First Haircut

This will be a quick post with some pictures from this last week. I have so much to do and to get ready for **drumroll** our VACATION!! That's right, I finally wore Chris down and he surprised me Thursday night by coming home and saying we are out of here!! (Friday that is)

Actually, the conversation went like this:
Chris: "Pack up we are going on vacation."
Me: "Please, I could only wish"
Chris: "No, seriously, pack up we are going on vacation"
Me: "Yeah right, don't tease me"
Chris: "Really, we are going to Yellowstone next Friday"
Me: "YES!!!" stress and panic hit me like a ton of bricks

This couldn't be the worst timing ever. We have show meetings, school meetings, I have TRB training, family pictures are scheduled at the church, I signed up to make desserts for the auction at church, not to mention all the planning and prep for Evan's birthday. But, I have been harping at Chris forever about taking time away from work and getting away. So, I better not complain, it might be another 4 years before we get to do this again!

Back to my post. Friday Evan got his 1st haircut!!! It was hanging over his ears and getting long in the back and he just needed to have it trimmed up and not look so shabby. But he now looks so much more grown up. I can't believe how much it aged him. He is so stinking cute and I really don't want him to turn 1!! Why do they have to grow up so fast. And the second child feels like it is going faster than the first :( Just not fair.

He sat in the chair all by himself like a big boy! He didn't want to wear the cape so he was covered in hair.






So sweet!


I love this one. Lounging and hanging out!!

Just this last week Evan has become quite the little monkey. He wants to climb on everything. And it was so cute, when we got home from haircuts, I was folding laundry and as soon as the basket of clothes came out, he was climbing in. And he just sat there on top of my laundry. I had to yank everything out from underneath him. Once the basket was empty, he climbed back out and found something else to play with.




But he must get from his sister, as you can tell, she also likes to play with the baskets!



Madi also got her haircut Friday. Getting all these things done before school starts in a couple weeks.

"Madi, smile so I can get a picture of your new haircut."


"Huh?"


"No, smile so I can have a nice picture."


That's better!


Then she steals the camera and I download a dozen (mostly blurry) of her making silly faces.


Saturday we went over to Ellsworth with Chris' cousin Mike and Gina and Kenley and Caleb to their Cowtown Days. What an outstanding event. So family and kid friendly. We all had so much fun. They blocked off the whole downtown area down to the Cowtown Museum. They had a parade, a sand pile filled with coins that the kids dug around in and collected, pedal tractor pull, inflatables, water balloon races and games, bob for apples, floating boat races, barrel train ride, a carousel and so much more. The food vendors had really reasonably priced food, they had people strolling around handing out free water, they had a ping pong ball grab. That was really fun. A lineman got up in his bucket truck about two stories up and dropped a box of ping pong balls down onto the kids below. Each ball had $1 or $.50 written on it. The kids collected as many balls as they could and then cashed them in. (SHHH, don't tell anyone) but Chris helped out our little girls. I'm sure they wouldn't have been able to collect as much as they did without his help. And Madi's favorite part of the whole day, they opened the fire hydrant and put out a fire hose with a sprinkler on the end and everybody got to play in the water. Madi would have been content just doing that the whole day. She was soaked!! But it was nice to get cooled down, it was in the 100's again Saturday.


All that fun, she crashed hard on the way home!!

Must get busy, that turned out longer than I thought it would. We will be back on September 6. Looking forward to the 70 degree weather in Wyoming. I plan on bringing it back with us too. I am ready for fall!!

Love, Amy

11 Months and More

Last week was the fair. We had a lot of fun but it was so very hot. I think I am still trying to catch up, the heat just wipes me out anymore.

Wednesday morning we went down to the fair grounds and entered a drawing that Madi did and I entered canned tomatoes and a jar of our mulberry jam in the open class judging. My ultimate goal is to hopefully get Madi into 4-H. I think it would be a wonderful learning opportunity for her. But you can't start 4-H until 8 years old. So, I thought we would start now with open class categories and get her thinking about these things throughout the year. She loved looking at the garden entries so maybe next summer she will want to help out more in the garden and enter her own home grown veggies. She also liked the flower arrangements. And got really excited when she found flowers entered that we have growing wild out in our field that she loves to pick. But we didn't have enough time to get them entered for this year. It's really neat because they have children's categories for as young as 5 and under. So next year we will probably try and enter more. So far my plan for her to think about things she wants to enter in the fair is working. All week, every picture she draws she says it is for the fair.

