wanted: more cousins

i've decided that my kids need more cousins. their only cousin is matilyn. they love her to pieces...and that's the problem. they love her so much, they have a hard time sharing her. i think this problem could be easily solved with more cousins :)

this pictures tells it all... while garrett sat with matilyn, olivia was crying nearby. she was afraid that garrett & mati would fall in love and get married. and since she loves matilyn so much, that didn't fit into her plan.

customer service fun

wow, i've been slacking on posting lately. i've got plenty to post...just not enough time in the day. ahhh, can you hear the violins in the background. ha ha.

anyways, i'll post soon about what i've been working on. but i just had to share a hilarious customer service story...

i've been calling yahoo tech support lately. for the most part, they are pretty helpful. well this morning i had an issue that my friendly customer service rep, tabitha, couldn't figure out. so she had me on hold FOREVER. after about 20 minutes, i thought i could just put the phone back in the base so the battery wouldn't die. silly me, this disconnected the call.

so i called back. i waited 13 minutes to get a live person. i explained what happened and asked for tabitha. here's what they told me... there are no direct extensions. i should just keep calling until i get tabitha.

seriously, what world was that lady living in??? are you kidding me? there was no way she could get a hold of tabitha. whatever! in the end she just looked up my account. i guess my problem is now on an expedited track to engineering. so we'll see...

and just for a little fun, you've got to call the yahoo help line 1-800-318-0790
and see why everytime i call it totally makes me jump.

ouch!

this afternoon garrett grabbed a handful of ryan's hair and pulled pretty hard. after he got out of his "time out" i asked him why he pulled ryan's hair.

before he could answer, olivia said very matter of factly...
"mom, garrett pulled his hair because ryan has prettier hair than he does."

duh. why didn't i think of that.

go tigers!

over the weekend we went to detroit to see a tigers game. it was part 2 of my dad's 60th bday celebration. the kids had a blast. they each got a bobblehead at the gate (which garrett ripped the head off right away). then they eat their way through 9 innings of play. in the end the tigers lost, but we still had plenty of fun :)

ryan had a pretty fun day as well...we sent him to wendi's parents' house for the day. he had lots of fun including a nice fall on the cement :)

typical 3rd child

poor ryan...he's your typical 3rd child.

• no pictures of him around the house yet...except 1 hospital shot

• doesn't even have his own room yet...still sleeping in our room

• plays with everything...little transformer pieces & polly pocket pieces

• scrapbook...don't even ask

• homemade birth announcement...oh wait, emily made those! thanks, em!

• stroller...definitely broken in by olivia & garrett

• safety gate on the stairs...too much of a hassle

• baby book...see answer to scrapbook

i could go on & on...

but the last example of ryan's 3rd child status is his 1st birthday. with the other 2 kids we made a big effort to have it really close to their bday. well, july is a busy time for the lee/vogel families. so ryan's birthday celebration got postponed a bit. we just celebrated it this past weekend.

well, ryan you know we still love you!!

it could be worse... we could have given you used toys like sam got :) (just kidding, missy!!)

our weekend

this weekend we did our first craft show...the venetian festival in st. joseph. we didn't know quite what to expect. as it turned out we were really happy with how it went. people loved our stuff and we sold tons :)

our site was pretty neat, too. we were up on the bluff overlooking lake michigan. we had one of the sites that didn't have trees/bushes directly behind it. so everyone kept stopping in front of our booth to see the lake.



the booth next to us was a really nice woman who made jewelry (like about a zillion other booths there). she was totally normal, but some of the other vendors.... well, that craft show lifestyle attracts some interesting folks & their wares. tim & i are trying not to get sucked into that crazy world!

waiting...

well garrett's surgeon is even stranger than we thought. turns out he forgot to get garrett's surgery scheduled. when he said that his surgery would be on wednesday, he was giving us the surgery date of his previous patient.

so the decision was pretty easy. we've chosen NOT to entrust him with our little garrett. we are waiting for a referral to a new surgeon. hopefully it doesn't take too long as we'd like to get this whole thing finished up soon.

a big squeeze hug!

our conversation the other morning...

olivia: mom, last night i felt this big thing pushing on me when i was in bed. do you know what it was?

me: um, no. what? (i'm thinking she's going to start in on her "i'm afraid of monsters under my bed" saga)

olivia: i'll give you a little hint. it's like the wind...you can't see it, but it's there. it was god giving me a big squeeze hug!

i guess the "no monsters" sign she made me put up on her bed is working :)

p.s. the picture is of olivia on our last camping trip. she was very proud of her sandwich. she made it herself...bread, pepperoni & parmesean cheese. yum yum! i didn't complain since this is the first sandwich she's actually ever agreed to eat. now she has one at least once a week with a nice stack of extra pepperoni on the side. she's also convinced garrett to like these sandwiches too. i'm guessing she'll be known as the "kid with the strange lunch" at school!

7 years...

happy anniversary!
i love you :)

look who's 1!

happy birthday, ryan!

wow, this year has gone so fast. a year ago we welcome you into our family. it's been so fun watching you grow. you're a little boy now with your own personality. you love getting up in the morning and going into the big kids rooms. you giggle when you see them still asleep. you love to give kisses to anyone anytime of day. one of your favorite places is the meijer bakery. when you see the bakery counter you start shaking with excitement. thankfully they always have a batch of free cookies out. you are crawling all over the place and the big kids are super excited for you to start walking. we love you tons! thanks for being a part of our family :)