Halloween,Birthdays and Christmas, OH MY!!!!!

LOTS TO UPDATE, LOTS TO TELL, LOTS TO SMILE AT.....

Milkshake asleep all cuddled up with the stockings I was about to hang.. Who can resist such a cute face, I had to let her get her beauty rest.....
Nick with the final outcome of our tree. He is wearing his hulk shirt, which he is VERY proud of and wore for 4 straight days...:)

Nick helping dad figure out how to fluff the tree that we slaved getting in the cold ,harsh, garage..

See, these men worked hard to get our tree, by the sweat of their brows did they cut, I mean assemble the tree. Yes I am being facetious, I like real trees..

YIKES.. I had a hard time watching Nick and the boys swing sooooooo high only to be safe as to not fly off from swinging in and around, hanging by two little chains 3o feet in the air, you could see all the moms cringing, the dads smiling.....

We took a break from swinging to have lunch at the Rainforest Cafe..I wainted in line, while Chris took the boys for more rides, eating at Rainforest Cafe on a Saturday, at the mall of America On December 6, during Christmas shopping and Santa being there.. What can that spell...DISASTER.. But we were pleasantly surprised to only wait 40 minutes in line..

Zack loves the rainforest cafe, especially when all the monkeys start drumming and the cool thunderstorms, their eyes were huge..

AAAHHHH.. another scarry ride.. Nick and Brian go up and they drop down, go up drop down, They loved it..

From Left to right, Vitaly Brown (Our friend from Russia, who was adopted) The back of Josh's head, Nick and Brian in one cart, (Brian was a little too short to reach the peddle, but he is older than Nick) and Zack looking a little confused why a girl would hit him...:)

I'm not so sure about this mom...It's OK to bump people with this car..OK

That was fun, they only got scared once..

Nick with his proud shirt of Hulk..

At the Friday Night party, we had given the boys 5 minutes to come up with the most creative lego creation they could. this was Vitalys..

Zack's Creation...

Brian's Creation....

Josh' Creation..

And Nicholas creation....

The boys couldn't agree on the cake or what superhero it should be, so the lady at Walmart made a cake from both their favorite hero..She did a great job....

Here's HULK right in my own home...

We spent the "Cold" and rainy and wintery mix of a day on Nick's birthday at the Bydlon's eating, playing games and having cake... He is six now.. :(

Nick was so happy to get his Hulk costume...Nick got Hulk and Zack got spiderman the blue suit and the black one...

Here he is, SPIDEY...

Zack's shirt lit up, it was cool...

He turned eight years old... So Sad...

Here is Zack with Milkshake on his Birthday.. He is growing up to be such a sweet, and Godly little boy.. He plays peacemaker alot.. He does not like strife in the house.

Our little friend found the lid off the bucket of bird seed. He was in HOG heaven.. Then he invited all his little buddies to feast with him...It was fun watching this close out our patio window.

This is what the battlefield of carving pumpkins looks like when you leave them unattended for any length of time....

Nick is helping Mommy paint pumpkins for our harvest party at the Browns.

One of the pumpkins the kids carved...

My Creation ... I got the idea from a magazine and twisted it a bit. I was fun painting the whole pumpkin white and then addiing what looked quilty to me...

Another creation, first I painted it white and gold, glued leaves, then put a thick coat of sheer shine on, cut the top and used it as a vase..

Shalom!! It was three little Indians, but now it's three little Hebrews !!!!

Shalom!! Welcome to our Seder Meal... This is our Tapestry Passover Meal..

The end of the first semester...

Chris lead the Seder meal, he did a Great Job !!! Both of us being Jewish made perfect sense for the group to ask us to run the Seder Passover Meal... We really enjoyed walking through the process, and learning the jewish traditions..

Here is our Altar.. We happen to have a tablecloth that looked somewhat Hebrew.. We have a friend who loaned us the candles, the seder plate, and other cool stuff.. But I had to get Bitter herbs which was horseradish, a shank bone, an egg, Haroset (look it up) Gifilte fish, parsley, salt water and an extra plate for Elijah...We did make the children atleast try everything...

The Altar....

We had the children smash grapes to make grapejuice into a winepress, I must admit it tasted rather good...

Hannah and Olivia looked like they came out of a Italian, Greek movie.. They had a large bowl that they were gathering grapes from Hannah's mom's vineyard (yes, they grow grapes that have an absolutely beautiful arch that hangs over the grapes..... How authentic.. I wish I had a picture of them gathering the grapes.. It was toooooooo movie like..

Josh during the seder.. He enjoyed dressing up like a Hebrew..

Zack at the Seder, of course he had no plate..And I had to sneak away during my role to get him a plate.. Poor Zack.. He always is content and has such a good attitude, never complains or tells us he doesn't have it.. Oy... Who knew?

Nick at the Seder...He was just too cute and too itchy.. I made the costumes with cheap burlap, like John the Baptist, Right? Errrh.. He itched the whole time.. I made him make it through atleast the passover meal, and quickly stripped it off him...

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians !!!

Finally a new post, it's been over a month....

Here are my three little Indians....