Wednesday evening was the parade. Chris drove the show tractor and pulled the wagon behind filled with some very happy kids! There were 6 kids riding. I walked along with my friend Sherry, and Chris' cousins Kristy and Gina and we handed out candy. I bought a lot of candy but we were still almost two blocks short of having enough. The poor kids at the end of the parade didn't look very happy. We must not have been the only ones to run out.


Madi with her cowgirl outfit on. She picked out new pink boots and a pink cowboy hat this year.


Madi, Kenley, Mayci, and Carly. They were all just way too cute!!


We were towards the back of the parade so we were able to sit and watch most of it before hopping into the wagon. The kids were still able to collect candy and not get antsy waiting. Worked out great.


The wagon with the kids waiting.

We went to the fair Thursday night. The kids pedal pull was in the Bi-Center and all three girls participated again this year. Madi was the first kid to go and they didn't have a very good, level surface for the kids to pull on. But Madi got going and kind of veered off the course and once she felt a little resistance, she just stopped pedaling. I am sure she could have gone further but she had fun. Until they handed out prizes. They had trophy's for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Kenley got 3rd and got her trophy and Madi lost it. She was so upset that she didn't get anything. Last year, every participant got a ribbon and it made it seem like everyone won. This year, the kids could clearly see if they won or not. Very disappointing but a good lesson for her to learn even if she didn't want to listen. Check out the video to see how they did!




After the pedal pull we went over to see how we did on our judging. I knew Madi was going to have a ribbon on her drawing. Every participant got a ribbon. So we were excited to go see it and show her that she also won but on something different. We get over there and surprise to all of us, Madi got third on her drawing and won the white ribbon. She was very excited. And not only did Madi get a ribbon, but we placed second on our tomatoes. I was shocked!!





We then spent the evening letting the girls ride the rides and they had a blast. After the rides, Mayci and Kenley came home with us and Madi had a sleep over. They stayed up really late and was up a lot earlier than I was hoping they would be.



I then took the kids back over to the fair grounds so we could wander around and see the animals since we didn't get that done the night before. We went to the petting zoo and the two baby goats were out and running around. The girls got to pet them and the baby ducks and the donkey. Evan also loved the donkey. He pet him and yelled at him and it just stood there and looked at him.




Saturday we went to Goessel for their tractor show. They have a really nice show with lots to see and do. They have a nice kids games and make and take crafts area. I like to go and get ideas for our show. They also have a parade that runs through the whole town. Madi stood on the road and collected candy while Evan and I watched and sweated. It was miserably hot that day and both kids just wanted to go, go, go. Madi did another pedal pull. Again she just stopped so we decided next time we would have to walk with her and keep cheering her on right in front of her. We'll see how that works. She placed third, but just her luck they only had prizes for 1st and 2nd. We left before she figured this out. Just to make it easier on her and us. Chris and Dan and a couple other members of the Flywheels sold tickets for the tractor and had a really good day.


Dan with the show tractor while Madi watches and waits for more candy.


Evan and I watching the parade.


They had these buckets of water so the kids could float their paper boats they build. Evan had a blast just splashing in the water. It cooled him down and was much safer than the corn table, since everything still goes directly into the mouth.


Today Evan is 11 months old. I can't even believe he is almost one. He is such a jabber box right now. All sorts of sounds, but still no words. He is busy exploring everything. And follows his sister around every where. Last night she was playing in her room with her Barbies so he wasn't allowed in. He just totally lit up when she finally came out to play with him about an hour later. The other day she was laying on the couch watching something on tv and not paying attention to him. He crawled up and stood right in front of her and screamed "ahh...ahhh...ahh" until he finally got her attention. It was so cute we just laughed. He loves anything with wheels and is really getting into tractors now. (I wonder why!!) We were reading a picture book and we got to the vehicles page and he saw the tractor. I asked him where is the tractor? He crawled over to his window and moves the curtain and yells towards the shed where the tractors are parked. Such a smarty pants. I was starting to worry because he isn't anywhere near what Madi was doing at this age and also looking at my nephew Jaxson and where he is at. But I think he is quietly taking it all in. And since his sister does everything for him, he doesn't have a chance! I'll stop worrying about it though. He is happy and healthy and so very lovable.

Have a good weekend!
Love, Amy

July

August already! Where has this summer gone? Where did July go and where was I?

Craziness, absolute insanity is really the only way to describe our summer so far. And because it has been so totally crazy busy, I just haven't had time (or taken the time) to sit down and update my blog. Sorry blog readers.

And the worse part of all of this, I don't have very good pictures to share this month. It is so hard to get pictures taken especially when we are out and doing things because I usually have an arm load and trying to keep Madi corralled. I usually remember afterwards! Oh well!

