My Grandpa's Funeral

My Grandpa's funeral was held on Thursday, March 20th at LeSueur River Lutheran Church--the church he was baptized in, married in, walked his daughter down the aisle in, and laid to rest in.  The farm he worked so hard on was right next door to the church that meant so much to him and his family.   It was the most beautiful and perfect service! There was a great turn out of family and friends to honor him and celebrate his life and I know it would have made him smile (and maybe even tear up a bit).

We held a visitation in the church from 10-11am and the service started at 11am--with a military service following outside. My dad said a few words about my Grandpa and did an outstanding job--he painted a perfect picture of my Grandpa and what he was like.

The kids did great--they had a lot of energy and they ran around quite a bit before and after the service, but they were all very well behaved during the service. 

Tears were shed as we listened to the beautiful music sung by Jim Hoffman (On Eagles Wings and the Lords Prayer) as well as through Pastor Brian's sermon, which was very personal and heartfelt.

The sun was shining on us all that day. My mom did such a wonderful job of setting up the service...picking out the pictures, flowers and attending to all the details. She has handled everything with such poise. She was such a wonderful daughter to her father--and she took such good care of him, especially in his final year. I couldn't ask for a better role model to look after!

Papa and Bishop

Baby Jack and Nana reading books before the funeral

The great grandkids each got to take home a flower from the "great Grandfather" plant

My Grandpa served in the Navy and was proud to serve his country!

It was a beautiful day and a beautiful service! Our family is very grateful to all who contributed to such a wonderful celebration of my Grandfather!

Grandpa Arnie

On Thursday March 13th, my Grandpa passed away at his place at Countryside in Owatonna. He was 90 years old. He absolutely loved seeing his great grandkids and his eyes lit up every time he saw them. He suffered quite a bit in his last year and while it is sad to not have him here and we miss him like crazy it is a blessing that he isn't suffering anymore. He passed away with my mom holding his hand and it went very quickly, which was a relief for everyone.

Luke and I were in Punta Cana at the time, which was difficult for me. I am still sad that I didn't get a chance to see him one last time.....to see his beautiful smile, to hear his little chuckle and to say "I love you and good bye".  I have so many good memories of my Grandpa. He took Shelly and I fishing many times when we were little....he'd fish and we'd eat our treats in our tackle boxes! At the very end he'd let us drag our pop cans in the water as he drove the boat.....and we'd try REALLY hard not to drop our cans because he didn't like that very much! ;)

My grandpa and grandma were very faithful fans to Shelly and my basketball games. We could always count on seeing them in the stands!

He took such good care of my Grandma for as long as he could and he missed her dearly when she moved into a memory care facility.

My last time visiting my Grandpa-2/15/14

Easter 2013

One of my favorites of my Grandpa!

Thanksgiving 2013

Grandpa and Bishop

Grandpa and Nora

I was able to visit my Grandpa in January and he told me stories of when he was in the Navy, working on the farm and his life in general. He lived a good life. He had some hard times, but he had a good life and he was always good for a good tease!

I love you, Grandpa and I miss you so much! Thanks for everything you did for my mom and our family!

Children's Museum

On Sunday after church we met the Bormann's at the Children's Museum. There was a dinosaur exhibit that we wanted to get to and Rock the Cradle was on Sunday so we were hoping the crowds wouldn't be quite as big!

The Retzer's joined us at church and then came to the Children's Museum too, so that was fun! The kids all had fun together!!

Nora, Bishop and Madelyn-ready to PLAY!

 It was hard for me to get many pictures, especially of my own kids since they have a hard time standing still!!

Cousins playing in the water together!

We ran into a few friends while we were there--it seems everyone with kids is trying to get out and burn some energy while it's been so cold out!

Ryan and Jack! I got to see him walk for the first time! Go JACK! :)

Playing Postman

The sweetest little mail carrier!

My sweet, sweet niece, Madelyn! I love her so much!

