Hilarious Conversation on the Way to Gymnastics Tonight

Isaac:  Mom, you are going to be invited to my wedding.
Mom: Great, I would really like to be there.
Isaac: You have to get a pretty dress.
Mom: OK.
Isaac: Mackenzie you will be invited too.  Dad will be invited to my wedding too.  He will have to wear his nicest shirt.  Mackenzie you have to wear a nice shirt too.  Uncle Mike will be invited too and Grandpa Butch.
Mackenzie:  I am not going to where a shirt.
Isaac: Oh, right you have to wear a pretty dress.
Mom: Isaac, do you know who you are going to marry?
Isaac:  No, who?

Happy Thanksgiving

It has been a long time since I have posted.  A lot has been going on, including a change to my work schedule, 3:45 am calls with Malaysia, my 38th birthday, and Thanksgiving. 

Isaac and Mackenzie both continue to entertain us immensely.  They have been having a lot of fun picking out Christmas presents.  Last weekend I took them to Meijer and after grocery shopping I let them wander the toy aisles to pick out what they wanted to ask for from Santa and Dad and me.  They had already checked all of the toy catalogs we had received and circled what they wanted in those and we had shared that information with grandparents and aunts (cause lets face it, they do the shopping).  Mackenzie picked three items out pretty quickly and narrowed it down to two quickly.  Isaac on the other hand wanted everything he saw in the "boy" aisle and it took him a while after we left the store to narrow down his top two.

When we were watching the Thanksgiving parade we saw the Rockettes.  We had gone to the ONU Holiday Spectacular the weekend before and one of the songs performed was "I Want to be a Rockette".  I asked Mackenzie if she remembered the song and she explained to me that she does not want to be "Rockhead".  We explained to her what the Rockettes were and she watched them for a while.  Lately Mackenzie makes up songs and sings them constantly.  She informed Brian that if he needed her, she would perform in one of his shows.

On Tuesday Brian took Isaac up to Grandma Kathy and he got to spend a day and night alone at Grandma Kathy's with Lexie, whose school had been cancelled due to ice.  Brian, Mackenzie and I joined them on Wednesday evening for dinner.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  My Grandma and Grandpa Conklin joined us for dinner as well as Michael.  Misty joined us after dinner.  After the kids went to bed we played some high-energy domino games and drank some of the wine Mom and I got during my birthday trip to Sandusky.  A lot of little things reminded me of my dad over the weekend and I had my moments of sadness.  It was odd to me that what made me most sad was seeing the desk he has setup in the basement to work on his wine bottle lights, lazy susans and other woodworking while I was folding laundry.  However, it was nice to be with family.  The whole holiday was low stress (the most stressful time for me was being in charge of the gravy).  The kids even seemed to get it.  They got along most of the time, went to bed fairly quickly each night, and helped out as much as they could.  Today before we left Isaac helped Grandma put the Christmas decorations outside.  When I called my mom tonight she told me Mackenzie was quite the task master and that they had gotten a lot of decorating done in the house.

Meanwhile Isaac came home with us and we got "Planes" from the RedBox and had dinner in the den, with a fire going and watched the movie.  He watched the movie very intently and when the two main planes had a disagreement he got very sad and started crying.  It is so amazing to get to see the two of them develop.  It is heartwarming to see that he understands the emotions and the relationship between the characters.  When I met with Isaac's teacher last week she explained to me that she loves listening to Isaac during morning prayer time because he speaks to God like he is a friend and he tells him long, detailed stories.  I love that his teachers pay attention to those things.

So things are good, not great yet, but very good.  Brian and I are watching "World War Z" right now.  I have finally decided it is time to forgive Brad Pitt for leaving Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie.  I thought that Brian would like this movie because he has been talking about the zombie apocalypse.  Hopefully I don't have nightmares tonight.

An Extra Halloween!

Well, our rescheduled trick-or-treating was last night and was a huge success.  It was a really nice evening, although it got dark and cold pretty fast while we were out (thank you Daylight Savings Time).

Here is a shot of the kids and their cousins at our house:

Unfortunately Mackenzie is leaning on her pumpkin, so you can't see its face, the first she has ever cut out on her own.  However, if yo utake a look at Isaac's pumpkin, you can see the blood drop that Mackenzie added to his jack o'lantern.  I am calling it a blood drop because that is what it looks like to me.  Neither of the kids suggested that it was supposed to be a blood drop.

