Homemade goodies

This picture was taken before all our lettuce was harvested. Everything in this salad is from our garden. Lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes. The carrots weren't quit ready yet.
We made this salsa yesterday. All from our garden; tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, and green onions.
These are two day sun pickles I made about a week ago using cucumbers from our garden.
These are more pickles we made about two days ago using another recipe. The cucumbers are from our garden.
These are the onions we were waiting for to make the salsa. They could have grown more but we just couldn't wait to make some salsa with them. We will probably let the rest of the onions mature to their maxium size. We also have a few tiny watermelons growing. I'll post a picture soon. Hopefully we can eat some watermelon before winter. LOL Oh yeah and we also had one small head of broccoli, but we cut it up and put it in our broccoli cheese soup so it didn't make it in this picture.

Happy Birthday to you...

Happy Birthday to you , Happy Birthday to my honey, Happy Birthday to you....

Today is Dan's birthday, he is 29! Here is a list of the 29 things that I LOVE about him.

1. His smile, that is what attracted me to him in the first place.
2. His humor, this is the second thing that attracted me to him. He is so funny!
3. His hands, they are so strong and loving *wink* *wink*
4. His entire body (I won't go into detail here) *smiling*
5. How he is with our wonderful kids, he is the best dad!
6. His emotional strength.
7. His knowledge about things, he can fix anything.
8. His heart, he really cares about people.
9. His intellegence, this guy is very very smart.
10. His LOVE for our GOD and SAVIOUR.
11. He is the head of the house, I don't know what I would do without him.
12. His ability to make decisions.
13. His gardening abilities, If it were completely up to me, the garden would look like crap.
14. How he diciplines the children. They know their boundries and they LOVE him more for it.
15. His energy, I am on the lazy side. Nothing would get completely done it if were up to me.
16. His physical strength
17. The way he just holds me without saying a word when I am sad.
18. I love his shaved head.
19. This smirk that he gets when he is upset that tells me he loves me and could never be mad
20. His attitude about things
21. He can build anything he wants to, he amazes me
22. His generosity, he always wants to help people for nothing in return
23. The way he is with other kids, they all love him, there is just something about him.
24. They way he was there for me when my dad died, he is a huge support.
25. When he cooks dinner with me it's always fun.
26. How he is always trying to open doors for me, sometimes I am too quick and he can't.
27. How he suprises me with gifts after he says we shouldn't get each other anything.
28. How he remembers things I've said I wanted over the years, even when I've forgotten.
29. Because he is who he is and doesn't try to be different.

I saw him for the first time at a bowling alley in 8th grade and knew I was going to marry him. I did and I am so glad I did. Happy 29th Birthday Babe! I LOVE YOU!!

Fun with photo editing

Some fun I have been having with my digital camera and photo editor. I took these pictures today of some sunflowers that are sitting on my picnic table out back (a church friend gave them to us). Anyway, I am not very good at taking pictures but I have been trying to do better. All I did with these was brighten up the photo with the color enhancers. These sunflowers are gorgeous so it was fun playing with them and getting these pics.

Beach buddies...

Grace with Isabella from Tennessee.
Sarah with friends Grace and Ellie (a friends cousins)
Adam and Jack with Nicolas floating on a raft.

Beach faces...

Hungry Hippos waiting for their burgers...
Me..now showing....also a very hungry hippo...
Stealing a picture of Dan when he least expected it.
Adam, after he fell off the top of the monkey bars (the kids that saw the fall said he flipped a few times in the air before hitting the ground, face first). Can you see the bump above his lip? If you remember a recent post about him going spiderman on everything, well...this was another climbing adventure only this one went wrong. Dan later caught him swinging from a very limber tree branch which allowed him to swing out completely parallel with the ground a few feet in the air. That one was a success, not like this one which left him alittle dazed.

More beach faces...

Jack
Grace
Adam
Sarah

Fresh from the garden

This is our latest harvest, picked today. The only veggies missing are the onions and broccoli which are not ready yet. The green beans, radishes, spinach and lettuce are not pictured either because they have already been harvested. Stay tuned for the watermelons...

Summer fun

Grace's first pose of the day.
Grace packing down the sand around Sarah.
Adam and Nic digging a hole in the sand at the State Park Beach.
Grace and Luke rolling the ball back and forth.
Grace's second pose of the day while balancing on the ball.

More summer fun

Dune Climb...this is the dune I would probably die if I tried to climb up. The kids attempted it, but started back up before they were half-way down. The sand was "hot" that day.
Adam climbing again...everytime we turn around he goes all spiderman on something.
On our bus back from the Sand Dunes with some friends. Jack didn't want his picture taken with me. :( Little turd!
Sarah and Carmin trying to keep warm after playing in the water.
Jack begged me to take this picture of him. LOL He piled on the sand himself and had to get in the "just right" pose before I snapped the pic. "Okay, I'm ready." he said.

1st Quilt

This is the first quilt that I completed from start to finish. This is for Dan's cousin who is due to have her first baby, a boy, in September.

Missing you...