So to start off the month we had our BIG 4th of July party. And was it ever big!! The Sunday before, Chris and I spent the day running all over Kansas, hitting every fireworks stand. I tease but it really was fun. We don't get much time just the two of us and we really did have fun. The back of the van was completely loaded. We had to head home and unload before we could get the kids, we just could not cram them in there, there was no room. If you haven't been able to tell from the last two years, we both enjoy the 4th. Again Chris went over board and I cooked enough food to feed an army. Which was good, because we ended up having an army of people here...90!! But I wouldn't change a bit. Well, maybe next year we might have to go potluck, that was a ton of food to prepare. And I had so much fun with my decorations and food but of course, no pictures. Maybe next year!


We went out two more times after this pic and bought more!! Chris is such a pyro!!

Evan did great with the fireworks as long as he was at a distance. The loud ones scared him and he wasn't too sure about them. And of course Madi and the rest of the kids could care less about the fireworks! They watched periodically but spent the majority of the time running around and playing together. The guys shot everything off but a small box of the little novelty stuff. Every time we are in the shed Madi goes through the box and picks out the fireworks that she wants to shoot off that night. Very cute, she is going to be just like her Daddy!

Madi has had a busy summer so far with extra activities. She's been doing gymnastics again all summer and is still loving it. So sad to see they don't offer it in the fall or winter. She was also supposed to do dance but we went once and she totally refused to even go in and try it. Which was amazing! She is supposed to start dance classes in September, but we will see if that happens or not. She has also enjoyed some nature walks put on at the Lakewood Discovery Center. Each week was a different theme and they went out and walked on the trails, they did some craft projects and had snacks that went along. I think her favorite was the fish day. They actually went down to the lake with fishing poles and tried to catch fish. I don't think any of the kids actually caught anything, the teacher did. But the class was only an hour and a half so I'm sure they weren't there long. But she still talks about that class. We also did a couple of the summer movies at the movie theater. We took several different cousins with us and had a really good time.

Evan has been doing great this summer as well. He is such a doll, full of smiles. And he just melts my heart when he gets so excited to see me. He is cruising everywhere and getting in to everything. I need to rearrange my kitchen cabinets because that is his favorite place to play any more. In the last two weeks he has finally gotten some new teeth in. 3 on top and 1 on the bottom. He had a good check up last month. He weighs 21 lbs (62%) and 29.8 in long (90%). Still growing like a weed but very healthy. He isn't taking his Zantac anymore for the acid reflux, it seems he has out grown that, which is great. He did have an ear infection a couple of weeks ago. We did antibiotics and went back 2 weeks later. It wasn't inflamed but still had fluid on the ear drum. So she put him on Zyrtec until his year checkup and then see how it is doing. I like it much better than Benydryl, that stuff just knocked him out.

Evan is drinking out of his sippy cup really well. And since he has some new teeth he has been able to start eating some snacks and regular food which I am super excited about. He loves graham crackers and Nilla wafers, chicken, green beans, hot dogs, pretty much anything you put in front of him! I am so ready to be done with baby food and formula. I feel like I spend half of the day feeding some one because it is so hard to feed him at the same time as we eat. So, it will be great when I can make one meal and feed everyone at the same time. Evan is jabbering a lo now. Mostly just sounds, screams (wonder who he learned that one from!) and razzes. But he also started saying Mama. It's few and far between but he does say it. Usually when he is fussing and when he was waking up in the middle of the night. His cries would turn into "Mamamama!" Which of course made it even harder to ignore. But we finally got there. I feed him his bottle and then lay him down. He screams, REALLY screams, for about 2 minutes and then he is done and out for the night. So wonderful! And I am slowly moving it up closer and closer to 9 when I am able, which is also wonderful. Now just to get Madi closer to 9 would be heaven. I'm hoping the time change this fall will help (fingers and toes crossed)! Bedtime is still such a nightmare with her, UGH!

Chris has been so incredibly busy with work this summer. Summer is usually his busy time and we have been so fortunate to have remained busy this year. But he is also busy with his other projects. The show tractor for the Flywheels Fall Show in October has kept him busy. We finally got the tractor back to us, done and ready for shows the second week of July. Just the day before we made our first trip out with it on the 17th. We loaded up early and was on the road at 6 am to go to Meriden, KS. A two hour drive, just north of Topeka. It was so hot that day. But the kids were amazing. I was dreading it, knowing that it was going to be miserable and with no way of getting out of the heat. I was not expecting them to be as good as they were, but I am sure they were affected by the heat just as much as we were and there really was no energy spent on being fussy. It was a very quiet 2 hour drive home! We had planned on going to some other shows, one being this weekend. But just not sure if we want to sit in the heat again all day.