It was a great time! We were hoping it would tire the kids out--especially Nora.....but it must have had the opposite effect on her as she didn't nap on Sunday! Sunday evening was a tough one--we were very appreciative of the early bedtimes though!

Basketball and Bowling

Bishop had his first week of Basketball on Saturday. The first two weeks are being played at Valley View Middle School in Edina. It was a little nostalgic going to his first practice/game because I played in the gym he was playing in.....and it brought back so many good memories! I just love being in a gym and seeing him play basketball was so fun!

The league he is in is for 4-5 year olds and he appeared to be the youngest/least experienced. His shot actually looked pretty good, but he definitely needs to practice his dribbling. They practiced for the first 30 minutes and then played a game for 30 minutes. They don't keep score and the rules are pretty loose--they just want the kids to experience basketball and have a good time!

He seemed to really enjoy it for the first 45 minutes and then he was done. He basically just walked off the court--the coach looked at me and asked "does he want a sub?" I guess so! :)

While practicing they worked on their bounce passes, running, dribbling and shooting. Luke is volunteering to help with the coaching, so that's fun!

The Terrapins!

When he sat on the bench he ate some snacks! We'll only let that fly while he's young! :)

After basketball we stopped to pick up some new shoes for Nora and then we went to Town Hall Lanes for lunch and bowling! On a side note--Nora was wearing a size 7 1/2 shoe when we went in.....and left with a 9 1/2!!! She is tall for her age, but I didn't realize her feet had grown so much! Bishop is in a 12 1/2, and 9 1/2 doesn't seem THAT far behind him considering the age difference.  I'm so glad we took her in--I feel bad that her feet were smushed in the 7 1/2s! 

This was the first time the kids had bowled and like most things....it was fun for the first 6-7 frames and then they lost interest!

Nora even got to bowl!

 Basketball is 7 weeks long and our goal is to make sure he's excited to go back every week! :)

Birthday presents from the neighbor's!

Our wonderful neighbors gave the kids birthday presents and they were a big hit!

Bishop got a "fun" straw, which he thought was pretty cool!

Nora got a Cat in the Hat book--with stickers! She loves it!

It was fun to continue to celebrate their birthdays with these unexpected presents!

2 and 4 year Check ups

Kindercare was closed on Monday so I took the day off to be with the kids. We got a bunch of snow, but we had the kids' 2 and 4 year checkups in the morning so we had to brave the elements and head out in the snow!

Here is an update on each of the kids:

Bishop-42 lbs (89%) and 43" (95%). He's healthy and he passed his vision and hearing test, so he's good to go for another year!

Nora-30 lbs (85%) and 36" (94%). She's struggled with her ears the past couple of weeks, but her Dr. thought both tubes were in place and looked good-no infection, no plugged tubes with wax, so she is good to go for another year!

I still find it hard to believe that Bishop is 4 years old already. So far it seems like a great age! His imagination is in full force and he loves for us to tell him stories. Lately he'll request stories from when I was younger. He is still a ball of energy and his excitement for life is amazing! He has a very tender heart and he has become quite the mama's boy the past few months.

He is doing really well in his Pre-K class at "school". His teachers are Miss Janelle and Miss Janelle! :) He's come so far in the past 2 years, which is to be expected, but it's amazing to watch him grow and mature (but don't get me wrong-we still have some work to do)! :) He has come so far with his writing in the past couple of months. He seemed to be a bit behind with his writing, but Miss Janelle worked with him and he's doing awesome now! He's still tracing the letters, but he's doing really well! He has struggled with number recognition, so we've been working on that, but it's not a major concern, just something to keep working on. He's starting drawing more stick people and I feel like he's growing up so much!

From other posts it's obvious that he's really into Spiderman these days and has been for quite awhile now! He loves the show Jake and the Neverland Pirates, but he will watch movies and other shows. Luke gets the kids to watch nature shows and he likes that. He also enjoys building things--with the magnets and legos, it's fun to watch!

