The best I can do....

is catch you up to speed on the month of December and then try to do better in 2012.  Sorry about the lack of blogging, but with the pace of life with three kids and two working parents along with countless church and school activities, (not to mention all the laundry, cleaning, and cooking and extra cooking in this month) (okay I'm done complaining) blogging is the one thing that sometimes has to take a backseat. 

Seriously, I do want to try to do better at recording our family moments in 2012 on this blog since scrapbooking is also non-existant in my life right now. 

So, yes, December is a very busy month for us.  It was full of many church activities especially.  Yes, I had a meltdown or two trying to keep up with traditions and making sure that my family enjoyed the season as much as possible.  Yes, I need to learn to let some things go in the future.  I am writing this down more for me than anyone else, as I need to remind myself in years to come, that I can't be everything to everybody all the time (as much as I would really like to be!) 

Here is a small recap in pictures of the last few weeks.  Honestly I have hardly taken a picture since the last post, so there aren't that many :)

This is Sunday, December 18th- our Christmas program at church.  The adult choir/orchestra/drama team/ and kids choir presented a Christmas production called Finding Hope.  It was beautiful and so fun that four of the five of us were involved in it.  As you can see, Connor wasn't so much into taking pictures at this point, we had been at church for almost 6 hours at this point and he was ready to go get something to eat :)

 On Friday, 12/23, we celebrated Christmas with Jan and Luther in Grand Forks.  We had a wonderful meal and enjoyed a wonderful time of being blessed with presents. 

SIBLINGS......

 I love this shot with the grandparents!

 Our family....

 Kaelynn's funnest gift was the American Girl Doll- Kit.  She was so excited when she opened it!  More about that in the next post.

On Christmas Day after our service in Fargo, we drove to Minneapolis to spend the week with mom and Gene. 

 Another great picture with the grandparents!

 The girls playing Twister. 

The cousins with the birthday cake for Jesus.

 We got to spend lots of time with cousin Declan.  What a precious little boy!  Kaelynn loved being a "babysitter" for him and he loved having the attention! 

 We also went to an indoor mini-golf, lazer tag, batting cages, arcade called Grand Slam and had an awesome time! 

  On Thursday, the boys went fishing in Lake of the Woods while the girls including, Jan, my mom, me and Kaelynn spent some great girl time in Minneapolis.  More on that in the next post........

Let's Go Bison!!!!

We have become quite the Bison household this year.  The Bison are having a great football season and we were very excited to take the kids to the game this afternoon.  We went with two other families the Luchts and the Jonkmans. 

We put on our Bison sweatshirts and got to the game plenty early to get the best general admission seats.    

 The ladies- Kami, Jenelle, and I

Great Clips salon was offering free hair dyeing to show Bison pride so we said, "why not!"  I've never let my kids put dye in their hair, but there's always a first time for everything.  It's hard to tell, but Kaelynn has gold on top and green underneath.  Connor got green and gold stripes with NDSU and BISON on either side of his head. 

 Love this picture! 

We witnessed the Bison's first loss of the season unfortunately, but it was still very fun to be there. 

Halloween 2011

Yes, I'm almost a week late with this post.  Sorry!  Life continues to tick at the speed of light around here.  I'm hanging on with all I can for the ride.  We had a fun Halloween.  We started the day before by carving the pumpkins we had accumulated over the last few weeks.  We had 6 in all and wanted to try some patterns on our pumpkins this year.  The kids and I scooped out the insides and Andy did most of the carving.  Connor is an "outside of the box" kind of guy so he didn't want to do a pre-made pattern, but went with his own creation.  He did a great job on it:

Here are most of the pumpkins:

In the Kvernen house, we don't do scary Halloween.  This year we had Minne Mouse, Luigi from Mario Brothers, and Jada Fett from Star Wars.  I usually don't buy full costumes for the kids, but this year found Connor and Carson's costumes seriously clearanced and figured I couldn't make costumes for cheaper. 

My nieces and nephew came with us as well as a friend and her two boys and a neighbor girl and her mom.  It was quite the group and we had a lot of fun together. 

This was the preferred method of transportation by the girls:

We now have 3 gallon sized bags full of "fun-size" candy.  If anybody needs a sugar high anytime soon, you're welcome to come by.      

The love of fall

I love fall for several reasons, and the pumpkin patch is one of those reasons.  I love the colors of reds and oranges, the smells of a bonfire and crisp leaves, the sights of my kids having fun with games and mazes, and even the tastes of hot chocolate or apple cider on a crisp day.  Love it! 

We have had a glorious fall and are soaking in every last bit of it before it comes to an end soon.  Today we had the opportunity to go to the DeMoss pumpkin patch with Jan and Luther.  Andy was getting in his final hunt of the season, so he didn't make it. 

Here are some pictures of the fun we had! 

Celebration for a special little guy

The kids and I got to go to Minneapolis this weekend to celebrate the 1st birthday of my nephew Declan!  What a great little guy he is!    

 Rusty, Katie, and Declan... (and baby brother whom we get to meet in February 2012 :)

 My sister Katie made an awesome brunch for us all complete with caramel rolls, pumpkin bars, lots of fruit, hashbrown casserole, a delicious pasta salad, sausages and bacon.  And an amazing chocolate cake in the shape of a pumpkin. 

Declan had no problems devouring his cupcake.  Love it!!!!

