First Flight

If you know our family well, you know we don't stick close to home too much. When we lived in Omaha, we were gone most weekends to visit family in North Platte, Boone and Minneapolis. Would the birth of Whitney make us home bodies?!?!?!?! NO............she took her first flight at 3 weeks to visit family in North Platte, NE. My aunt and uncle(Patty and Jim Whitney----notice the last name), my Grandma and two cousins and their families live there. North Platte is 4 hours west of Omaha and not very easy to get to by plane. My mom flew here earlier in the week so she could go along with Macy, Whitney and I on this adventure. Justin kept the big girls so they could go to school and soccer games. First, we needed to take "a big plane"...Macy's term....to Denver and then "a little plane" to North Platte. After a long day of traveling, Whitney was ready to meet some very special people.

Great Grandma Marnie her August 18th Birthday Buddy

When I found out Baby #4 was due in August I was very excited. Grandma, my mom and I are all August birthdays!!!!

Cousin Chloe---born July 23rd

Macy was very excited to play with 2 babies!!!!

It was a short trip---only for the weekend--but I am really glad Whitney got to meet everyone. Spending so much time with just Macy was great. She is such a talker and so funny. It was so fun to chat with her without others trying to add to the conversation. I think she really liked having some alone time with Mommy and Grandma Carol. She also had a chance to play with her cousins without sisters around.

Life is Good when you spend it with Family!!!!

FISH

Last week we went to Hannah's "Meet the Teacher" night and learned about a school wide program they use to promote good behavior. The FISH program helps reward positive behaviors instantly. When a student demonstrates something positive they are given a paper fish and they write their name on it and put it in the jar. Each day a name is drawn, and then from those names there is a weekly and monthly drawing.

I decided to try this at home to see if it would work with the girls. We had to get a few things organized before we could start earning fish:

I drew the fish

Hannah cut them out

I made a pond on our sliding glass door

Two envelopes were hung up--one for blank fish and one for filled out fish

We went over the "rules" of the fish again.........at home I decided that if there was a negative behavior they could possibly loose a fish....at school no fish are lost

Then, we were set and ready to start earning fish!!!!

Our sliding door is also used for displaying other important information.......our phone number and house number for the girls to remember. I have also put Hannah's sight words, spelling words and math concepts up.

All three girls earned their first fish because there were no issues while I took a shower. We needed to head to the mall for a few things, so I told the girls they each would start with 3 fish and if there were problems they would lose some. When they started running around the racks of clothes, I calmly told them they each lost a fish and they instantly stopped. It was amazing.........I didn't have to repeat myself or get cranky! When our game of "I Spy" got out of hand at the check out they also each lost fish. However, they earned one back for walking nicely to the shoe store.....so now they had 2 again! They lost one at the shoe store, but gained one back for being quiet on the car ride home. For this trip they seemed to be working as a team for everything naughty and nice so it was easy to keep track of who had what for fish. Hannah loved writing her name and Macy's name on the fish. Kaylee wanted to decorate her fish, so she got out the markers. Everyone was excited about putting their fish in the envelope and I was glad the shopping trip went well. For the rest of the day they earned fish for doing nice things. Before bed I drew out a fish and a "Hannah" fish got to go swim in the pond. Every Sunday night we will pick a fish from the pond, and that person will get a dollar to spend at the Target Dollar Bin. Hopefully, the girls will continue to be excited about earning fish, and it will be an easy way for me to reward good behavior.

Life is Good with FISH!!!

Whitney Grace

August 18th

8:01 pm

8 pounds, 9 ounces

21 inches long

Going home!!!!

Sisterly Love!!!!

First trip to Target!!!!!

One Week

Two Weeks

Life is Good!!!!!

Big Events

So a lot has happened since my last post on June 26th................like the whole month of July and half of August. However, we had four HUGE events............Kaylee started riding her bike without training wheels, with a little help from suckers and Tootsie Rolls Macy stopped wearing diapers, Hannah started first grade, and our "Little Nugget" Whitney Grace join our family!!!!!

After being induced at 9am on August 18th, Whitney Grace was born at 8:01pm. Since Macy was 9 pounds, 8 ounces I feared this baby would be over 10 pounds. Thankfully, she was just 8 pounds, 9 ounces and 21 inches long!!! However, the biggest shock was that she was a girl. I thought for sure #4 was a boy. The last few weeks I have been online looking for boy bedding I liked and checking out boy baby clothes I wanted to go back and get!!! In an ultrasound I thought I saw outdoor plumbing.....I guess I won't be an ultrasound technician anytime soon!!!! Big sisters couldn't wait to meet her, so they came up in their jammies!!!!!

Everyone loves Whitney!!!! Hannah has surprised us the most on the amount of attention she has been giving the baby. She wants to hold her and sings to her if she is upset.

Thought a picture of her in her undies would be inappropriate, so here she is without a swim diaper!!!!!

So proud of herself!!!!!

Ready to take on the world!!!!

Life is Good with 4 wonderful girls!!!! Couldn't be happier!!!!

Next Stop...............

The next stop on our journey was a night with our friends, the Griffiths. 6 kids, 6 and under is always exciting!!!! They all got along really well and we enjoyed spending time with Joe and Sara.

Sara is a great artist(www.saragriffitharts.com) so she and I swap art projects for sewing!!!! The girls thought it was cool Lucy had a matching outfit!!!!

We continued on to Iowa and had an adults-only night at Prairie Meadows. I thought for sure picking my favorite color,yellow, would be lucky. Especially, because yellow was with the number 4 horse(4 kids) each race. That strategy put me $18 in the hole---betting $2 for each of the 9 races. Maybe next time I will come up with something a little more scientific!!!!

The next day, we had our annual softball game and wine tasting. This year, I think we had as many short-leggers as adults participating. I did a lot of watching from the sidelines, but next year I plan to really excel at the wine tasting!!!!!

Watching the donkeys was a lot of fun too!!!!!

Life is Good when you spend it with Family and Friends!!!!

Everybody Loves a Rodeo!!!!

The next stop on our adventure was North Platte,NE to visit cousins. We took the northern route to get there since there was flooding in Sioux City. We followed our friends until they needed to turn off for Omaha and we continued another 4 hours.

Last year, we visited during Nebraskaland Days and decided to coordinate our trip so we could participate in the events again.

Our first day in town we played outside with our cousins and had a great time! We ate at the Prime Rib dinner. Gotta love a huge hunk of meat on a bun, coleslaw, chips and a drink!!!!

After the Prime Rib dinner, we headed to the rides at Cody Park.

Day 2: Rented a Fun Jump for the backyard!!!!

Rodeo Time!!!!!!

We got the girls out of bed very early the next morning...still in jammies... to head to the next stop!!!

Life is Good!!!!

Summer Is Here!!!

Nothing says summer like S'mores!!!!!

School got out on June 3rd and we set out for our Midwest Adventure on June 7th.

The first leg of our 5 week trip took us west on 80 and north on 35!!!! We met our wonderful Omaha neighbors, The Berans, up in MN for the weekend. Hanging out with them was so much fun.....it made us really miss living in Omaha.

Mall of America

Boating

Swimming and the Hot Tub

Life Is Good----stay tuned for pics from Nebraska Land Days!!!!