Today has been full of looking for and ordering shoes.  Dallas can barely get his tennis shoes on, eventually he does, but then says the back hurts.  Emily has tennis shoes, but prefers to wear a more casual shoe with her "outfits", she has been wearing flip-flops until they broke this weekend on the way to Galena.  Robert wore out his daily shoes at the beginning of summer which was fine, he can wear sandals a lot in the summer.  He started wearing his dressier shoes when he needed too.  Hence, his dress shoes are pretty ratty looking, and he now sometimes wears his new running shoes during the day which is a little too casual for the look he needs to present some days.  I think that is four pairs I need to replace.  Oh, and it is sort of snowing/sleeting today, it really is time to retire the sandals we have all been wearing everyday since May.  Noelle and I seem to have lots of shoes to wear, I am looking to replace my workout shoes, but that requires a trip to Ankeny for me.
And less pressing is that Robert will need new winter boots and a pair of work boots, perhaps I can make those the same boot?


Emily and I have been working diligently on learning Christmas songs on the piano.  We can play three duets so far, and are working on a fourth.  It is fun to play together. 

If anyone is wondering the Gluten-free brownie mix from Aldi is delicious.

Robert and I had a wonderful date last week.  We went to the Straight No Chaser concert with some friends.  It was wonderful, and reminded me how much I miss attending concerts and good performances.  The amazing thing about SNC, is they are completely a cappella, no back track or singing to music.  When you hear what sounds like drums, it is a person singing!

http://www.sncmusic.com/video/straight-no-chaser-prayer-live-songs-decades

Jen and Chad's Wedding

We spent the weekend in Galena, IL celebrating the nuptials of Jen and Chad.  Robert and I had a lot of great family time.  He worked frantically on the drive there, he had a 6:00 pm pacific coast deadline, and we needed to be in Galena by 6:00 central time.  I think it might have been the second time in 12 years of marriage that I have driven him on a trip.  It really isn't his favorite thing, and usually makes him a little nauseous to be the passenger. I drove the first two hours, he submitted his work and took over.  And you know what, he didn't do another work related thing the rest of the weekend, it was so nice.  He has been working or on the phone constantly for the last month, it was so nice to just have him.  It was so refreshing.  The only thing that would have made it more perfect is more than one bed in our hotel room.  My public complaint is if you are going to call the room a suite, and you are going to make it big, and you are going to but a sitting area with a couch in it, why in the world would you not make the couch a pull out like every-other hotel in the world.  Five people, one bed... thankful it was a king, but really.

 

Robert walked Jen down the isle until she met Dallas.  The ceremony was wonderful.  The location perfect, and it is super good luck to have it rain on your wedding day.  We figured out that it rained on Mark and April's day as well as Robert and I's day, so why  not theirs!

 The Trolley ride downtown to the dinner reception was a big hit with these kids!

Noelle with a camera

Noelle was quite the photographer this weekend.  Her little hands could barely keep the heavy thing upright.  Her is a little sampling of her non-blurey work.

 

Emily Reads

This is the first segment of a new series to the blog, I have decided to document all the many places Emily reads.

 

The girls love to climb into bed on Saturday morning at watch a cooking show.  As Noelle calls it, "the one I like", 8:30 is The Pioneer Woman, we watch and wait for the boys to bring our Saturday donuts.

This was our last all girls week treat, hot chocolate for N, vanilla steamer for E, and coffee for me

 

This is what he did the first morning he was home from the trip

 

 

 

 

 

These growing kids are all mine!

18 things

 A great $4.99 find a TJ Maxx, entertained the littles with a side of education.

 We dog-sat Riley for a couple days

 These girls were ready for the ISU-Iowa football game

 Then we dog sat Oscar for a week, he is such a great dog

 This little guy is so creative.  He made himself a marching drum with bungees.

 It was good to see these sweet friends, why do we let 35 miles seem like 2000 miles?

 These pretty little girls had their well checks.  One little gal grew 5 inches in one year, the other big gal sprouted up 3 inches.

 Emily's wonderful advising teacher gifted her a children's dictionary.  It is wonderful, was brand new in the plastic, and was published in 1986.  The index contained some funny stuff about computers possibly being in every school in the future!  I think the picture above looks very similar to my elementary computer lab.

 Another creative creation by my Dallas.  Ramps for the car, complete with a creeper for the mechanic to slide under the car.

 Just some friends having tea, their owners were also having "tea and cookies"

 These two, there are no words....

 Tooth #11

 Hole #11, 30 hours later hole #12 happened

 This... This is two meals, one meal prep, sandbox trappings, fours kids worth, one morning of school and playdough.  I can't believe this used to sit on my carpet.  Thankful for my new floors, and perhaps missing my Bo who wouldn't let a chip sit on the floor long enough to be swept.

 Again, these two...

 Emily is into drawing any picture she sees.  Mom and boy fox by a tree watching a bunny.

 We had some precious baby Audrey time. 

Audrey and I took an obscene amount of selfies, I will spare you the rest.  She is just perfect, I am so luck to live close.  I can't wait until my girls and I can steal her away for some girl time.