The kids had fun going around the neighborhood trick or treating and most of the houses in our neighborhood participated, despite the reschedule.

I am headed to Tempe, AZ this afternoon for a couple of days for work.  We shall see how much candy is left when I get back :)  To be honest, most of the time when the kids get candy I end up eating some of it and then throwing a lot out.  They are really excited when they get it, but then they forget about it.  I am sure that will change as they get older.

Happy Halloween!

So it has been an interesting Halloween so far.

The weather prediction was for some very strong storms and 60 mph winds here during trick or treating time.  So a lot of areas started postponing their trick or treating.  The Perrysburg Township, where our house is postponed trick or treating until Monday as of early this morning.  Initially the city stated that it was not going to postpone trick or treating no matter the weather, however this afternoon it was announced that they postponed until Monday as well. 

We were scheduled to go to the Rogers household prior to trick or treating for a pizza dinner with Brian's family, and we stuck to the plan.  Here is a shot of the cousins in their costumes:

Isaac wasn't super happy about having his picture taken for some reason.  His robot helmet is also much to big for his head, but it is still pretty cute.  According to Isaac his friend Liam kept trying to pull his antena off at school today.  The hot glue held pretty well.  Mackenzie loved her cat costume, especially the tail.  She asked me on the way home from school if I would cut the tail off so that she could keep it once she outgrew her costume. 

I didn't take any pictures of Mackenzie and Isaac with their pumpkins since we didn't come back to trick or treat.  Hopefully the jack o'lanterns will last so we can get a picture of them.  Mackenzie carved her pumpkin on her own (with me close by) for the first time this year and did an excellent job.  Isaac gave in and allowed Brian to do the carving for him, but later asked Mackenzie to add some flair, so his traditional jack o'lantern looks like it has blood running down it's forehead.

Last night Isaac was unable to sleep for a good portion of the night.  That is really unlike him so we were all a bit tired today.  So far he is sleeping well this evening, but I am going to head to bed early, just in case.

Happy Halloween!

We Love Fall!

Today has been rainy all day.  It is a true midwestern, fall day.  The kids have been busy all day.  We did a lot of cleaning in the morning and then had some fun.  The kids built an awesome fort with all of the couch cushions and pillows, they played cat and dog and had fun climbing under the coffee table, they did spice art (Mackenzie did this at CDC and thought it was pretty awesome) and Mackenzie did some sewing and Isaac played Imaginext.  Brian and I stayed busy as well, I worked on Isaac's Halloween costume, Brian worked on the master bathroom, and we worked together on an awesome dinner of standing rib roast, potatoes, and peas.   We are now in the den watching the Georgia vs Tennessee game.  Isaac wanted to watch football before bed time and unfortunately ND has a night game tonight.  It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow also, hopefully we can stay occupied and find some fun stuff to do again.

We spent last weekend in Midland with my mom.  We had fun going to farmer's market, the nursery and apple picking.  For some reason I can't get my pictures to rotate on the blog, even though they are rotated when I open them on my computer.  I have to go start bath time, so I am just going to attach them for now and hopefully figure it out later.

Posing on the hay bales at the nursery

 

Mackenzie found this cool tree at the farmer's market

 

She would have stayed there all day if we had let her

 

I made apple sauce with the apples that we picked and canned it for the first time.  If the canned jams and applesauce last (as they should) for the winter, I think canning may become a pretty big hobby for me.  I don't know what took me so long, but it is really quite easy.  It is also nice to know exactly what is in them, to not buy canned goods at the store and to have them here when we want them.

 

Finally, I am working a new schedule at work, which allows me to be home when Mackenzie gets off the bus, which I really like.  It means that Brian is on his own with the kids in the mornings though.  He told me about this conversation that the three of them had the other morning:

Isaac: I want a blue house

Brian: When you have your own house you can paint it any color you want

Isaac:  I don't have a big ladder though

Brian: You can borrow my ladder

Mackenzie:  Can girls climb big ladders too?