The show tractor in Meriden.

We are both on the committee for the Fall Show and have meetings every other week getting things ready and ironed out for the show. Chris is doing his tractor and then getting sponsors. I am doing the kids craft and play area again this year. We are also trying to get an Educational Day for Friday before the show for area school kids. So we may be doing something then also.

I have just been busy trying to keep up with everyone else and getting them where they are supposed to be with what they need. That's a full time job anymore. Chris is getting so frustrated because I haven't been able to make it to the shop on a regular scheduled day and keep up with the paper work. I am seriously thinking I need to find a baby sitter for one day a week. But that's not as easy when everyone works or has full daycare. We are still pondering the solution to this one :( And I can't believe it, but I am actually starting to work on Evan's birthday party. I can't believe we are getting so close to him being one, makes me very sad. But it's going to be a great party and I will definitely have pictures!

The rest of the summer is going to be busy. Tomorrow we are going to be in the fair parade. Chris is going to drive the show tractor and pull the wagon behind full of some very excited kids! I am going to walk and hand out candy. Thursday is the kids pedal pull and then we are going to go ride rides with Kenley, Mayci and Carly. Lots of fun!! We have several other tractor shows on the schedule, and we'll see if we make it. School orientation this month for Madi. Hopefully it won't be another month before I update again ;) No, tune in next week, I will have some cute pictures of a bunch of little cowgirls!

Enjoy the pics that I did manage to get this month!!
Love, Amy


Evan loves riding around in the Pink Stang.


Madi waiting to take first place in her pedal pull in Meriden!!


My cutie hanging out in the heat.


Chris thought Madi needed to learn to ride with no training wheels. The training wheels are back on by the way (that's how well that worked out!)


Evan loving the bubbles!


Such a great picture. She loves him, usually too much and too hard though. But no matter what, he follows her around everywhere and she gets all the kisses.

The End...And the Beginning

May was insanely busy. I can't believe how busy we were this month. I am so glad to see May is over and to get to start a new month and start all the craziness over!

Memorial weekend we had house guests. Chris', Mom's cousin Kathy, her husband Dino and their seven children (ages 12-2) came to Kansas from California. Whenever there is a large gathering of Solbach's from out of state we try to have a family get together. And since it was a holiday weekend, all the park shelters in town were already reserved so Chris and I volunteered to have everyone out to our house Saturday night for a family reunion. We had an amazing turnout with family from Salina, Wichita, Topeka, Texas, California and in between. We had a total of 80+ with a large number of kids running around. It was so much fun.


Bernadette, Paul, Cecilia, Mark, Madi, Meriam, Sophia, and Veronica. Amazing kids and a wonderful family. So glad to meet Kathy and Dino. You are all welcome back at any time!

We had tractor, golf cart, and four wheeler rides (of course!), lawn toys, bubbles, bikes and cars. They all had a blast! And the adults were able to sit around and visit and watch the kids play. We grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, and brats and had all the sides and lots of desserts. It was a lot of work before and after but it was a lot of fun and I would totally do it again.


Kenley, Madi, Alex, and Ava cruising. They had so much fun on that car!

During one of the tractor drives Sunday, Chris found some Mulberry trees out back in the tree row. We had never seen any fruit on these trees before but what a find! We went back out on Monday after our guests left to pick some. We found at least a dozen mulberry trees. Most of them are buried behind plum bushes and among other trees. But we ended up picking about 15 quarts of berries. It was tough, hot, buggy work. If we want to continue doing this every year, we are going to have to thin out the trees around the Mulberry trees in order to get to them easier. We ended up putting a tarp in the back of Dan's truck and shaking the limbs. This worked out well but then we had to sort all the leaves, twigs and unripe berries out. We probably spent a good 5 hours for those 15 quarts. By the time we got done, I didn't even want to think about doing anything with them. So we froze them and waited until today to can them. We made Mulberry Jam and it turned out really good. I can't wait to try it after it has set for a couple of weeks.


Our raw ingredients


Our final product. That 15 quarts made a lot of jam.

We have already been told that we could have at the pear trees again, they are producing a lot of fruit this year. And then the end of August, the plum bushes out back should be ripe so we will try to do some jam out of those also. That is if the deer, birds and other little critters leave us some!

