It is high time I catch up and keep up on our blog! It has been almost a year and a lot has happened!
Deana has since graduated speech and as long as she is not around her big brother she does not stop chattering. And it is chattering...she is making up for the delay in speech and asks everyone in the stores what they are buying/doing and why and most often she asks "what next?" She still thinks it's funny though to sign with Bubba and leave Mommy guessing what they're scheming...

We did a lot of camping last summer, the kids love it and I need the time away from the house with them so that I am not so distracted with housework that I don't appreciate how quickly they are growing up. We rent our trailer out (to pay for tuition, and it did this year) and I am camping with it whenever it isn't rented, it is out a lot at Chapel in the Pines. This is only a mile or so from home but it's quiet and the kids have reign of the park during the week and the water is clear and shallow (the only way I will swim in a lake) and safe for the kids to roam. Tim comes out at night and goes back home for work so it's good that we're so close to the store.

Everett started kindergarten this year. He had a hard fall season with asthma but only missed a few days of school, they go every other day so that worked good for us and his allergies because it usually takes about a week from start to end when he is having trouble. He was really tired at the start of the year and we attributed it to the asthma meds but come to find out he was only seeing with one full eye! His right eye just has peripheral vision, no central and that left eye was compensating for it making him really tired (understandably so!). He has surgery March 1 and we hope to stop any progression of sight loss in both eyes. It has started in the left but is not as severe as the right eye. Other than this he is a very normal and rambunctious 5 year (almost 6) year old. He loves soccer and riding his bike and giving his little brother piggy-back rides around the house. He has lost 2 teeth and has a loose 3rd but he won't let me pull it!

Jackson is about as terrible as terrible 2s can be...he is into everything he can get his hands on. 3 times he has emptied bottles of baby powder all over the nursery! He likes the taste of it, yuck! He loves to empty lotions and hair gels too. He has drawn with crayon on almost every one of my walls and then has clean it off by himself, with my magic eraser.

He and Everett are terrible mean to their sister Deana and way too helpful with Kara. Although they did sit down for a picnic with her today so I guess they're not all bad. They knew exactly what they wanted...little ham sandwiches, carrots, grapes, cheese sticks, and juiceboxes. So this also became dinner and they were none the wiser, eating from Deana's pink and purple princess tea set!

Kara is 3 months now, she was born November 13. The end of the pregnancy was terrible but the rest was not so bad, I actually lost almost 40 pounds! She was 7pds 12oz (I think), my biggest one yet! She is extremely good and loves all the attention she gets. She eats and sleeps on a schedule and when we are out she usually sleeps the whole time. She goes to bed around 9:30 and sleeps until about 7am, she has done this from the start and it definately makes up for the end of the pregnancy! I had a lot of little problems with this pregnancy, but the culmination of them made it my worst yet, maybe I am just getting to old for this, hmmmm!

Tim is starting to get busy again in the butcher shop, we had a little lul between deer season and spring but it looks like things are picking up a little earlier this year. This is good, it means we are getting new farmers and buyers and word is getting around and people like us! It's interesting to see where this business takes us there are a lot little paths we can take off the main line of butchering and it's neat to see where we go.

I am on a serious excerise and "eat right" kick and it's sort of working, first I lost weight and now I am noticing my shape is changing but not as much weight loss. I guess it's shifting around but hopefully I can start losing again. I am also the queen of organization and have stowed everything I can in grey totes and labeling them all. They are floor to ceiling in the boy's closet and everywhere there is room for them. You see, I don't nest when I'm pregnant I just wait until it's over and then hit it full force! I do the same with cleaning my house, I can't believe some of the things I don't notice to clean when I am pregnant but when I'm not it's real obvious!
It sounds like we are headed to MN again over Memorial Day and seeing my last blog was about last year's trip I thought I should maybe catch up on the fam. before we go.

Tim & I had a little romantical getaway a couple of weekends ago. We drove to Traverse City on a Thr. and visited wineries and toured the city. On Fri. Barnhills and Dykstras came up and we went out sledding, it was like sledding but to the extreme...the hill was iced over and we were on tubes and had a leader that gave us spins with the maximum g-force, I thought I was going to go "wingin" off but thankfully my hiney stuck in the hole of the tube so I really had nothing to worry about! I had to roll to the left with all my force to get out of the dumb thing! On Sat. we did a "thrift trail" and visited the local thrift stores, we didn't find much but it was fun anyway. It was a great little vacation (even though we went somewhere colder, than warmer!)

All right, well, TTFN and I will write again when I have updates!