Nope, I didn’t forget.

Last weekend we were fortunate enough to meet with all 5 of Conan’s siblings, and most of their spouses and children, to commemorate the life of their beloved Grandma Holben. She was an amazing woman, who even in her last months fought hard to hold on to her very quick mind and memories. As mentioned in the eulogy, she was the most tech-savvy 90 year old you are ever likely to meet, and she often learned new programs and procedures to keep more organized in the Family History department and her own personal writings. Above was our last photo with her from June of this year. Burke and Keane just loved spending time with her. It was definitely time for her to go, and she was more than ready. Her husband had preceded her in death by I believe 4 years, and she was so happy to be off to meet him. We love you Grandma, we’ll miss you, and we’re happy for you. Below are some few photos of the event.

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SO, Neils discovered for himself that Mom isn’t just trying to be bossy when she says "don’t eat too much sugar or you’ll feel sick."

Monday night Neils wanted to do sugar cookies and frosting for a treat, and I promised I would. My body was not cooperating, however, and pretty severe contractions made it harder to accomplish everything (I’m not talking about Braxton Hicks that tighten and end periodically… I’m talking about contractions so hard and constant that I could count the number of times a day I wasn’t contracting on one hand… and by evening they were labor-intensity). But a promise is a promise, and although dinner consisted of steamed fresh green beans courtesy of Burke and Conan, and some leftover hummus and Naan, we mostly frosted and ate sugar cookies. I have no idea how many Neils ate, but he needed to go to the bathroom before dinner ended and came out saying, "I think I ate too much sugar…" He had thrown up everything. Conan was a superstar and took care of the mess, but the quote of the day goes to Neils. As Conan was cleaning up the mess, Neils asked why. Conan replied that mom wasn’t feeling well so he needed to do it, and asked if Neils would rather do it… his response?

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For Conan’s birthday he requested a birthday road trip into the Deep South to visit a couple of brothers he hasn’t seen in a very long time. So we loaded up the van with kids and snacks, and the Wii, and headed out.

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Well, after lots of hard labor, we finally have something to show off! Introducing… Read the rest of this entry »

Finally have a few minutes to post, so I’m going CRAZY over here…

 Every year Conan’s company provides free tickets to a Lugnuts game… the local Minor League Baseball Team! I don’t think we scored a single run the whole time we were there, but the kids sure had a good time! And free food is always a good thing. Although there wasn’t much Conan could actually eat as it was traditional Baseball Game fare. Ah well, we had a great time! There was a nice grassy slope where the kids were allowed to play and run around while we "watched" the game. Mostly we watched our kids being silly, and tried to prevent them from harming themselves or others. Burke is quite the little fireball. When a patrolling security guard approached him to remind him not to climb on the railing I could see the defiance enter his stance and knew we were headed for trouble. I couldn’t hear what he said, but Burke had no trouble telling the guard what he thought of his rules. Conan stepped in just seconds later. I have to admit, it was hilarious to see this little three year old totally undaunted by a grownup in uniform. With a club…

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Just had to post these:

SO, it took me awhile to take this photo. My apologies, as nobody is probably even curious about this anymore, but this is our fabulous IKEA purchase… we actually have one more bookcase like the one on the left that goes on the right side… it’s still in the box. But these at least are set up and filled (nearly) so I thought I’d go ahead and finally post this!

Yikes.