It started out a simple little kindergarten project for Nick.. I gave him the craft book that had feathers.. Then his big brothers saw how cool he looked and next thing you know we're constructing weapons, making new headresses, and using face paint for their chests and warpaint.. You never know with kids what a project can turn into....
" How" Indian.. Peace brothers...

Zack of course got a bad picture taken, the camera was dying, I literally had to lick the batteries for the last bit of juice I could squeeze, and yes that works to get the last bit of life..

Of course, if you look the part, we act the part... Josh and his fearsome look.. We call him

Whines alot... Sorry Josh, we love you....

Lots of catching up to do, trips, school starting and more...

Our Trip North with Nana and Papa

My brother, John had given my parents a week at a resort in Onanamia (?) up North in Minnesota.. So my brother Ed took the first 3 days and my parent and I and my three boys took the next 3 days.. We packed up (ALOT) and headed up.. It seems you need as much for 3 days as you would need for 2 weeks, but we did it. We packed some meals, sleeping bags, pillows, games, blow up beds.. This place was only a one bedroom, so at night we would turn the living room area into our bedrooms.. Josh and Zack slept on the pull out bed and Nick and I slept on a nice and bouncy blow up.. It was an interesting night of sleep :)

Here Dad and Josh share our huge dining area fit for a king (Maybe in Toad's land),but we made a fun memory..

The boys loved getting up and watching cartoons on cable.. Can you imagine how special that is.. We don't have cable, just rabbit ears, and so when we stay at a hotel, cartoons in bed are the ultimate spoiling time...

OUR FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL 2008-2009

Josh is in 4th grade this year.. He is a very easy and somewhat eager beaver to learn.. He does enjoy math, and seems to grasp it.. I look forward to this year, to see him dive into deeper learning and have fun with our co-op Tapestry of Grace..

Zack's 1st day of 2nd grade.......

He is very eager to learn and though math is not right up his alley, he LOVES to read and is very creative....

Nick is in Kindergarten.. AHHHHH.. how did this happen.. They are all in school and learning..When the youngest can finally read, that will be a sad day.. No more days of letting him get away with playing legos all morning, or putting on a movie, or just playing whatever.. He enjoys school, and like Josh he is good at math, but is reluctant to learn to read beyond three letter words.. For now, that is fine....


OUR CHURCH PICNIC BROUGHT TO YOU BY CHRIS BUROW....GO HONEY !!!

Chris is playing softball with some men and some women.. He never really gets to play, but this year all the kids were really old enough to participate in some other activities without us having to continually watch over them.. Josh and Daddy got to play softball.. It was a blast.. Chris organized the whole picnic himself, with my limited help.. It was a success. We had over a 100 people come, we had lots of food, we had plenty of games, facepainting, fish ponds for kids, volleyball, softball, door prizes etc.....It was a fun day !!!!!

Zack and Vitaly Brown are at the "Fish Pond" where everyone fished and caught some sort of prize.. They love doing this game....Dan would announce who was up and of course there were some mischievous girls on the other side.. The first time Zack threw his pole over, he got a small twig.. He thought it was so funny...

Here he is laughing at what would be next after the twig.. He finally got a prize,but he is sure fun to pick on....

Here is Nick the catman... All the kids loved the facepainting.. Tammy Bydlon has a natural talent of facepainting.. She is very creative and all the kids enjoyed their faces, until on the way home, I had to stop at the store.. Nick cried..He didn't want anyone to see his cat face, altho, all day he walked around at the picnic as one.. I guess he feels comfortable with church friends, but heaven forbid the Cub Foods people see him.. A little vanity to work on for mom, I guess..

Here is Josh getting ready to bat at the Softball game.. He has a natural swing and talent for the game, but playing with adult men made him a little fearful..Rightly so, those men hit hard...

OK OK.. I HAD TO PUT THIS IN.. SORRY BUROW BOYS.....

This was our game night.. Every other Tuesday, we play games with the boys.. We do different activities.. We play jelly bean bingo, Simon says.. They love watching mom and dad act silly and jump on one foot with our tongues out and one hand on my head and one on my belly.. You get the drift.. Well, this particular day was backwards day.. We had hot dogs for breakfast, dessert for lunch and pancakes and sausage for dinner.. The boys taught me school.. I did their math and writing.. etc.. And,for dinner you had to dress the silliest, craziest. mismatch way you could.. I have on a leopard shirt, a pink flower print skirt, a wild scarf and pantyhose tied on my head, the rest of the boys you can see.. Chris said, "I sure hope no one comes to the door tonight, we homeschool and they already think we are crazy, we don't need another reason for them to believe it"

CLASS FIELD TRIP TO TAMARACK NATURE CENTER

Josh is telling his brothers how hard it would be to be little and still be brothers with such limited room.. stepping all over each other...

Our study at the nature center, was on Solar.. Using the sun to your advantage.. Here Nick and Josh are waiting for the sun to turn the blue print paper with flowers on it.. Then you put it in water like you do for developing pictures, and you can use it for Christmas cards or whatever.. It really was fun..

Here the boys are making Solar Cookers.. Using aluminum foil and line a box, with black paper at the bottom of the box, and you use the sun right, you can cook things like smores, pancakes etc...We'll have to try these next year, as we live in Minnesota and the sun is pretty low now and a wee bit chilly...