As I've posted before-he's so good to his sister and they play really well together! He's got it figured out--he knows how to talk her into what would be best for him! ;)

NoraLina (as her dad calls her) has learned so much recently and is such a honey! She LOVES to sing the ABC's and knows the entire alphabet. She is also pretty good with colors. She'll get them wrong from time to time, but she does get them right at times too!

She LOVES to play with her babies and she takes such good care of them....and she has a lot of them to manage! :) She'll put them to bed, take them for walks (inside now) and she even let one of her babies come out to go sledding with us! :)

She got a few tea sets for her birthday and she LOVES to have tea parties and to make us icecream to eat. She stays pretty busy playing with her food and kitchen. It is amazing to see the difference between  a boy and a girl.

She's doing really well at school as well! One of her favorite things to do is to let her friends play with her hair. Her teachers say she'll sit in a chair for over a 1/2 hour and let her friends play "barbershop" with her.

She has a lot of words, which is really nice and it's helping her to communicate! She still has her moments, but she's very good about telling you "NO THANK YOU", if she doesn't like something. She is very sweet and will say "I wuv you and I miss you" when I'm gone! :) And one of my favorite things she says is her brother's name. She can't say her B's yet....so she calls him ISHOP! and it's not Ishop, it's ISHOP! I need to record that one sometime soon! 

We are very blessed with 2 healthy and happy kids! They are so good for each other. Bishop gets Nora to try more things and enjoy more experiences that she might have otherwise not tried and Nora always reminds Bishop of when he's making a bad decision (NO THANK YOU, ISHOP)!

Waterpark and Visiting Great Grandparents

On Saturday morning my parents brought the kids out to the hotel and we went to the Waterpark. The kids had an absolute blast and the slides were perfect for them! They could ride down with us on the tubes and everytime we got to the bottom Bishop would say "AGAIN"!

Bishop and I

Luke and Nora

Luke and Bishop

Nora and I

Hanging out at the bottom of the slide

Warming up in the hottub!

After the waterpark we showered, got ready and headed over to visit my Grandma first. It had started snowing and blowing pretty badly....and the roads weren't that great, but we made it! 

My Grandma was particularly interested in what Bishop had in his little box-she thought it was candy and was a little disappointed to find there weren't any treats inside! :)

Nora and her Great Grandma, Marlys!

We then visited my Grandpa and wheeled him down for lunch on our way out.  It was great to see them both. They're both hanging in there and they both seemed better to me than the last time I saw them. Luke hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving and he noticed a big change in my Grandpa. We're trying to enjoy as much time with them as we can while they're still here!

Our original plan was to eat lunch at my parents and head back home--but the roads still didn't look too good, so we took the kids to see the movie Frozen instead. My mom joined us-and especially enjoyed holding Nora while she slept during part of the movie. It was such a great movie!! We all really enjoyed it!

The drive home was less than enjoyable! Luke and I had both cars in Owatonna and so we both had to drive home. I had the kids in my car and I was a nervous wreck for part of the drive. We made it to Elko and traffic was completely stopped--there had been a bad accident that involved 12 cars and they were still working on clearing the last 2 cars (a semi and a pickup truck)--so it held us up for about an hour. The drive usually takes us 50 mins-1 hour, but took 2 hours and 15 minutes! It could have been much worse though--Bishop slept and Nora watched Elmo Potty about 10 times! :) I was thankful I didn't have hungry kids who had to go the bathroom!

When we got home we all relaxed--and Bishop was excited to get another magazine. My aunt and uncle (Bob and Sandy) gave both kids a subscription to a magazine--and they get excited to get them every month! Here's Bishop reading his!

Sunday was a fun day as well--we went to church, brunch, sledding and then Luke and I went out to celebrate Liana's completion of Grad School--a great way to end a fun weekend!