Cabin Fever

PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

















Last Thanksgiving Mass @ St. Benedict - it was closed January 16, 2011.




















Olivia's 7th grade Volleyball team - can you find her?! GO TROJANS!!!!!!!!


















Sherman - he has 2 months left at our house before spring chicks arrive.
REALLY! If you know anyone that lives out of town or looking for a pheasant dog-he's all yours!



















Nice picture for Grandma Pat's funny shaped picture frame. Merry Christmas gma & gpa!!

















Grandpa Nickolay & the great grandchildren... wow grandpa has a busy family!!!




And now the update...
Warm today, snow storm tomorrow. Honestly we have loved the "real" Mn winter we have finally had since 1991 or so. This being our first one on the country homestead we've worked hard for or this is the first one since we were 13 yrs old! (Might I add that is the same age Olivia is approaching.)


Oh if I could only share every day occurrences with everyone -Tim says I should write a book...


The most wonderful thing over the last week or 2 was all the love we experienced; I will share!
*Watching our kids work diligently on creating & writing their names over & over on their Valentines for all the wonderfully special people in their lives- priceless.
*Being honorary guests at Aaron & Bryn's wedding (We weren't actually distinguished in the program or anything but being part of Aaron's life is something we very much treasure.) You guys are awesome!!! We're SO happy for you.
*Renewing our very own wedding vows. Our new priest thought it would be nice for all the married couples at church to renew their vows in honor of Valentines Day. "Those married 50 yrs or long please stand up... 25 years or long... 10 years or longer..." After all the married people in the church were standing Father Dave started again... "Take each others right hand..." It was a humbling experience to say the least. I can't imagine the joy and love shared that day for all those who maybe hadn't said those "in sickness & health... I will honor you and love you all the days of my life." in so many, many years. God is good.


Well, let's see... October was the last time I was on here... I won't say much other than I am contemplating starting "Our Angel Wall". This would include pictures of the following people...
Great Grandpa & Grandma Shimota
Great Grandma Chromy
Great Grandma & Grandpa Thomas
Grandma Pieper
"Grandma B" (Grandma Blissenbach for long version - Mike's mom)
Grandma Nickolay
Pa Nickolay
Pa Lemke a.k.a. "Pa Jeepers"
Father Elgar


Hug your loved ones often & no matter what happens on earth look forward to your treasures in heaven.

Until next time!!!!!!!!!!!

What happened to October?!

I had a post all done (for October 19th or so) but it seemed to have disappeared.
(Kind of like every day of my life!!!)

November 9th, 2010- 70 degrees so we enjoyed school day trip to the Nature Center and did some bird watching in tshirts & light jackets. What a beautiful view of the MN River we enjoyed.
November 13th, 2010- 10 inches of WET, HEAVY snow... I am still trying to digest putting everyone in snow pants, scarves, and boots to go places. I am already excited for spring.
Oh my!

Daren's 2nd birthday is coming (on Thanksgiving Day!!!) and I SWEAR everyone else is celebrating by having more kids. There are plenty of people we know expecting again - CONGRATES to all of you!!! (All I keep telling myself is: "you are doing fine, focus on what you have... BUT THEY ARE SO DARN CUTE!!!!!!!!" Yes, I may need help... poor Tim (r-i-g-h-t).

May then September - what happend to summer?!

Here is the post from October that I thought I lost. Its often (every day) that things seem to disappear but they are around somewhere. Of course I am organized! :)

August 2010

Life is good - even this day in age. I was reading through all my posts for the last year. Had to laugh since I talked about May in one & September in the next.

Now it is MEA break already. Where does the time go?

As I sit & try to pack too much into next week I have to stop & enjoy now. Now being my first day off of volleyball season for the 9th year in a row. Today we had to extra boys over for a play date, managed to get about 8 loads of bedding & blankets washed/dried, made apple crisp and fed the family a real lunch and supper. Can't say I miss volleyball yet but give me another day or 2.

Conferences with teachers & no school for most of the week are other benchmarks of the month of October. (All those conferences went quite well. Gloria wanted to climb in her locker & stay there she said. She's never been nervous a day in her life!) Who could forget MEA break means duck/goose hunting in North Dakota for the Lemke boys too?! Funny how only the oldest "boy" goes from our family. Lucky girl, Rainy, gets to go for her first hunting trip this year too. North Dakota look out! She's a feisty one!!!

So I will enjoy staying up late tonight trying to solve all of our church's problems and tomorrow probably get a whole lot of nothing done. Then its off to WI for a few days of relaxing I hope. (Now to actually get every kid healthy to enjoy a weekend away.)

Until winter...

I know... where's the pictures?!

The best birthday EVER- we took the kids for a day trip to Duluth for the first time EVER. There was a special fleet of pirate ships that were in port for the weekend. It was awesome!!!!!!!!!

OK, adding the fun we had in Duluth we also had a bonfire on my birthday/our anniversary. Susie & Missy came over with their kids.

What a reunion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't say how happy I am that Missy is back in the area. Now to see Susie a little more, right (wink, wink).

These 2 special ladies were the ones who wrote whole pages in my 7th grd year book.