Last week was Vacation Bible School at First United Methodist. I volunteered and lead a group of Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders around to their activities. Madi was able to participate and spent the week with the preschoolers. And Evan hung out in the nursery. He didn't do very well the first day. They had to come find me because he just would not stop crying. I ended up taking him to Jane for the rest of the day. But we kept at it and he did a little better each day until Friday when he had no problems. Madi had a lot of fun making crafts and playing with a bunch of new kids. This morning all the kids performed for first and second service and got to do another craft, have a snack and watch a movie. Madi didn't want to sing though. She said she was too nervous with all those kids on the stage with her. She didn't even mention the 200 people in the audience watching. Oh well, maybe next year!




My little astronauts with Galileo the Gorilla!

I spent the last part of the week in the afternoon trying to get our pool all cleaned up and ready for the summer. We finally were able to get in Friday night. At least, Chris, Madi, Evan and Dan did. I wasn't sure how Evan would like it, so I didn't want to get in. Plus, I was so sick of looking at it after spending every afternoon working on it, the last thing I wanted was to get in the stupid thing. But Evan absolutely LOVED it!! Of course Madi did too, she has been asking to go swimming for weeks. But I started by just sitting Evan on the side rail and letting him splash his feet. He was all smiles and really getting in to it. So, I got him changed and blew up his floaty, put him in and he was having fun. Smiling, splashing around, his little legs were just a kicking under the water. It was very cute. My kids are such water babies, they just love it!! We went our again tonight and he was a bit more clingy and I held him most of the time tonight but he was still having fun. And was totally exhausted when we got out. We weren't out of the pool 5 minutes and he was sacked out in my arms. I hadn't even had a chance to get him out of his swimming trunks and dried off! Maybe we should go swimming every night right before bed time!!


The first swim of the summer.


Such a happy little guy!


After swimming, such a gorgeous night.


My pretty girl!

Have a great week!
Love, Amy

Happy 4th Birthday Madi!!

Happy Birthday to Madi!! I can't believe she is 4 years old. How can time possibly move that quickly? It just doesn't seem possible.

Saturday was the big birthday party day!! We had so much fun and hope everyone that came had fun also.

The week before was supposed to be my busy week getting everything done for the party. I had so many ideas and things I wanted to get done. But life got in the way, and that's okay. Both kids had fevers all week. Monday night Madi came down with something and by Tuesday morning Evan had it. Neither one broke their 102 degree temps until Thursday afternoon. What a week. So, not everything happened and some things were rushed but the party turned out great and I'm glad I didn't do everything that I had thought of. It would have been WAY too much for a bunch of kids that just wanted to run around and play together.

So, here are some of the things we had at our Snow White themed party:

Since Madi isn't a girly girl and doesn't go for the frills of princesses (she's getting better but she is still my little tom girl) I decided to use the colors from Snow White's dress; Red, Yellow, and Blue.


Birthday banner.


And cupcakes, YUM!! I love my cricut, it makes it so easy to make things like the banner and the cute cupcake toppers!

I also went with the dwarf part of the movie and we had mini foods. Our menu consisted of sliders, little smokies, baked beans, mini carrots, cherry tomatoes, and celery sticks, dip, chips, macaroni salad and macaroni and cheese. I made cupcakes and also a small sheet cake. Of course I always make enough to feed an army because I am so afraid of running out of food.

After we ate, a party or any kind of gathering at our house is just not complete without a tractor ride. We can pretend we were going to the mine to work!! We whistled!





I took Madi's wagon and filled it with play sand and hid large plastic jewels from the craft department (the kind that you would put in the bottom of a flower arrangement) and gave them shovels to dig around and find jewels. Easy and pretty close to mess free.



Then all the little girls came in and did a craft. They had so much fun decorating their little mirrors with stick on jewels. Turned out very cute and was fast and easy.





After doing our girly craft we went outside and had so smash something. The pinata that is!! Each kiddo got to take a whack at the indestructible apple pinata. I made the pinata a little too thick because I was panicking and didn't think I would get it done in time. So if you make a pinata, three layers of paper and glue, two layers of spray paint and a layer of tissue paper on top of that will not make an easily breakable pinata. And the older boys whacked it so hard that a lot of the toys and candy inside got a little mangled! But they all had fun and had their personalized little bags to collect their goodies.



We then opened presents and had cake!!




Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated with us.

Since we celebrated early we wanted to make sure that today we actually celebrated her birthday. Not that she has any concept of what the actual date is. But we had a Madi day today. We went to the library and played and checked out books. Went to Pizza Hut and had lunch with Nana. Drove by the water park to see their progress. Played in the sprinkler this afternoon. She got to pick where she wanted to go for supper. She picked Grandma Max's so she could have pancakes (her favorite). We then went shopping and she picked out her present. It was a great day!! Happy Birthday my sweet girl, we love you so very much!