Birthdays, Baseball, and Brothers

We've had a busy few weeks.

Luke ended his first day of school with a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.

Playing Daddy in air hockey.

Ha ha!  Score!

Ben's favorite...a fishing game.

Whack a Shark!

Luke's party guests.

Katrina, Luke, Tiffany, Ben, and Emily

We had a great afternoon.

On Luke's birthday he got to spend the whole afternoon with Uncle Ben and Aunt Christina who came to visit for his birthday.

Trip to the "river".

The Ben-s!

Third baseball birthday cake for the third year in the row.

Luke's gift from Mommy and Daddy...a fish tank. 

We started with two...the spotted one didn't make it.  We now have 3.  

Dora, Diego, and Jaguar.

We spent Labor Day Weekend in Germantown.

The boys had a great weekend with Grandma, Grandpa and many Aunts and Uncles.

Luke got a new Albert poster from Uncle Nate...it should fit on his wall.  We'll see...

Sunday after church we sat down to a lasagna lunch and then packed up for the BEACH!

We were soooooo excited to spend the day at the beach with the family...

Ben could hardly contain his excitement.  He slept the whole way there.

Luke got to go fishing with Daddy and Grandpa and caught a tree!

Ben spent his time trying to catch seagulls, making sand castles with Aunt Lydia, and running away from the water with Uncle Josh.  He had a blast at the beach.

And Luke braved the FREEZING cold water.

The whole day was fun although a bit chilly.

Then on Labor Day Luke went with Daddy to a Brewer/Cardinals game courtesy of Uncle Chad and Aunt Erin.  

Luke even took a few pictures himself.

When he wasn't snapping pictures he sat in front of Scott and intently watched the baseball action.

He got to see a Cardinal victory.

And it wiped him out.

Ben and I took Aunt Lydia to Monkey Joe's so Ben wouldn't feel too bad that Dad and Luke went to the game without him.  He jumped and bounced everywhere.  It was lots of fun.

Now we're into full school mode.  Sunday School has begun so it's the time of year when our little family spends our weekends at home and we have to entertain ourselves.

Like last night when the boys got into a tickle fight.

Daddy won, as usual.

FIRST DAY!!!!

I figured it was only fair to post this on the blog, instead of facebook, so everyone can see it.

We woke up very early this morning, so Scott could get to work on time.  Luke slowly ate his breakfast, got dressed and grabbed his backpack.  As a preemptive strike, I had packed Ben's backpack the night before and sure enough, he "needed" his bag before he walked out the door.

Time for school!

The Star Wars backpack!

Our big kid

Luke finally gets to go to work with Daddy.

As we walked to the classroom, our pastor asked Luke where he was going.

"To my office!" was his reply.

Waiting to go downstairs.

Unloading his backpack with Mrs. Moses.

He found his hook all by himself!

Everything's set, time to play!

And with that he said, "bye mom!" and went straight for the tool bench in the corner of the classroom.  I wonder if it will ever hit him that he's on his own...

Janetzke Fest

I'm really not surprised that it's already July.  We spent May and June traveling to and from our families' different celebrations.

We'll start in May with ~
Kurt's Confirmation

Kurt and Daniel

The WHOLE Janetzke family!

And the coolest part of the morning was being able to take communion as an entire family (well, at least those of us who we could squeeze up there)

After Kurt's opening house we threw in another family gathering and had a wedding shower for Ben and Christina.  Scott spent 18 plus hours carefully preparing wonderful bbq pulled pork.  It's was a nice evening to celebrate our new sister!

We went home to finish out the Sunday School year and came BACK to Wisconsin for Lydia's high school graduation.

Super proud of you, Lydia!  Can't wait to have you closer at CUChicago

Then we went home for about 4 days and the boys and I went BACK up to Wisconsin for Kurt's 8th grade graduation.

Kurt and his Goddaughter, Lilly.

We had a very nice weekend, including an impromptu concert featuring "Jesus loves me" by Luke, Ben, and Grandma.

The NEXT weekend we headed south for a trip to St. Charles.  Jen, Stacy, Stacey, and I threw Sally a baby shower.  The boys laid low at Grandma's house and enjoyed some down time.

Turns out Luke liked hanging out with Maggie and Ben LOVED swimming in Aunt Jennifer's pool.

The next two weeks were fulled with preparations for VBS and Scott's last SLED conference.

VBS week came and we said bye to Scott and within hours of him leaving on his airplane our first night without Daddy was interrupted with tornado sirens.  Luke, Ben, and I crammed in the hall closet until the sirens stopped.  We lost power right away so the boys did what they could to stay occupied... 

We found out the next day that an actual tornado touched down two blocks from our house.  We only went about 20 hours without power and are thankful to God for His protection of our family and our house.

The next DAY the boys and I headed back to Wisconsin once again for the much awaited wedding of Ben and Christina!

It was a wonderful weekend and a great party.  We had an awesome time.  The boys were troopers and walked down the "hallway" with their cousins like pros 

The bride was beautiful and the groom took everything in stride.

The wedding party was wonderful.

The siblings had a great time together.

And I can't believe my little brother is married!

The boys enjoyed the "special dinner" and the dance floor until they finally crashed from the sugar and excitement.

And a big thanks goes to Grandma and Grandpa for helping out the whole day (and night) with the boys!

We headed home that Monday and managed 3ish days at home before making the familiar trek back to Germantown for Lydia's open house and the traditional G-Town 4th of July fireworks.

We enjoyed hanging out with Drue and her boyfriend, Ryan.  We got to spend time chatting with Grandma and Grandpa Bickel and we even made it down to Summerfest with Chad and Erin to see Scott's favorite band.

And now we're home.  Really home.  It was weird to buy fruit and veggies this week since we will actually be home to eat them.  We still have no A/C but are learning to survive with a window unit in our bedroom and frequent trips to our friend's pool.