I love you girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is one of our 3 beautiful Czech dancers. Tatum & Olivia have a great time entertaining people. They even have a nursing home tour in the works... great job girls!

July 2010 - Movie night at Huber Park in Shakopee with cousin Lauren. Sylvia & Lauren were keeping us & those around us entertained until the movie started. Lauren loves to sing!!!

Fall 2010

Maybe if I go by season updates that'll make this more consistent?!
Where does the time go, right?!?
Well, I could update pictures or say how everything has been so busy - but that is old news. Nothing new with that. Let's try a list this time to mix things up.

As of 9/13/10 here's where the "Lemke 7" are at...
Tim worked his first day of mandatory overtime. He was exhausted an would have been passed out by 9pm if it wasn't for that Cabela's Waterfowl magazine that made it into his hands.

Amy went to Rosemount this afternoon with the 9th grade volleyball team. We lost but we did SO many things right - improvement is a GREAT thing.

Olivia had her first Trojan volleyball match ever. Her exact words were "I can't believe I am saying it but I want to play another game." They lost 3/4 games to Waconia (whose program is UNBELIEVABLY GOOD) but the coach (who was my coach also back in the day) said in all his years they had never beat them even in 1 game. They made history today winning 1 of the 4 games.

Gloria is so much enjoying 4th grade in Mr. Huber's class. I am pretty sure she goes to school simply to ride the bus. Funny thing too - 1 week down and all of a sudden there was homework in the backpack at 9pm tonight. She swears she forgot about it. This could be a long year!

Owen is at home for 2nd grade. (YEAH!) Today on the gorgeous day our highlight was doing hopscotch math. The time I get to spend with my son is more precious then I ever thought it would be!

Sylvia is in preschool and loves it also. She would have no problem in Kindergarten but her independence it getting the best of her around home (with Owen's help of course). There's a little more discipline in her days since she is out to see what is ok & not ok to do around the house. Freedom comes with a price, right?!?!

And Daren - oh boy... and I mean B-O-Y!!! Toddler days seem to be counting down. I can have a whole conversation with my 1 5/6 year old. I am completely convinced of the "the more you have the faster they learn and grow" rule. Potty on the toilet now & then, tearing up the house, and chasing the goat are just some of the favorite things of this little boy that we have. And yes the perfect shiny bleach-blonde hair he grew over the summer was buzzed off by dad when mom was at work last Saturday.

Well there you go. Now mom is going to try to get some sleep before it's another crazy day for the "Zoo Crew" of Union Hill.
:)
Hoping you are having a great week too!
OH YA.... DOZINKY IS THIS WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
COME CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Updating, I suppose

What to post, what to post...
I don't know why it popped into my head, but I thought I should post something a little more recent than April since June is just a week away.

All done with coaching high school softball. It was a great season & I even got the Gatorade cooler dumped over me after our last game. (Which was another win!)

Tonight in talking to Kevin I realized our summer is nearing almost all full weekends... that is just crazy! How are we ever going to camp more when the weekends are always full?!

(I wouldn't change our summer plans for the world!)

Ok, ok enough of my blabbering - let's get to some pictures!

:)

Daren in a VERY cute pose @ the park.

Confirmation Ceremony last week - Rochelle & Kathleen w/ teacher: Amy (SO proud!)

Bronco the goat & a slip n slide...

I wish I could have watched long enough to see how that turned out!

I LOVE SUMMER!!!

I know summer isn't here quite yet but this little tidbit is something we CAN'T enjoy during winter. (I would share this with the whole world if I could!)


They wrote, directed, memorized, practiced for days & even made tickets for Daren, dad, & mom. Maybe I should attribute this to "turn off the screens" week?
Naaa, they are just great kids that we absolutely adore!!!

Well, that was short lived.

I made it only so many months before not keeping up with this.

Reasons for not keeping up...

-children in school & home school = homework all hours of the day

-1 computer 7 people in the house

-me being webmaster for http://www.stjohnstbenedict.com/ has taken up most of my computer time (this is my truest "baby"! what a super blessing this has been!)

-facebook on my phone, why use a regular computer?!

-when i go to blogs I check out what my families have been up to so I forget to update mine

-never enough time in a day

Well that has got to be enough reasons. I wonder if I have any pictures to post?!? Let me look...

I don't know what it is with the girls but they are unbelievably good at getting Daren to go to sleep?!! All my other recent pictures are on my phone or in my hotmail inbox. I am starting to hit the "digital pictures of a family of 7 are completely out of hand" stage.

Daren walking update... he was pushing his limits today being completely goofy taking 2-2 1/2 steps in between the couch & coffee table. Too funny. His reaction was like he could walk on water but only if it was only 2 steps! :) He's holding us all in suspense but really I still see him crawling for another month!

Finally something to post about Owen... I got to spend the day with him & his class for a nature center field trip this week. It was awesome! I am 3 for 3 on the great weather for the winter outside field trips!!! (Hopefully that will hold up for 2 more trips in the years to come.) I will post pictures of the field trip eventually. Owen got to go trail hiking, animal track finding, snow shoeing & kick sledding. He's such a great kid. Now to get him to like writing sentences...