Purple Chairs

Even though they each got their chair from someone different and at different times, they all just happen to be purple and they love them!

Today marks a tradition we've had with all three girls - that their first 'food' is ice cream. Rachel got her first taste of the awesome stuff this evening when we stopped to get a blizzard on our bike ride. And our great news of the day is that my computer has returned good as new as I am now using it once again to update :0)

How to Bake an Apple Pie

realize that it's time to start picking apples before they all fall to the ground (although I'm not sure we'll ever run out, there are hundreds on the tree!)

gather the family outside to help

Start picking











Sort through apples and put the very best in the bucket and the spotted and ground ones in the basket


Take turns climbing up the tree to find the biggest apples (can you see us up there?!)
Peel, cut and slice the apples while making a simple pie crust.

Bake to a golden brown

Enjoy!

The apples on our tree are so tiny that it was quite a time consuming task to take on, but the delicious pie was worth it! But to add to the 'work' load our dishwasher seems to be broken now - somehow smoke pouring out of it doesn't seem real safe to me! What a day to decide to bake more zucchini bread and an apple pie!

Relay for Life

I was so busy helping with things for the relay that I have hardly any pictures at all! I know some people that got some of our show 'Deal or No Deal' so I'm hoping to get some from them - we'll see. It was a very busy couple of days, but overall a big success. For anyone that wants a fun weekend just come to Gettysburg during Relay for Life. There were speeches, music, poems, food, a young lady that had her head shaven to honor and support her grandmother who is going through chemo right now, large inflatables for the kids, luminairies to light the walking path, the game show Deal or No Deal (organized by yours truly, Mark was the host and I was the banker - and would you believe the winner won $500!!! and dontated it all back :0) a Survivor game, plus lots more stuff. Last time Sarah Sprengler was here and was on a Survivor team with Mark and I was helping with it. This year because I was so busy with Deal I didn't help with Survivor and had planned to be on a Survivor team. But the game doesn't start until 11pm and our girls were DONE at that point, so Justin Harer kindly substituted for me and I brought the girls home. I'd love to say I got more sleep that way, but instead waited up for Mark to hear all about it. His team made it to 3 rounds before getting eliminated. What fun!

4 Years Ago...

4 years (3 babies, 2 cats and 1 move) ago today Mark and I got married on a very hot day in Lexington, NE. To celebrate we went out to dinner w/out children. We took our wedding pictures and reminiced (sp?) it was very nice. We kept the 3 babies and we stayed with the move, but we got rid of the 2 cats. :0) Hope this finds everyone enjoying today as much as we are.

Shots!

Rachel is now in agreement with every other baby that has to start their immunizations that shots stink! Even though I've done this with two others before her, I don't think I am ever prepared to hear those first cries/screams that have never come out of her until those needles. Ugh! No fun for Rachel or mom, but we survived - and she had a great apt otherwise. When corrected for prematurity she is in the 90th percentile for height and weight @ 9lbs 13 oz and 23 inches! Wow has she ever grown! We're so used to petite Gabie who even corrected for prematurity has always been below the 5th percentile. Maybe Rachel will outgrow her sister before too long! We're getting ready for the big Relay for Life here in town so I may not have time to update in the next couple of days, we'll see.

Making Music

I put the star light up thing on the motion setting which means in order to get the music going you have to wiggle/kick/hit the bars on the mat in some way. It didn't take long for Rachel to figure this out and it entertained her for quite awhile, she was absolutely facinated with the lights and music.

One of the booths at the convention was a mission group that takes in women that are rejected by their families for becoming Christians. They teach them a trade and then help them to sell it. These were dolls made by some of the women. Grandma got a doll for Eliya and Gabie and Elie picked one out to give to Kirstie who came over to play this evening.

Monty and Lori's House

Aunt Stephanie made both the girls 'name' bracelets which they proudly wore to church this morning.





We got some zucchinni (sp?) from someone at church this morning so this afternoon I made some z.bread with it and we took it out to Monty and Lori's with us since they invited us over for dinner. It's always fun to hang out on the farm and as you can see the girls had a wonderful time playing in the mud puddle created by the sprinklers.

Ice Hockey!

When the tempurature hits 100+ and the kids want to play outside it's up to mom to be creative...so I took some ice cubes and a variety of 'sticks' and we played a little ice hockey. 10 minutes later we were back inside, but we had a blast and stayed (a little) cool in the meantime. (I have also now added pictures from Houston, so scroll down to catch up on our week)

Sorry Everyone!

Hello, yes, if you read comments you know we are alive and well. I had every intention of updating this past week. Mark was elected to go to the synodical convention in Houston and we went with him. I took the computer along in hopes to update from the hotel, but alas my computer broke somewhere between here and Houston. We received many phone calls from concerned friends and family - we are so sorry to worry everyone! Thank you Claudia for commenting on our 'status' (and don't worry we made our flight!) I'm using Mark's computer right now so it might be awhile before I have a chance to update pictures, but hopefully we can get my computer fixed soon and be back on track.

Houston - Thursday

No pics from today - we were on our way home...but the convention was a huge success - many agreed the best unity we've seen in quite a few years. And it was fun for us and the girls to get to spend the week with grandma and grandpa Moldenhauer. We were qutie nervous about not getting home on Thursday. Our flight was late taking off from Houston and we arrived in Denver @ 8:35. Our flight to Sioux Falls was scheduled to leave from Denver @ 8:05 - but they waited for us! I guess when you have 16 of the ticket holders on a little plane coming together they hold up for you, but it was still quite a run from one end of the concourse to the other - I guess we're all a little out of shape! But we made it back to Darren and Susan's and got home around noon on Friday. Overall a great trip!

Houston - Wednesday

My dearest friend from my growing-up years in Pilger, NE now lives in Houston, so the girls and I joined Rachel (Goeller) Bottlinger (sp?) for the day. She picked us up and showed us around Houston a bit and then we went to the children's museum there. The girls had a lot of fun exploring. She dropped us off early afternoon and we all had naps and than she and her husband, Jason, came back and we went on a little adventure for supper. Houston has a light rail system so we walked to that and as Elie would say 'took the train' to the Aquarium. This is a cute little place with a merry-go-round with all water animals, a feris wheel and large tanks of fish swimming around you while you dine.
This was their favorite part of the museum ~ the farmer's market. They would fill basket after basket with fruits and veggies.

Rachel and Elie building the 'unsinkable ship' at least that was the goal. They built the walls so high that even after it hit bottom, no water came in it.











legos are always fun and I'm not sure why (maybe she was homesick!) Gabie was totally in love with this cow.










There was a life-size doll-house outside that was a hugr hit for quite awhile, and they both enjoyed the science experiments.












a very fishy ride

followed by a fishy seat with a fishy meal

Houston - Tuesday

It's amazing to me how incredibly uncomfortable this looks to me, and how quite content the girls were to be in these positions. Grandma and I decided to do some exploring this morning and found a downtown mall. We were able to explore awhile before bringing some lunch back for the guys. Then the girls and I went swimming while they had their lunch.

Houston - Monday

Grandma and Grandpa had a lunch date with the Minnesota north district (our district treated us to breakfast each morning @ 6:30am - the breakfast was a treat I'm not so sure about the time...so after Mark had a sandwich we went upstairs to the 24th floor for the swimming pool. Mark watched Rachel while I took Elie and Gabie swimming.