Brian: Girls can do anything boys can do

Mackenzie: I can't walk around with my shirt off



 

Happy Seventh Birthday, Mackenzie

Today was Mackenzie's seventh birthday.  We drove home last night and spent the morning getting ready for the party.  Mackenzie wanted to have a carnival party this year, which worked out well for us.

 

 

We contemplated moving the birthday party after the tough week we had this week, but Mackenzie was super excited to have her birthday party on her actual birthday for the first time this year.  Plus, I don't think my dad would have wanted us to move her party.  So we decided to keep the party as planned.  We had about a dozen kids and I think that they really enjoyed the games and prizes and that they had a lot of fun. Mackenzie declared it her best birthday ever!  Isaac has decided that he wants a carnival party for his next birthday as well, so hopefully we can use all of our carnival stuff again.

I am now procrastinating on heading in to watch the Notre Dame game.  I didn't expect it to be so hard to watch the first game after my dad's passing, but it is proving to be very difficult for me.  I think it is time though.  Go Irish!

I love you, Dad

My father passed away this morning after battling cancer for almost 6 years. 

My dad was an excellent dad.  He was a lot of fun and really enjoyed life and tried to remind me throughout my life that it was meant to be enjoyed.

I remember being quite little and climbing into my father's pickup truck.  I remember riding in the middle seat and there was an 8 track tape player under the dash in the middle and I remember asking him to play the "squirrel" song.  I have no idea what the name of the song was or who sang it.  In my memory it is about a squirrel getting into church and running up someone's leg.  I have no idea if that was really the jist of the song or not, but I remember wanting to hear that song every time I got in Dad's truck and I remember him abliging me, most of the time.

Dad also took us ice fishing.  We would drive his pickup truck onto the lake (I remember Houghton Lake the most).  He would set up the ice shanty, which we had to go into when our feet got wet or cold to warm up.  I did not care for the ice shanty.  We would get to play on the ice, ice skate, and investigate the island.  Dad got to put tip-ups up for each of us, even if we were paying no attention to them.  At the end of day my feet would be frozen, but I wouldn't tell him because I didn't want to be sent into the shanty.  So I remember getting into the pickup truck, in the middle again, where the heater was on the floor and my feet would burn and hurt so badly while they warmed back up, but it was worth it to be out on the ice all day.

Dad was able to buy my kids their first pair of ice skates and ice fish with them as well. 

 

As I got older, Mom and Dad spent a lot of time playing euchre with my friends and I, particularly Tara and Dani.  Dad was always willing to hang out with us at the house and play and joke and pass out candy (which makes him sound a little creepy, but he wasn't).  Each Memorial Day I invited my girlfriends up to the cabin and Dad would borrow Uncle Lloyd's large tent and we slept in the tent in the backyard of the cabin and hang out for the long weekend.  Dad would drag us around behind the boat all day long, we would try to balance on a large tractor tire tube and usually I would end up sunburnt.

Dad is not going to get the chance to teach Mackenzie and Isaac euchre, but he had a great time teaching them patty-cake, showing them how to fish and he did get to take Mackenzie for a few rides on the tube last year.  He loved swimming with his grandkids (and encouraging them to splash Mom and Grandma).  The one complaint that I will remember from him during his fight with cancer was that this summer he couldn't swim with the grandkids, but I will never forget how excited Isaac was each time he caught a fish and how he would run up to the cabin to tell Grandpa. 

When I was at Notre Dame, Dad would often comment that if he had gone to college there that he never would have left and I totally believe it.  Dad loved to learn.  He was always reading a book, usually either something about history or a western, and was always willing to learn something new.  I can remember watching him study for a pipefitters certification of some kind and realizing that I may actually use geometry in the future.  As I mentioned earlier, he loved to have a good time.  He also grew to love Notre Dame football.  He got to see their undefeated season last year (we won't talk about the final game), which was perfect.

Dad got to see all of his children get married.  He walked with Tina and I down the aisle in two very different but perfect wedding entrances and I believe that he enjoyed our receptions as much as we did.  He knew at Michael's wedding that he had cancer and he went for surgery to remove it soon after the wedding.  He did not allow that to dampen his spirits though.

This summer has been a tough one for all of us, but mostly for Dad.  I am grateful for the time I got with him and the time that my children got to spend with him.  I hope that he is happy, pain-free and peaceful and spending eternity at the never-ending college of his dreams.

I love you, Dad.