A Successful Weekend

Finally getting around to updating this (!), after our big church camping weekend. We left here on Thursday, camped for 3 nights and returned home on Sunday, and it was a total success. We had absolutely the best time - probably our best camping trip yet - it's amazing how God will pull things all together! It was such a great escape and a wonderful time of fellowship. Bedtimes were broken, diets were forgotten, new friendships were formed, and much bonding took place. We had perfect sites, all clumped together, right on Spearfish creek, in which we spent a better part of the weekend, trying to stay cool (the temp was 95-100 the whole time). It was so fun, having this little community for a few days, where you could walk 6 feet out your door at any time during the day or night and chat with your friends. Josh (my brother), Marcy and Cayel were able to spend most of the weekend with us too, and that made it more special. We haven't had much time together in recent months, so it was really great having them around - thanks for joining us, guys!!

I was trying to capture the weekend on camera for the church, and got the cutest picture of our friends' little girl, so I have to share it. Does she just look like summer or what? She was so cute, so happy, just lovin' her watermelon.

I'm also posting a picture of Jack and Noah in the creek - all of the kids had the best time messing around there, they were so much fun to watch. They were constantly in the creek, in the sprinkler, shooting water guns at everyone in sight or playing with water balloons. The heat didn't bother them one bit . . . .

Once we got home, we all crashed hard. Everyone slept on Sunday afternoon and yesterday was just a recovery day. Today I took the kids to gymnastics, which they are just LOVING, ran a few errands and then got some things done around the house. Tonight Jack was in rare form and had us laughing - - at supper he was talking with a Jersey accent, and he actually did it really well which was what made it so funny. Said he heard it on Scooby Doo - ? Then after his shower he was running around singing Nickelback ("Far Away") at the TOP of his lungs, and I do mean top of his lungs!!! :) It was hilarious. If you know the song, you can probably picture it. We also realized Jack has another loose tooth, so he's over the moon about that. Noah got his funnies in as well - during his prayer he said "Thank you, God, for Anne and Mark" - ?!?!? Don't know where that came from! Goofball . . . .

Jack's Big Day!

Well, we had an exciting day around here! I started out the day feeling quite overwhelmed with my to-do list that I can't seem to catch up with lately - preparations for this church camping weekend, a house to clean, laundry to do, about 4 hours worth of ironing that needs to be done, thank-yous for the boys' birthday that need to be sent (no, I haven't even got that done yet!!), appointments to make, phone calls to return, planting to do, a work-out to fit in somewhere . . . uggh! So what did I do? I packed the kids up and headed to the pool this afternoon, thanks to a very good friend of mine pulling me from my fog. She wondered if we wanted to come with them, and my initial instinct and response was "well I'll have to see how much I get done first." We hung up the phone and God immediately started convicting! After about 20 minutes of arguing with my own thoughts (or God's, as the case may be!), I realized the most important thing I could do today was hang out with my kids, and everything else could wait. So we went, it felt GOOD, and I haven't regretted it one bit. Sorry to those of you still waiting on a thank-you note! :) It will be coming, I promise!

While at the pool, all of the sudden Jack came running up to me looking very concerned and said "MOMMY, my tooth is GONE!!!!" I looked at him and sure enough there was a hole where his loose tooth once was - - I asked him where the tooth was, and he said "I swallowed it!" He had been snacking on pretzels and thought he had hit a particularly hard one, not realizing it was his tooth, and he just swallowed the mouthful - tooth and all. So, he was a little dismayed that he didn't have the actual tooth, but was very excited about this milestone that he had prayed about for months.

I'm also posting a couple pictures of Jack and Noah's first time shooting (thank you to their excellent instructor, Uncle Josh)! They had their first lesson in Spearfish last night and are totally hooked. They practiced hitting pop cans, and did really well for the first time.

We're headed for Spearfish tomorrow, and the church event gets underway on Friday. Wish us luck (and some prayers for cooler weather would be MOST appreciated!) :)

Happy Father's Day (late!)

Yikes! I can't believe it's been a week since I updated this! That's indicative of our lives lately - WAY too busy. Hoping that will end this week. Last week I was busy planning a baby shower for a friend, finding a location for our MOPS Steering Team Planning Retreat, and organizing the details of our upcoming church camping weekend. On top of that, we went camping over the weekend, so had the usual to-do list for that. It was a GREAT weekend, though! We have found the perfect place to camp - at a big resort with lots of amenities :), but the sites we've found are quite secluded so you don't notice you are at a big resort. We had a wonderful time - lots of relaxing family time. The kids enjoyed the huge playground, the grown-ups enjoyed wine tasting at Prairie Berry Winery in Hill City, and we all even enjoyed a huge thunderstorm on Saturday night. It was fun listening to it, and we stayed happy and dry inside playing cards.

Mark had a nice Father's Day - he was spoiled with lots of presents (mainly work clothes!) - and a couple Vikings things hand-picked by the boys. When he had his choice of where to eat for supper, Mark chose Chuck E. Cheese because we have so much fun there with the kids. What a Dad!! I had to laugh at his pick, but we did have a lot of fun. Yesterday was also Josh's birthday (my brother) - Happy Birthday Josh! He is the only boy in our family and he was actually born on Father's Day in 1979 - what a gift, huh?? Mom has never been able to top that one!

This week we're still busy planning our next big camping adventure - our church camping weekend this weekend in Spearfish. We leave on Thursday and return on Sunday. After this, I'm done organizing/planning ANYTHING for quite a while! I need a break!! We're looking forward to it, though, Spearfish is such a fun place. Have a great week!

Nothing New!

