Birthday Party

Last weekend Cameron was invited to attend one of her friend's birthday parties at Adventureland. We thought she would have a great time and maybe not be such a chicken to go on rides if she had friends going with her. Well, she did have a good time, but still was a big chicken on a lot of the rides.

At the end of the day the moms thought it would be fun to get their picture taken at the old-fashion photo shop.

The workers asked us if we wanted them to hold guns for the pose. We thought maybe the guns should wait at least until they get in kindergarten.

Looking back....

Just remembering where we were 1 year ago today! This picture was taken after Parker returned from surgery at 19 days old. She had Malrotation meaning that her intestine was twisted. The memory of the surgical team bring her back to her room will never leave my mind. When she returned there was close to 20 people in her room not including Kyle, Al & me. The surgeon, her doctor, repository support, nurses, you name it, they were there. What a sight!! You can see they big patch on her stomach where the incision was. The scar is about 2 inches long, just to the right of her belly button. Her surgeon told us she can still be a model if she wants to. (With our genes, the scar probably won't be what holds her back!!)

Almost a year after that surgery, we just scheduled her surgery to correct the valve in her heart. It is causing extra blood flow in her heart which is making her body work harder than it should. We are very anxious to get this procedure done with so she is able to keep up!

Pumpkin Patch

This spring we took some seeds out to my parents house to plant our very own pumpkin patch. The girls have been watching them all summer. Here are few pictures I got one day when we took a little field trip.

This day we were watching our neighbor, Mason. They are picking raspberries in this picture. From the looks of their faces, they must not have tasted too good!

Multi-taker

Morgan has been very into playing with phones lately. Toy phones, old cell phones, our cell phones, you name it. She usually calls her friends, grandmas or maybe Marcy some days. 'How you doing?' 'OK', 'OK'. It goes on for sometime. What I love the most about this picture is that you have to look close to see that she does have a phone on her shoulder. One day she will be quite the multitasker by the looks of her phone skills at this age.

Fixer upper

Kyle and I have lived in our house for almost 6 years. We really are not very confident when it comes to little fixer-up projects. So instead of tackleing simple things we tend to just ignore them and only do project that must get done.

This weekend we made a pact to get all those little projects done (mostly painting) done by the end of March (our 6th year in the house). Here is a look at the first weekend of the home improvements. The stairs going to our basement. The paint palate before this was a light green straight from a 50's diner. We really like the way this one turned out.

More to come...

Cake, Cake & More cake

Tonight was the big birthday party for Parker. Grandparents, Great-grandparents, Aunts & Uncles and cousins. Parker had no problem digging right in to her presents (especially with 2 older sisters knowing this routine) or tackling her first piece of cake. She had so much fun that she fell asleep before everyone had left.

If you look closely at the left side of the cake, you will probably notice a bit of flaw. This was not the work of our great cake lady, but the work of our middle child (the one my grandpa calls the "demolition child"). I was outside working, and I hear Morgan begin to sing "Happy Birthday to Parker" several times. As I peek in with a sense of panic, I see what I was worried about. She is getting more than her share of frosting as she sings to Parker. I smoothed up several finger prints, recreated the B & P, added a bit more pink frosting and it became doable! The good thing is that it still tastes great!!

Happy Birthday Parker!!!

Saturday was Parker's 1st birthday!! We celebrated that night by going to a park and having cupcakes. You can tell she is a typical one year old by taking care of the cupcake! Looking forward to the big party with family on Monday.

Parker has had a great, healthy summer. She is moving and crawling fast enough to keep up with the older two. She is pulling herself up on everything and will be walking before we know it.

In about 2 weeks she will see her cardiologist for her check-up on her heart. Her surgery will be scheduled then to close the value in her heart that remains open.

Football Season

The football season has officially started at our house...well about 2 weeks ago actually!! I like to refer myself as a 'Football Widow" when the big games begin. Defiantly 'loosing' my husband to the game as he is off to ref about 3 times a week. In addition to Kyle's football games we have spent the past 5 years watching Kyle's brother, Brett, play football at UNI. We really enjoyed going to the games and turning our girls into life-time Panther fans!!

Since Brett is working at the high school, he was helping out with some football practices. We came home one afternoon and I pointed out to Cameron that Brett was helping across the road. She has been glued to the curb ever since!!

One lady walking by said, "She must be a Bergman!"

(Don't worry, we don't allow them to sit on the curb!! Only for a picture do I let them stay.)