Fall Fun

We have several more trees in the rent house than we used to have yielding tons more leaves. We also have quite a slope in the yard. One night all my men went out and raked the leaves into a big pileat the bottom of the hill. The fun that ensued was...well...picture perfect :)

Robert kept covering the boys up with leaves as much as possible. Ian would not stay still long enough but Owen enjoyed getting buried.

It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately it got cold and dark quickly so the fun ended too soon.

Our New Niece

Two weeks ago we got the newest arrival to our extended family. My sister and her husband welcomed baby Kyndal as their first born. We already have 7 nieces and nephews in the family but this one is the first to be born after we got married and the first girl on my side of the family. I got the pleasure of taking her first pictures the other day and felt I needed to share them.

poor child just wanted to sleep

I almost got a smile

A lady Sean works with made this and Kim though it was sooo cute.

Lots of Bubbles

As we debate the pros and cons of buying versus building, staying in Conway versus moving further away we are renting a house to give us time to make the right decision. It isn't a bad little house. It is smaller than what we had before and I am really hurting in the kitchen, but we are coping. The one thing the kids have found that they enjoy the best is that the master bathtub has jets in it. Our first experience in the jet tub was a good lesson learned in the amount of shampoo one should use in a tub such as this.






We were very surprised when all of this came from a small handfull of shampoo. They absolutely loved it.

First Day of Kindergarten

Yesterday was Owen's first day of Kindergarten, and I am glad to say it was a good day. He had gone to a summer camp program at his elementary school where he learned the layout of the school, where all the classrooms were, cafeteria rules, and got to know a couple of the teachers and a hand full of students. He ended up with one of those teachers for Kindergarten so the first thing he did yesterday was walk in and give her a big hug. Made me feel really good about dropping him off there to know that he likes his teachers and knew about 3 other boys in his class already. When I picked him up he seemed to have had a really good day and was excited about going back today. He is growing up way too fast for me. Sometimes I wish time would stand still so I could catch up.

Our Trip To St. Louis

It was vacation time for us at the Kiilsgaard house this past week. We decided to take the drive to St. Louis and have a little fun. Our first day we went to the Zoo which was really nice. There was plenty of shade so we didn't get TOO hot, and the best part is that it was FREE!! You had to pay for some of the attractions like the dinosaur exhibit and the seal show, but the rest of it was free and the kids loved it.






We then took our kids to Six Flags where they got to ride some cool rides and see lots of characters. Ian was kind of shy about seeing bugs bunny, but was ECSTATIC to see Batman and Robin. They loved the huge ferris wheel and the little log ride where we got a little wet. Owen barely weighed enough to do the trampoline with the bungees. We also spent a day at the water park (sorry no pictures of that one, believe me you don't want to see that!) where they had probably the most fun. We will definitely go back when the kids get a little bit taller and can ride some more of the rides.

Preschool Graduation...so cute!

So Owen graduated from preschool this year. It was such a cute little
ceremony! They had caps and gowns for all of the kids in his graduating class. They sang some songs, and did some little nursery rhyme readings. Then the daddy's each got to read a little paragraph about why each child was special to their family. It was a lot of fun, and the children all felt really special. It is good for them each to have a little moment like that. I really do love the family that runs our preschool, and appreciate them so much for all the things they do with my kids.

Puddle Play

There has been so much rain lately that we just had to take the time to play in it :) The kiddos got VERY wet but had a ton of fun! Maybe some day it will dry out.

Adventures in Potty Training

It is time...we are tired of buying diapers. He is 2 1/2 and we decided it was time for underwear on Saturday. We went through 6 pairs of underwear and I think 5 pairs of pants on Saturday and I thought oh my heck what are we doing. Sunday we went through 3 pairs of underwear and pants so sit got a little better. I think his dedication to playing is going to be our biggest obsticle. He doesn't want to go potty because he is too busy doing so many other things. I didn't give our old daycare enough credit for potty training our oldest, but since they were all the same age it was easier to set a schedule, take everyone at the same time, etc... We hardly had to do ANYTHING. It hink it will be a little more challenging with this one because he is with a wider age range of kids and there is not that schedule and learning together. Hopefully we can all make it through this un-scarred. We shall see.