Posting a quick update to say there's not much news coming from the Roisum household in the past few days - which is really NICE for a change! We had a very normal weekend - Saturday our house was one stop on a progressive lunch tour for the ladies at church, so I was madly cleaning my house on Friday and Saturday morning. By Saturday at 1:00 it was all done and I had a clean house for the rest of the weekend! We had a t-ball game Saturday afternoon, which is always entertaining, and then the kids had a birthday party to go to on Saturday evening, so Mark and I got a quiet dinner out together! Yesterday after church we hauled out all the new water toys/sprinklers the kids got for their birthday and tried them all out in the yard (it was 92 here), and then we took a "field trip" for our pizza and movie night and went to Shrek 3 in the theater. The kids loved it, Mark and I thought the first two were better - but it was fun anyway.

Today is going to be another hot one, so I'm taking the kids and one of their friends to the pool. Tomorrow morning the boys start gymnastics at the gymnastics place they had their party at - they are SO excited. Wednesday and Thursday we have t-ball commitments and then Friday we're off camping for Father's Day weekend!!

On the right side of this page, we added a couple of our FAVORITE YouTube videos - check them out. The first one is a good one to watch for Father's Day - a truly breathtaking account of a father's love - the story of Dick and Rick Hoyt. Dick Hoyt sets an example of parenthood that few of us will ever be able to live up to. Just watch the first one listed (not sure why four posted) - watch it all the way through and grab a box of kleenex. The second one is one we watch when we need a good laugh - and boy do we laugh!! Have a good week!

The Birthday Parties

I finally have a moment to put on some pictures of the kids' parties this week - we started out with the "kid" one on Sunday at a place called Just Jymnastics (yes, I know how to spell, that's the way they do it) - an AWESOME place for a kids party. We had 15 kids come, as well as both sets of Jack and Noah's grandparents, one great-grandpa and one uncle and his girlfriend - so having all of them together was pretty special. It was a great afternoon.

Then on Tuesday, their actual birthday, we had a little family gathering - I fixed their favorites - tacos and macaroni and cheese :). They had a big-kid moment when Uncle Josh and Marcy gave them their first gun - a BB gun, but it's REAL, so it was a big deal to them. They aren't ready to hunt just yet, which is okay with mom, but they are looking forward to shooting pop cans and targets (and learning about gun safety!!)with Uncle Josh. Tuesday night when we were putting them to bed, mom and dad were play-whining about how they are already 6, and why couldn't they stay 5 a little longer? - when Noah said "When we're 7 you are going to wish we were 6, so why don't you just enjoy 6 right now??" Pretty insightful for a little dude, no? We decided to take that to heart.

Another Noah comment - we were playing the "which do you like better?" game, and he asked me if I liked our mail, or the mailman better. I said the MAIL, which was no surprise to him because he knows I have "issues" with our mailman - and he said to me "mommy, you are always supposed to love PEOPLE more than THINGS." Yikes. The things our kids can throw back at us!!

Jack meanwhile, is DETERMINED to lose a tooth - he finally has a loose one, after praying constantly about it, and now he just wants to yank it out (even though it's not ready). Grandpa Horak decided to play a joke and haul out the pliers the other night and Jack was ready to let him do it! He doesn't care if it's ready or not. Mom took the pliers away from Grandpa, and Jack has resorted to eating a lot of hard fruit to make it come out. Stay tuned . . . .

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK AND NOAH!

Happy Birthday to my sweet babies - - who aren't babies anymore!! Today we are celebrating Jack and Noah's 6th birthday. Ever since the kids were born, literally hundreds of people have told us "oh they grow up so fast" but you never really appreciate that comment until you experience it yourself. I can't get my mind around the fact that they are 6 - somewhere in the back of my mind I just figured they would be little for a very long time. Not so! The years have flown by like hours. Right now they are in the family room playing and I hear Jack saying "What's up with that???" - not exactly a toddler comment! Just a good reminder to really grasp every moment, because they come and go so quickly!

An AMAZING Weekend and the Camera Curse

WOW! What a weekend we had!! It was amazing - this one will go down in our journals and scrapbooks as one to remember. We were blessed by a visit from Mark's mom and dad, who came out from Minnesota for all of the boys' events this weekend - it was great to have them around for a couple of days. Friday night we went with them, my mom and dad (who celebrated 39 years of marriage on Friday!), and my Grandpa to the Alpine Inn in Hill City for dinner - and at the last moment decided to rent a limo to take us! It was a riot, so much fun - and a big surprise for everyone.

Saturday morning, here's what we were doing at 10:00 a.m.:

And here's what we were doing at 10:30 a.m.:

Yes, the boys had back-to-back soccer and t-ball games, so we were busy on Saturday morning! As you can see above, they had quite the cheering section at soccer, and almost the same people at t-ball. They felt pretty special, having so many people there to watch them. That ended our spring soccer season, and it was a blast. The kids got trophies, and they've been hauling them around everywhere they go this weekend.

Saturday afternoon after a rest break, we took Mark's parents to Bear Country and got in on some fun stuff there - supper time, which was totally entertaining. We literally had to tear Noah away from the railing at the baby red fox pen- he had sat there for almost 1/2 an hour and still didn't want to leave. We made a quick stop in the gift shop on the way out and at one point Mark heard Noah groan and said "uggh, I just can't stop!!" - turned and looked and he was hugging a red fox stuffed animal. He's addicted.

As for our CAMERA CURSE - shortly after arriving here, Paul and LaRayne's NEW digital camera quit working, and couldn't be fixed. This morning, just hours before the boys' 6th birthday party, OUR digital camera quit working (which led us into a quick camera-shopping trip before the party). Then AT the party (only about 1/2 hour into it!), our camcorder went kaput and we can't even get the tape out. What's going on here?? No one bring their camera to our house! As such, I do not have photos up tonight of the party because I have to install new software for the new camera. So, that will be my project tomorrow - check back for party pictures!