Dueck's Roost

Another little miracle, Joseph Benjamin Dueck , arrived in our family September 5 th , 2010 at 3:23pm. Of course, every mom describes the birth of her children as miraculous--I know, I feel that way about each of mine--but in this case Joseph's healthy arrival really did turn out to be something of a miracle. But before I get into the story, I have some catching up to do since I haven't blogged at all about this pregnancy. So ... Here's me on the first day of school which was just two days before Joseph was born. Since I was taking pictures of the kids, James decided I needed one as well. I'm actually glad he did, because I had been meaning to get a picture of my baby "bump" for days if not weeks and hadn't gotten around to it. Of course, I thought I still had plenty of time to make it happen. And just very quickly, I have to throw out some highlights from this pregnancy which for some reason all have to do with Mae ... Mae telling me (during the first tri...

As I sit down to write this post, I am amazed that we could actually have three kids in school this year. Wow, we must be getting old:). Where in the world did the time go? Seriously! I just told Kevin yesterday that I'm pretty sure we got married about a year ago ... where'd all these kids come from and how did they get so big? Anyway, our newest addition to the world of field trips, homework packets, and recess craziness, is the only other female representative of our home ... our "little" Mae. As an older kindergartner (turning 6 in less than a month from now), she was soooo ready to go! This is her on the first day of Kindergarten Camp (a new program in our school where the kindergartners get to attend "school" for a couple of days, two weeks before the actual starting date). Does she look excited? Cute pie! And here are all of our school-going kids ready for their official first day Notice the wannabe school boy on the left (back pack and all) ... ...

One evening about a month and-a-half ago, Kevin took the "big boys" to some awesome zip lines up in the mountains (thanks, Bishop), so Mae, Brooks, and I headed to Shrek part 4 (courtesy of our super handy dollar theater ... $2 to be exact). Afterwards we crossed the street to Cold Stone where Mae selected, for the three of us to share, a mountain of chocolate ice cream (Who's mentioning the crunched Oreo cookie bits and cute little chocolate chips? Not me), contained in a chocolate-covered waffle bowl adorned with colorful sprinkles. We sat outside in the amazing summer air where I was toasty warm with my built-in babylicious heater despite the frozen indulgence. As cliche as this sounds, it felt like time halted for a moment while I watched my two little ones basking in the giddiness of sugar and cream and being out past bedtime. Little did they know that as they giggled and munched away, my heart was silently exclaiming, "you are absolutely EVERYTHING to me, mes...

After three years of really wanting a fenced backyard--talking about it, calculating costs, deciding against it, and then starting the process all over again--my wonderful and very handy hubby not only built me a fence, but he also landscaped a beautiful backyard for me as well. These first pics (taken from James' 6 th birthday) show how atrocious the yard was before. It sloped off the back and left side which provided quite a bit of useless space; unfortunate, since there wasn't a whole lot of space to begin with. I had dug out a hole for the trampoline in an effort to make mowing easier, but it looked messy and unfinished. Oh, and it felt like we were in a fishbowl every time we went out to play because of the neighboring homes in very close proximity on both sides--not to mention the Barbie mansion in the back (it's hard to see in the pictures, but trust me it's there ... I had a plastic one the exact same color when I was little). The edge of the yard in this pictu...