 After the party, we took the kids to French Park to play on the rope structure and take a great fall walk in the beautiful woods there. 

The cousins have so much fun together and this weekend was no exception. 

Playing Ring-around-the-rosy on the beach of Medicine Lake.

Fall Hodge-Podge

So what have we been up to the past month???????????  Plenty!  Here's a little hodg-podge of some of our fall activities.

A trip to the Chahinkapa Zoo in Wahpeton with cousins.  The monkeys (the ones in the cage- not the ones pictured below :) kept us highly entertained once again.  I seriously could watch them all day long.   

Kaelynn keeps telling me she wants to be a veterinarian.  I'm thinking it is a very real possibility.  She has no fear of animals! 

 WHOA!!!!!!!

Yep, it's that time of year again.  Ducks are invading my freezer.

Football, football, and more football!  The season has now ended as of yesterday.  The boys had a great time and learned a lot about the game.  It was fun to see them work together as a team and improve each game.  It wasn't a winning season for their team, but it sure was a fun one! 

In the last game both boys had some great blocks and tackles.  Carson is blocking in the picture below.

Carson was quarterback and Connor was center on this drive.  They got it all the way to the 2 yard line.  It was a good drive. 

The Kingdom Kids Choir sang for the first time this season in church today.  Last year we had about 27 students, this year we have 56!!!!  There is not much that gives me more joy than being able to lead these kids in worship of their Creator!!!!  The boys are old enough to be in the choir this year.  They are really enjoying it and so am I! 

Other than these things, the boys have started piano lessons; I am loving my job and am so thankful for it; and all of the kids are doing great in school.  A little shout out to Carson- he has gotten 100% on all of his spelling tests so far. 

Andy is out of town until Wednesday night so life is busy as a single mom the next three days, but I am so grateful for the opportunities God has given us to be involved in so many awesome things.  More and more these days, my prayer is that we would be the light of God to those in our sphere of influence.     

Oscar bound

Oh boy, do we have a drama queen who lives at our house.  Notice I did not say drama king. 

The first week of school was great.  Smiles all around!  This week not so much.  It started on Monday evening after having a long weekend at home as a family.  We put Kaelynn to bed with the usual routine and two minutes later heard hysterical sobbing.  This is very unlike her, so I rushed down the stairs thinking she was hurt or something bad had happened.  NOPE!!!!  Through her sobs she proclaimed that she did NOT want to go to school and that she did NOT like school. 

This was quite surprising as she had not said anything or led us to believe in any way that she had not had good days. 

Unfortunately we have repeated this little scene yesterday morning and also this morning. 

The funny thing is, she gets off the school bus and tells me what a good day she has had.  Thus, the title of the blog post :)  Hopefully she learned her lesson from this morning and we will not have a repeat on Thursday morning. 

First day = success

We have officially started the school year and I am officially a mom of three full-time students.  Oh my goodness!!!  It's great to be at this stage, and yet, there is a little bit of sadness and realization that my little ones aren't so little anymore. 

Kaelynn's first day of kindergarten was today.

She was the first one up at 6:30am this morning which tells you how excited she was.  It was not abnormal for her to sleep until 9:00am this summer. 

I thought about her a lot today.  When Connor and Carson went to kindergarten I wasn't working full-time and was able to go meet them at school and get them to their classrooms.  I wasn't able to do that today and it was hard!!!  But, she did smashingly well.  When I asked her if she wanted Andy to meet her at school, she said, "No, I can do it myself."  She's my confident, independent girl.  Andy is going to bring the kids to school in the morning and then Kaelynn will take the bus from Eastwood Elementary to the kindergarten center.  They will all take the bus home. 

Details- When asked what her favorite part of the day was, she said, "music".  And my heart went "Yes!!!!"  She made a friend on the bus, Sally.  She said she only got to play at recess for 3 minutes (I'm thinking it was probably longer than that).  She had a granola bar for snack and the class has to have a 15 minute rest time with their heads on their desk after recess (which she doesn't like).  She learned a song about a ball in music and she says that all of the girls in her class are her friends.  She thinks her teacher Mrs. Cody is the nicest teacher ever, and she brought home a picture of a bear driving a school bus.  Overall, the day was a success and she is ready to go back tomorrow! 

Here she is getting off the bus, all smiles!!!!!!!! 

This was not the first day of school for Connor, Carson, or me.  We started last Thursday, but I wanted to wait to put these all in one post, so I'll go backwards a little.  It is really hard to believe that the boys are in 2nd grade already. Carson has Mrs. Smith and Connor has Mrs. Kingsley.  Again this year I think they have the right teachers for their personalities.    

 On a side note- both of the boys have been growing like weeds.  We are sending Connor to 2nd grade in a size 7 tennis shoe.  That's adult size 7.    I put his shoe up to my tennis shoe- it's bigger.  Not by much, but it is bigger.  He is pushing 90 pounds and stands right at my chin.  It will not be long before he overtakes me. 

How is my school going?  Well things have been a little crazy the first few days.  A lot of change has happened at Westside for this school year and the special ed staff was not prepared for how much change it would actually be.  My schedule has changed 5 times in three days and I fully excpect it to change again.  The name of the game at this point is to "go with the flow".  I really feel like I am at that school for a reason and am excited to work with the students that I am with.  There have been challenges already, and no doubt there will be more!  But I am so grateful to God for providing this job for our family.  It really couldn't be any more perfect!!!