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I'm back!

This blog has been a little neglected lately, but hold on to your hats, that's about to change!

I got a new background put on tonight and an end of the year post will be coming this weekend!

Catching Up - Emily (Finally)

Here she is, my beautiful baby girl in all her glory!

Remember the kids get to pick the "theme" of their cake?  Well Miss Emily picked Tie Dye.  I did the best I could.  (Just so you know how far behind I am in this post, her birthday is in June people).

 

Here is all the kiddos.  No we did not adopt another child, that is Paul, Emily's boyfriend.  We like Paul, but we really want Paul to return my laundry basket.  Paul I know you stalk this blog, if you don't return my laundry basket real soon, I am going to start to disclose things about you on this public blog that I don't think you want everyone to hear.  ;)

Here are us girls, we are pretty special!

The following is a pretty typical snap shot of what happens around here. 


Emily will be doing something on her laptop and the boys, and Rachel often too, just love to watch her make that thing dance.

Remember Paul?  Yes, Paul has a puppy named Ernie.  The little kids LOVE Ernie!!!

Ernie will come for a visit and Ben loves to torture him.  Not really, but Ernie does react a little to the loud factor here at the Stuewe house.



Emily got her wisdom teeth out in August.

She did FABULOUS!!! 


The thing is with wisdom teeth is you really don't know what to expect. Some people get infected, there cheeks look like chipmunks, terrible.  Others you hardly know anything happened.



Well because I am SO smart (not really), I chose the mind over matter approach with Emily.

"Emily you are doing so great"
"The doctor said the teeth were really easy to get out, I'm sure you won't have much recovery with this"
"It's 24 hours and you aren't swollen at all, just keep icing this is going great".


You see the idea?


Well, it worked!  She did in fact do great and was back at her old life (aka partying) in no time.


The summer wound down and we all started getting a little nervous about Emily leaving.  I was most worried about this little guy.

He LOVES his Emily!


But after repeated requests, Emily did NOT want to transfer to Gustavus and stay at home, so we started packing.

We packed her car.

We packed the trailblazer.

The move in plans changed a couple times, so we ended up having to use the trailblazer in it's full packed up beauty for a day.  Here is what Ben looked like riding in there.

He kept saying "Emmy's junk".  Pretty funny, but also pretty accurate.






But then, she left.

Saddest.   Room.   Ever.

Well as it turned out, I did NOT like the ECHO in her room.  I did NOT like the empty, so I immediately (within 2 hours) started to move some of Rachel's stuff down into the room.



Let me explain the rooming situation here at the Stuewes.  We have 4 bedrooms in our house.  Bill and I share a bedroom (because we love each other), Ben has his own (it's small and he's loud), Rachel and Sam share a room (upstairs) and Emily's room is downstairs.



Emily's last crying wish when we moved her out last year was that we keep her room for her.  Well enough, we can handle that, Rachel really wasn't ready to move down there by herself yet anyway.



But, now it's different.  Sam and Rachel are needing a break.  Sam needs his own space, Rachel needs her privacy.  Emily signed a 12 month lease on her apartment, so yes she will be coming home for visits but not like when she was in the dorm and the dorm would close over Christmas or summer or whatever.



So we decided to move Rachel downstairs and Sam would keep that room for himself.



Emily had a queen size bed, Rachel and Sam had bunk beds.  After much deliberation, it was decided to move the bunk beds downstairs and when Emily came home she would sleep with Rachel and Sam would get the big bed.



Here is Sam's "new" room.

When Rachel and Sam shared this room two of the walls were already this blue color and the other two were a lavenderish/pinkish color.  Each kid had two walls to decorate how they wanted.  Sam wanted trucks etc.  So we kept that theme for the two new walls and I had left over paint to paint the two "Rachel" walls the blue color.

This little construction bit was a three part stencil and was kind of a pain in the butt.

Not because it was a three part stencil but because the texture on that wall was more rough than the other walls so it was hard for the stencil to stick.  But I got it done.  


We went with airplanes on this wall.

I got this decal from Uppercase Living.   LOVE IT!!!!

All the kids have their wooden letters I painted for them when they were a baby (except Emily's were painted when she was 10 yrs old).

We also were able to get Sam's "egg chair" in there.  Very helpful, the top folds down so he can take a break in there as needed.  We also were able to move his Lego shelf in his room as it was in my porch (oh I'm going to have to do a post about my porch).



Here is Sam's big boy bed!

Sam doesn't say much about rooms, but he did say when I was finished with it that he "LLLOOOOVVVVEEEDDDD his new room".  My heart melteth, I was so happy.





Now on to Rachel/Emily room.

The wooden letters were put above the closet door where Emily's letters use to be.


More Uppercase Living stuff, that was actually put up for Emily but now Rachel gets to enjoy it.

As you can see from the next picture.  The bunk bed is actually a lofted bed with a twin bed that fits underneath.  Emily had this bed back in the day.

But instead of putting the twin bed under the bed, we stuck it over in the corner so Emily would feel like more of a big girl when she comes home.

