Halloween

Ok, so it's not the easiest thing to get all my kids to look at the camera at the same time and all smile. This was as good as I could get before they all got mad at me! But you get the idea. Bricker & Madelyn went as Woody(+ Bullseye) & Jesse from Toy Story, and Tate was a lion. He growls at us all the time, so the lion suited him. The kids had a blast trick or treating and spending time with the cousins. Tate has now found that there are much better tasting foods than his baby food, thanks to candy!! This kido has a major sweet tooth, he gets that from me:)

Daddy's Helper

Shane took Tate out Sunday morning to go check on a couple calves we have that have been sick, and this is how he brought him back. Yep, that's poop on his head! Shane stepped out of the truck and left the door open and of course Tate wanted to follow, and did! He tumbled out onto Shane's manure covered boots. When Shane got home, he had me hurry and take a picture. Poor baby I thought! It will be a great photo to bring out when he's older!!

Lesson Learned

Lately my washing machine hasn't been draining the water after the rinse cycle. So I've had to turn the knob back and re-run the rinse cycle to get it to drain. Well Monday morning it finally completely stopped draining and left me with a big wet mess and lots of water. So I broke down and called around for a repair man. (P.S. usually the repair man @ our house is Shane, but he's been elk hunting and I needed a washer, with 3 kids you can only go so long without clean clothes!!!) Well come to find out, my drain pump died on me and it was going to cost $266 to repair! I was thinking maybe $100 to fix it! I told the guy, "My word! That's half the price I paid for the machine!" He gave me his sob story how the economy is bad, and business has been slow, and he's just trying to make it like everybody else. He was sorry it was going to cost so much... Well I had to fork out half the bill for him to order the part. The next day, I am still sick about how much it's going to cost to fix it and decided to research it a little. So I check out the kenmore website and look up my part I need, and guess what, it only costs $57. So that means I am paying the guy $209 for installation and labor. Seems pretty high to me. Well I called his office and asked for a price brake down on my bill. They were charging me double the price for the part, I told the lady I found the part for half the price, gave her the number she could call to verify it etc... In the meantime my repair man calls me, says his receptionist contacted him about my call. Basically he gave me another run around speech how if I didn't use this part he ordered for me I had to pay a 20% restocking fee, and that Sears(the company that I found the part for $57)wasn't a reliable source, and I would have to pay a fee for not using him to install the part. What a rip off!! So I had to brake down and tell the guy to go ahead with the repair, cause it was going to cost me more to cancel the repair. So I learned a lesson, do more research next time.

Family Pictures

We had some family pictures taken this week, and I wanted to share because they turned out great. Thanks to Shane's friend Jason who took them, he did an awesome job. So here are some of my favorites...

Getting back onto schedule...

Well now that summer is over and Bricker is in school I am finally feeling like we have a schedule again! Summer was fun, but not much got done! Bricker is loving kindergarten. This is a picture from his first day. The first day he came home and complained because he didn't learn anything new!! What a kid. Madelyn has started gymnastics once a week with her cousin Allie. They have been having a blast. She has also started joy school with some of our neighbors. She loves going to school so she can be like Bricker.We've moved Tate into a bigger car seat, and he loves it. He was all sorts of excited the first time we backed out of the garage with him in it! It was pretty funny. As for Shane & I, Shane is back to school working on his Masters and working done at Hill AF Base, and trying to work on the farm every chance he gets. I run everyone around all day and pick everyone up, babysit a couple days a week, and have started a couple projects around the house. Bricker's room is my current project, I will have to post pictures when it is done. I love how it is turning out.

Pig Roast

Over Labor Day weekend we had a family reunion with Shane's family, and Shane offered to cook a pig for dinner Saturday night. So he started it at 5 on Friday night, and it wasn't done until 5 Saturday night! He had to stay up all night and watch it. It turned out great, there were only a few people who didn't want to try it. I think the looks of it scared people, but it tasted good!!

Chillin' with the Cousins

Madelyn chillin' with the Olsen cousins. We've got quite the group of girls going on these days on the Olsen side! I can't believe summer is almost over. It's been a fun one. Now we are getting ready to send Bricker to school next week! He is so excited. I hope he can stay this enthused about school as he gets older! We took him in for a little pre-kindergarten test last week, and come to find out we've got ourselves an amazing mathematician! That's what his teacher said anyways. She was impressed that he does math in his head already, no finger counting. Generally they get one student a year that can do it before kindergarten. So we're pretty proud of Bricker! Especially since he just barely turned 5, and is starting school. Tate is now a 20+ pounder, and 9 months old! Time to get him a new car seat. He got his first tooth and started to crawl last week! The same day he pulled himself up along the couch and walked along it! That's just too much for me in one week. I told him to slow down!! They just grow too fast.