden turns SIX!

Totally out of order!!
So our sweet Caden turned six on June 9th (and yes I am just now posting about it). Caden oh how we love you. You are a very tender hearted little guy and it doesn't take much to make you cry at times. You are so sweet. You are such a good big brother to Liam and he watches and does everything you do. Caden we are so blessed to have you as part of our family and nick and I can't wait to see what God has in store for your life. We love you so much buddy!! HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY!!
You requested a construction party so mommy was put to the test and got to make a dump truck. I could NOT find any pans that were specifically for a dump truck(that was big enough to feed 30 people) so I used a fire truck pan and it gave some details on how to turn it into a dump truck. So needless to say I wasn't to happy with the way it turned out, but you LOVED IT so thats really ALL that matters!!

We were especially happy that Dan and Tess and Alisha were around and could help celebrate your birthday. What fun to have them at our party. Probably won't happen again since they all live so far away.

Caden got several amazing gifts. These chalks were from the Pritt's family and he has definitely used them up. I think he has a few small pieces left:). He got some clothes, some pool toys, dsi games, flip flops and several other things.