And even though Emily brought her wooden letters to her apartment, I bought some new ones and put them above her bed to make her feel extra special.  I always want her to know that even though we moved Rachel downstairs into her room, there is always "room" and place for her at HOME!

I had to search online to find an 18 inch nightstand, because that's all the room we had in there!

Here is Rachel's UpperCase Living verse!

Emily left her stereo for Rachel for now.  Rachel thinks she is SO cool and she is!!!  :)

The closet is by far one of the nicest things in this bedroom.  It is hard to believe that Sam and Rachel use to share a very small closet. Where was all that clothes?!?

I love making the kids' bedrooms fun and nice for them!  Makes me feel good!




And that brings us current with our kids.  Next up posts will include: first day of school photos and my "new" porch.  ;)

Talk to you soon!

Catching Up - Rachel

So, I admit, this blogging thing is getting a little out of hand with how out of date my posts are.  But, I'm hoping now that everyone is back in school I can get back to it.

This particular post is hard because it's about Rachel and basically the whole summer and what she did.  I have started it about 5 times and keep walking away because it seems so daunting.  BUT, I am going to finish, you may just have more pictures than words.  Sound OK? 

First up, 9th Birthday Party!

Rachel turned 9 on July 5th and had three girlfriends stay overnight.  It was an American Girl doll party, so everyone brought their dolls, stayed overnight and had pancakes in the morning.

We then went to the Mall of America (Rachel's first time there or maybe her second, either way she was completely overwhelmed with how much there was to see).

We did the American Girl Doll party/lunch.

If you haven't ever experienced this, it is quite the well, umm, experience.

The have their dolls sit in little chairs and the waitresses completely talk to the dolls like they are real.


A little strange? 

Yes I thought so too.


But the girls enjoyed it!

It was a fun thing to do with my little girl.



They even supplied a birthday cake and we all sang Happy Birthday!

Next up....softball!

OK, is that the cutest softball player ever?!?

She was so nervous to start the year that she wouldn't be able to hit the ball.  Well as it turned out, she could hit the ball and pretty much wherever Rachel hits the ball she can get on first base because she is a very fast runner!







We spent a lot of quality time with Emily.




And yes I realize this is an awful picture of me, I still like it because it is "US GIRLS"!

OK, when I uploaded the pictures to blogger they got completely out of order and I am too lazy to move them around, so it is what it is.



Here is Rachel on her actual birthday!  We brought Brownies and put candles in them for her softball team to sing to her!


She was so proud.

What's that?  This is suppose to be about Rachel?


Well, I just need to add that on July 7th, Bill and I celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary!



10 YEARS?!?  Where did the time go?



Bill being the romantic guy he is made me a carrot cake because we had carrot cake on our wedding!

Rachel was NOT in Tai Kwon Do, but she liked to pretend she was by wearing Sam's uniform.

We got new clothes for pictures and also to be worn for school.   She modeled nicely for this picture.

Since all the kids' birthdays are within 3 weeks of each other, we do one big birthday celebration. 


And in case you are wondering, like my brother Perry was, the four candles were representative of the four kids!

Another fun part of summer was we went to Vikings Training Camp.

I haven't been to training camp in well, 10 years, the year Bill and I got married and let me tell you it has changed A LOT!



The kids were way more into the activities then watching the players practice.  I mean really how exciting is that anyway?  They had fun doing the catching, running and golfing activities they had set up for the kids.  We went to a morning practice during the week and the crowds were hardly anything.

We did wait in line to get autographs.  Rachel and Parker (one of my daycare kids) thought that was really fun, but Sam and Ben, not so much.




August came along and it was County Fair time.

We live about 8 blocks from the Fairgrounds, so we go about everyday.  The kids love to look at all the animals and get free stuff from the vendors.  Well I'm not going to lie we do our share of rides and food as well.



Rachel has been growing her hair out to donate to Locks of Love.  Well after some researching we decided to donate to Pantene Beautiful Lengths instead of Locks of Love.  Let me tell you why.  It turns out Lock of Love charges for their wigs and Pantene Beautiful Lengths makes wigs and they are given through the American Cancer Society FREE of charge. 

Here was Rachel before her haircut.

The picture quality isn't great because we actually went in for a trim and at the last minute Rachel decided to get it cut.  So, I had to have Mary take a picture with her cell phone.



Here she is after.

It was important to Rachel that she still be able to put her hair in a pony tail.

One of the last things we did this summer was go fishing.

We went down to Mill Pond here in St. Peter and we caught NOTHING!

To say the kids were bummed, would be an understatement but at least there was a park there to play at.




And to make matters worse a month before that we were at family bible camp at Inspiration Point and the kids went fishing there.

Rachel and Sam both caught multiple fish and expected that to be the standard of how things went when you go fishing. 



Ya, not so much.




Here is Rachel just last week on her first day of 4th grade!

Bill went back to workshops on August 22nd.
Rachel's first day was August 29th.
Sam's first day was August 31st. (pictures coming soon)
Ben's first day was September 6th. (pictures coming soon)

Well that about brings us up to date.  I hope this didn't feel to rushed, trust me it wasn't.  Even with the fewer words it has still take me over a half hour to put together.