This is my dad holding our oldest daughter Sarah, just after she was born, June 18th 1999. One and a half months after this picture was taken, my daddy died. Today, July 31st marks exactly 8 years since he's been gone. As you can probably imagine it is really difficult sometimes for me to even look at his picture without being upset. It wasn't my dad's time to go but he went anyway. I always hate this day and the weeks before it as I always have nightmares about him reminding me this anniversary is coming. I miss him so much...he only met our first child and the last time he got to hold her she was just 4 days old. Now Sarah is 8 and we have Adam who is 6, Jack who is 4, Grace who is almost 2 and another baby boy coming in a few months. All of whom never had the pleasure of meeting my dad, their Grandpa Irwin. He was the best dad in the world and our lives have never been nor will they ever be the same. The only happiness I feel is knowing that one day I will see him again in Heaven. My children will one day meet the Grandpa they were robbed of meeting on earth. I know my dad is in Heaven so I should be happy for him. He is no longer hurting or suffering like he did the last days of his life. I can't imagine what he was going through before he died, but I know he now rests comfortably in the arms of our mighty Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is hard to be happy that he is up there because I want him here with me, and that is what is so hard to deal with.

So daddy, if you can hear me...please know that we all miss you so very much and will always love you and can't wait for the day that we can one day see you again in Heaven.

Love your daughter,
Melissa

To Mom and Tanya -I love you guys and am thinking of you today as we all suffer from this loss.

Revelation 21:4 (Whole Chapter) He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Art Class

Sarah was at art class all last week. It was a birthday present from one of her grandmas. I believe it was day two of class when they learned about self portraits. Here is her self portrait. We think she did pretty well in art class. She loves to draw pictures and write stories so this really encouraged her to keep on drawing and writing.

More pictures...

Amie made these dresses for my girls. I picked up the material at a garage sale awhile ago, but I don't know how to sew much, especially clothes so she offered to teach me a few things while making these dresses. I love the way they turned out and so did everyone else when we showed up to church all dressed up. She made the hats too. You can check out all her other sewing adventures here.
Sarah wanted to practice her new found love of photography when she snapped this picture of me and Grace. You can't see but Adam and Jack are off to the side playing on the cool tree rope/swing that Dan made them.
Garden goodness: Here is our latest pickings from our garden this year. The carrots arn't quite ready yet but they still taste yummy and the radishes have already been harvested so they didn't make it in this picture. We have already eaten lots of green beans, lettuce and spinach in addition to the cucumbers and cherry tomatoes pictured here. We have picked quite a few jalapenos but I'm not a big fan and our big tomatoes and onions arn't ready for making salsa just yet. Our corn is just about ready. Man, I can't wait to eat some fresh corn on the cob. We are still waiting on the broccoli and watermelon although I'm not sure we will actually get watermelon this year. We'll see.

Sarah and Sadie

Here is my Sarah and Amie's Sadie. Both names mean "princess". Isn't that a great picture?

Belly Shots

Adam took this picture and cut my head off. LOL At least you can see my belly and that is what's important.
Sarah took these two, I am 21weeks 5 days today! LOL Jack in the background wrestling with Adam.
There was a shadow cast on my chin and it looks like facial hair or a bruise. LOL Yuck!

Accomplishments

Some "cheese" moments...
It has been over a month now since Adam learned to ride his bike without training wheels. He is doing a great job and is even trying to jump jumps with his bike. He had a couple accidents in the beginning including a major accident that involved having his eyes closed...he is a boy...need I say more. LOL He is much better now!
The kids have been trying to climb our little tree in our backyard which they finally accomplished. This picture was taken at Grandma Al's house in her backyard in the "Fairy Tree". Adam was very proud of himself for climbing this HUGE tree.
Sarah climbed the tree in the front yard at Grandma Al's house and was very proud of herself as well.
And of course Jack had to get involved in the tree climbing also. Here he is not too far from the ground in another tree in Grandma's front yard. We had a great time over the 4th of July weekend at Grandma's house. The weather was gorgeous!!
Another accomplishment.....Grace is sleeping in a big girl bed now (bunk bed) and has been for the past two weeks. We didn't have any trouble moving her from the crib to the bed. She loves sleeping in her big sissy's room. Now all four kids have bunkbeds and they love 'em.

And last but not least....I can finally put Gracie's hair in pig tails and a pony tail too! I was so excited to be able to pull her hair back. She looks so cute and so grown up. This picture looks kinda sloppy because she wore her hair up all day. It looks better right after it's done. She does however have to wear a clip in the front since her bangs aren't quite long enough to pull back yet.

Well...those were some accomplishments we've made this past month since summer break began. More soon to come I'm sure.

Name Change

Well, as you can see from the title, I have changed my blog name. Dan didn't like my previous name and several other bloggers had the same name so I started thinking. I am terrible at coming up with witty things like cool names, etc...but then I remember something my cousin just told me in an email about her baby boy. As mentioned above she said she cheeses out over everything he does. I thought, hey...my inspiration for a blog name. Thanks Chrissy for my inspiration. I obviously changed my site name as well since I am pregnant with baby #5 so momblogs4 won't work for too much longer. I figured if I change the address to match the title somewhat then I won't have to worry about changing it ever. Sarah picked out the address name http://www.thecheesestation.blogspot.com/ Thanks Sarah!

Drum roll please.......

That's right, He is a BOY! This of course confirms my ultrasound a 14 weeks which also showed a boy. My hemorrhage is still there and I won't have full report until Friday. There is no new bleed and everything else was looking good. BPM=144 Now we are on the name hunt, our best boys names have been used on our other two boys. This outta be fun!

Happy 8th Birthday!

Our little Sarah Bear, aka "Sister Marie" turned 8 today. I can't believe our oldest daughter will be in 3rd grade next year. Time flies too fast. Happy Birthday girl we love you!!