First day of school, 2010

Today was the first day of school for the kids, hooray! :)  Grace could not wait, she has been so excited for several weeks.  She's had her 1st day of school outfit picked out and hanging on her door for 4 days.  Last night she tried to paint her toenails and ended up smearing polish all over two of her toes, so we had to do an emergency pedicure.  She was very worried that her toes would look bad in her sandals :).
It's Tyler's last first day of high school :( !!  I think he's ready to get it over with :).  Matt is excited to see his friends, hopefully he'll calm down a little this year.  Ben was sort of excited, he likes his new teacher. 

A little redecorating

Just in case we end up listing our house in the next month, we've started a few fix-up projects.  Rich & Tyler are getting the outside spiffed up and I've started the 'staging' process.  Can you tell I've moved way too many times?  I know just by looking at things what needs to be done....I also think I've watched a little too much HGTV :).   I put a few things on the walls of the two upstairs bathrooms just to jazz it up a little.  I got the cubes and two pictures from Kohl's today, then found the knick-knacks around the house to put on the cubes.  Heidi, do you see my IKEA wicker balls in that jar above the toilet?  Heidi and I bought matching wicker balls at IKEA and I finally found something to put them in!

And this is in Rich & I's bedroom....I got a new shower curtain from Garnet Hill, a ledge shelf, 2 pillar candles, and the 4 vases and flowers are from IKEA.  The shower curtain colors are pretty muted, so the brights don't look fantastic, but I think it'll do for now.  I may replace the green pillars with lavender or sage. 

Daglum weekend

Before heading to Minneapolis, Grace & Ben went over to spend the night with Grandpa Jim.  Roman (my Grandpa Stewart's brother) was visiting too.  I came over the next day with the dogs, who Grandpa very graciously said he'd babysit for us while we were out of town.  Gilman's daughter Debbie, her husband Eric and son Nick were back from California for a couple of weeks to work on the farm and clean it up a little, so it was fun seeing them too!  They invited us to dinner, which was really nice.  It reminded me of the old days a little, when we'd go down to Gilman's with my grandparents :). 
                                                                   Monica, Debbie & Roman        
                      

A picture I took of a picture.  The 4 Peterson boys:  Stewart, Noble, Roman and Gilman

A cool old sign Debbie found when she was cleaning out the barn

Jim, Roman, Grace, Debbie, Eric and Monica

A beautiful sunset peeking over Flagstaff Butte

Paradise!!!  The wheat is golden...so beautiful!

Great time in Minneapolis!

We met the Watt families, Joel & Heidi, and my mom for our annual August trip to Linda's house last week.  We had a great time, as usual!  Thank you so much Linda, for putting up with us all.  Your tireless hospitality was so gracious!  Thanks to Adam too for bunking the boys.  We went to the Mall of America one day...the kids rode the rides and Grace got to go to the American Girl store.  She brought her doll Ruthie along, and we got her hair fixed, she had a facial, and she had her ears pierced :).  We also went to IKEA, my new favorite store.  Love, love, love!  Heidi and I could have spent all day in there!  We had great meals, a nice time with family, and fun shopping...perfect!

playing ping pong at Adam's

Tyler meditating in Adam's twirly chair

Ruthie before

And Ruthie after!  Isn't she glowing?  :)

All of the cousins...from 17 to 4!  Tyler, Lexi, Matt, Ethan, Ben, Andrew, Grace, Eli, and Noah

Cathy, Linda and Carol

I almost forgot...Heidi, Linda, Katherine and I went to the musical Wicked in downtown Minneapolis on opening night!  It was really good, and such a fun thing to do!

Look who's riding his bike!

That's right, Ben!  He learned to ride his bike when he was 5, but has hated it ever since.  Last week I decided to issue him a challenge...ride a little bit each day this week, and go for a bike ride with me at the end....and if you do I'll buy you a new DS game!  He accepted whole-heartedly :).  I got the bike out of the shed, pumped up the tires, and he seriously took right off down the street.  He's been riding non-stop since Tuesday!  He loves riding his bike now....it's so exciting!

The WORST landscaping project EVER!

The neighbor to the north of our house came over to say that the rock beside our driveway was going underneath her fence and into her yard.  So one day she and her son came over, pulled the rock back from the fence, and put some landscaping timbers under the fence.  Problem being the timbers were on our side of the property line, and they pulled dirt and mud back with the rocks, so it's a huge mess.  Rich pounded the timbers under the fence so they were on her side, and has been sorting and spraying off rock for about 3 weeks now.  It's SUCH a mess, and a job only a prisoner deserves to do :).  The people that lived here before us put way too much dirt and rock there in the first place, so Rich has had to take a couple of wheelbarrow loads of stuff and dump it behind the shed. 

Vacation, part two

After going to Randy's, we drove to Galesburg for a night.  The kids went to a movie with Grandmother and Grandpa, and Rich and I took Matt out for his birthday supper.  The next day we drove down to Kelley & Dan's.  Dan planted a tree for each of the kids when they were born, it's so neat to see how big they've grown!  Their flowers and garden looked spectacular, they definitely have green thumbs! 

And back in Ankeny the day before heading for home: