Digging for Gold

Digging for Gold...Gold Potatoes that is. Grammy Hansen introduced our kids to potato digging a couple years ago and now they are hooked. Digging potatoes is like digging for treasure for them. She is nice enough to let them help her dig most of her potato hills each year.

Bryce and Caleb take this job very seriously. Grammy taught them how to dig on the side of the hill so that you don't dig into the potatoes. They always fight over the biggest ones. Abby has decided that she wants to find the smallest potato since the boys fight over the big ones.

The kids are always in ahhh of Grammy's garden. They love to see all the treasures that they can pick.

Emerson even got in on some of the action. She enjoyed the dogs but did come help dig some potatoes.

She was pretty excited about the haul.

Grammy gets a kick out of how much fun the kids have in the garden.

Emerson was exhausted after an afternoon of playing with the dogs and playing in the garden.

Thank you for letting us dig your potatoes! Thank you also for the 2 dozen cookies we ate, the homemade ice cream, pie, supper and 2 gallons of lemonade. It never fails, someone has a stomachache when we leave Grammy's house since we didn't limit their cookie intake.

Apple Picking

Apple picking is one of my favorite fall traditions. We go  to Martin's Apple Orchard and this year

we went on the weekend where Honey Crisp Apples were ready. Honey Crisp is our families favorite so everyone was excited. The weather was incredibly nice so it was enjoyable for everyone.

Emerson loved this flower covered trellis that was like a tunnel.

We made the mistake of taking a wheel barrow with us this year. Lesson learned: It does not appear that you have picked that many apples when you are collecting them in a wheel barrow. Thirty pounds of apples and $75.00 spent. Oops I guess we will have apple crisp, apple pie, apple sauce, caramel apples and lots of apple slices.

My cute boys!

Bryce and Abby

Emerson loved taste testing apples. She ate so many apples that day I lost count.

Caleb liked using the apple picker to get the ones high up in the tree. The only problem was that all the apples he was picking were ending up a bruised mess. We eventually had to convince Caleb that he couldn't use the apple picker anymore.

Abby also enjoyed taste testing apples. Abby was our quality control person. She didn't want to take an apple home that had the slightest mark. We had to have a chat that these were apple orchard apples and they tasted delicious but don't look as perfect as the ones in a store.

 

We had a great afternoon picking apples, walking the trails, playing on the tire swing and picking raspberries. Family days like this are my absolute favorite. Love these little monsters!

Our Dancer

Aunt Steph has been buying tutus, ballet shoes and leotards for Abby since she was an infant but yet she never wanted to take dance class. Every time I would ask her about it she said that she as too scared to do the recital and she didn't know anyone in dance class. Robb has always been anti dance because it is expensive and he doesn't want her to be snotty (not sure how he decided those 2 things go together) but it is never something that we had pursued. Until Addison her best friend invited her to go to her dance class. Abby went to one class as a guest and begged me ( I wasn't hard to convince) and her dad (hard to convince) that she wanted to take dance class. I was thrilled! I love dance and I loved watching Steph in dance. She is taking ballet, tap and jazz class at Pure Movement Dance. They have a dress code so she has to wear a blue leotard, pink tights, and a ballet skirt. I am hoping that she likes it and I really hope that she goes through with recital in the spring.

First Day of School

I was pretty sad this year because I had to work on the kids first day of school. I was really hoping to be able to go in a little late so that I could see them off but that ended up not being a possibility. Needless to say we had 3 sad kids and 1 very sad mommy.

Abby was excited to start school.

She looks so old in this picture!

Abby age 6

Bryce and Caleb were not ready to start school. This year they were a little nervous to start school. They were supposed to have Mrs. Wiebeck a teacher that they had met last year and knew from prior years. To top it off she had a service dog that she brought with her everyday. However, she took a different job and they were getting a teacher they had never met. I think I was about as nervous as they were. We met her on orientation night and she didn't seem overly friendly. I am just hoping that this will be a good year for them.

Bryce age 9

Poor Caleb was having a rough morning and his nerves were getting the best of him but he wiped away his tears and was ready to walk into class by the time they got to school.

Caleb age 9

My 3 cuties.

 

School Orientation Night

I am sad to see the kids go back to school this year! I really could use another month to accomplish all the things I wanted to do with them this summer. Bryce and Caleb will be starting 3rd grade this year. They are officially at the age where it is too embarrassing to take a picture with your teacher so any pictures at all.

Abby will be starting first grade with Mrs. Williams. Bryce and Caleb had her for a teacher and she was amazing. I am excited for Abby to have a great year. Abby is not to cool for pictures and was willing to ham it up for me.

Abby will have a student teacher for the first semester this year. Mrs. Seager helped in the classroom when the boys were there too. I think she will really enjoy having Mrs. Seager also.

Abby and Mrs. Williams.

The Summer Nanny

Robb and I have always said that finding daycare for our kids was one of the most stressful parts of parenting! We won the nanny jackpot this year when we choose Anna to watch the kids for the summer. She was on of 8 people that we had interviewed and it was actually kind of a fluke that we even interviewed her. I posted an ad on a nanny website and had such and overwhelming number of people that were dying to watch our little monsters that I eventually had to stop taking interviews. Anna had said that she was a swimming instructor (Bonus) and that she could interview that day. She was awesome! She kept the hooligans busy, busy, busy. They went swimming 2-3 days a week, on walks, bike rides, did crafts and most of all the chaos and fighting didn't seem to phase her. The kids absolutely loved her and she was fun enough that they did their homework and chores for her so that they got to do the fun thing that she had planned for the day. I so wish that we could have her back again next year but I think she will probably be done with school by then and will move on to bigger and better paying things. At least we got her for one summer.

Lucy

I have been thinking it was time to get another dog for awhile now. Now the issue was getting Robb to see things my way. Penny is getting to the point where she has very little interest in the kids and she is a bit dangerous with Emerson. Penny's eye sight is bad and Emerson sneaking up on her makes her pretty growly. Yet our kids love dogs. So, it was time to get a dog that could handle the abuse our kids dish out. I had been looking on the Lincoln pet sites and I had looked into adopting a dog but many of the surrendered dogs had been surrendered due to issues with kids. Then I came across Lucy. She was 9 months old and was part Border Collie and part Blue Heeler. Her family was getting rid of her since they didn't have enough time to spend with her.

I talked Robb in going to look at her in Crete and well.... Lucy is the newest member of our family. Her name was Jema but after meeting her she didn't know her name anyway. The family that had her didn't realize that they couldn't have pets in their rental house until after they got her so she didn't get much interaction and was mainly a garage dog. Poor pup. She was really nervous to be on the leash, walk through doorways and Robb had to pick her up and put her in the van. She was pretty mellow and seemed extremely nervous but sweet.

We headed to Petco to get her a kennel since she wasn't house broken yet and we also had to pick up some treats, food and toys.

She was pretty mellow the first week or so and was great with the kids. I walked her every morning before work and Robb would walk her in the evenings. She only lasted a couple nights sleeping in the kennel and she started to cry so much that we just baby gated her in the kitchen.

It wasn't long and our timid and quiet dog was racing though the house taking out anything and everyone in her path. I think she knew we had all fallen in love with her and no matter what her behavior was, she had found her forever home. She was about 30 pounds when we got her and with eating twice a day and getting lots of extras under the highchair she was up to 45 lbs in no time. She ended up being a bit bigger than we expected but she looks really healthy now.

Lucy and Penny don't get along very well! Penny hates Lucy and Lucy is a pup that desperately wants to play with her. We keep them separated most of the time and I feel a little guilty that we have ruined Penny's retirement years with this crazy pup that is always after her to play.

Almost daily she chews something up, has an accident on the floor (that is fixed now) or does something extremely puppyish that makes Robb threaten to give her away. It's a good thing that the kids love her. Lucy in the first thing that Emerson says everyday when I pick her up from daycare. Emmy really loves her crazy pup! We did get Lucy on Emmy's half birthday so I like to joke that we bought the baby a dog.

I will admit the puppy stage is rough but I am hoping that by the time we get into the new house we will have some of the behavior kinks worked out and she will be a great family dog for us.

Welcome to the Lutz Family Lucy Lou Lutz!7