Beautiful Megan

I just want to quickly share this great pic I found when going through the pics on Shawn's phone. It's from Christmastime (see the tree coming out of her head). What a fantastic smile!!!

Ack, what am I going to do when the boys actually start paying attention?!? (middle school boys apparantly don't do that yet thankfully!)

~Tami

Megan's First Communion & Seder Supper Photos

Tami Here:


The Wednesday of Holy Week Megan had her official first communion along with a celebration Seder Supper. It was the first time I participated in a Seder Supper and I really appreciated the experience as it was very meaningful. I was also very excited for this milestone for Megan.

And as you can see from the photos Megan is turning into a beautiful young lady. Her poise and maturity nearly match her looks as well. ;-)

We also were able to spend some great time with my parents that day, but the photos of Megan with Grandma and Grandpa are on their camera I think so we'll have to try to get digital copies of those pictures to share.




Thankfully Megan did not inherit the "eye closing" for photos gene that my mom and I have ... Megan is much more photogenic!

Megan With Her Trumpet

Here's a picture of Megan with her trumpet:

Unfortunately, the band director raised the stand before they started playing, so every picture I have of Megan actually playing only shows her face from the eyes up. We'll try to capture a still from the video Tami took and post that.

Megan's Band Concert

Megan had her first band concert on Thursday. She played a number of pieces with the full band, and had a duet with another trumpet player. She's only been playing since July, but she sounded pretty good. Although she was a little nervous beforehand, you couldn't tell while she was playing, and I think she had fun.


As you can see, she also looked great.



We have a beautiful young woman on our hands. If we don't start dressing her in gunny sacks and putting her hair into a bun, the line of boys is going to stretch down the block...

Fundraiser Time Again

The beginning of the school year in La Crescent means fundraiser time. I'm posting this here to help facilitate friends and family that we won't see in the next week or so (Orders must be in by Oct. 1st). It's easy to order online, and I'm including details below.

The money raised by the fundraiser is used primarily for field trips and other items to enrich the educational experience at La Crescent Hokah Elementary.

So, follow the link and check out what they have for sale. They have a lot of different items, including lots of wrapping paper and other Christmas items. You'll know you're on the right page because I included a picture of Megan.

http://www.helpsupportourschool.com/index.asp?PID=21133

Or, if that doesn't work try the tiny url I made (or try copy/paste as recommended below)

http://tinyurl.com/2dbupd

THANK YOU!

If you choose not to participate in the type of sale, a tax-deductible cash donation can be made to La Crescent-Hokah PTO to help reach their goal.

Portraits of Megan

At the beginning of July Megan had a Portrait session with Nick at Lechnir Designs. The photos were taken in our back yard and came out wonderfully! I hope Nick doesn't mind that I share one directly here and link to the rest. I'm ordering a few, but if family wants more, I'm sure we can order additional ones as well. What a beautiful young lady we have!

You can see the rest of the photo proofs here: http://lechnirdesign.com/accounts/groth/20080706/

Now, how am I supposed to decide what to order!?!

Megan's assignment

Megan's assignment was to write about somebody that she admires (her teacher said the broader interpretation of "somebody was OK). I did correct a couple of spelling mistakes while typing it in, but otherwise left it unedited. --Tami


March 25, 2008

I admire The Little House Books. The books on Martha, Charlotte, Caroline, Laura, and Rose. I relate to a lot of things in the books. I want to be a school teacher like Caroline. I love school too. I also want to read every single book. I want to grow up to be like the girls in the Little House book girls. I want to be like them because, in a way, I think of them as role models. I really look up to them/the books. I really believe in them. Without the books I don't think I would think the same.

Did you say something?

Did you say something?
Originally uploaded by Tami of BrooksGroth

Apparently she can't hear me with those ear plugs in.

Yes, this is Megan with her new MP3 player (hope it was worth the 3 hours of research and about 3 allowances plus a couple hours of watching Nessa).

A smile to brighten the day

DCP_5109
Originally uploaded by Tami of BrooksGroth

This shivery brrrr cold morning I needed something to warm my heart and brighten my day ... this smile certainly does!

Megan took a bunch of pictures of her self this past weekend (Nessa snuck in a few too). You can see more on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooksgroth/tags/selfportraits/ (may need to copy/paste it)

Enjoy!

The Sunday Before Christmas Vacation-- A New Tradition?

The Sunday before Christmas vacation is the the Sunday our Church has the children's Christmas program (post may follow someday or see the flickr stream for uploaded photos). While trying to keep Nessa quietly entertained and take good pictures of Megan AND actually pay attention to the program and participate when the congregation is asked to do so, Shawn and I both realized that NEXT year BOTH Nessa and Megan will be in the program ... Shawn and I will be sitting by ourselves singing along and snapping pictures... it sounds so nice. :-)

Today though Shawn exited several times with our darling 2 year old (I must say that too often around her because now when I ask her why she does something she says: "because I'm two!").

After church Megan played with Nessa while I uploaded photos and cleared my email inbox. Then we went out for brunch. Megan suggested Hackberry's and Shawn decided it was a special day so we went there -- and YUMMY! I Love that place -- so that can be part of the Christmas Program Sunday tradition as far as I'm concerned! :-)

After we returned home Nessa went down for a much needed nap. Shawn started a (also much needed) fire in the great room for me and Megan before heading down to print out Christmas letters (many in the mail Monday).





Then Megan wrapped a few presents before we got to work on the event of the afternoon -- making a gingerbread house!





Do you see Megan's "we need a snowman in the yard" marshmallow sculpture?

We went with the Willy Wonka kit this year because that was really all that was left within reasonable driving distance by the time I realized we still needed to buy a kit (after brunch today).



Here is William (the Orange) looking on and just waiting for us to stop guarding long enough for him to get his paws in the candy garden.

Megan and I decided that next year we'll try to take a professional gingerbread house class. Then on the Sunday of the Children's program at church we'll do another gingerbread kit with Nessa ... we figure at age 3 she'll make a grand mess of it. :-)

Megan couldn't believe we were only having salad for supper -- but oh it was a grand salad even if it was left overs from when Shawn went to the store on Saturday and bought me my dream salad bar to make at home -- from endive lettuce to artichoke hearts! (turkey and lots of normal things for the rest of them ... Nessa mostly ate shredded cheese and craisins) ... now that is love -- Mr. Meat and Potatoes getting not just salad but dream salad for supper -- and not buying anything different for himself! :-)

After the girls were in bed Shawn and I wrote out most of the Christmas cards (most because I had to quick order more -- as hard as we try to cut back the Christmas list keeps growing! -- and online friends that want a PDF version, please let me know!). We also drank a little wine ... and then I decided to write this quick post since the 11 other posts I've written in my head this week have not made it to the "Publish Post" button!

I hope you are all healthy and enjoying the season -- may you be busy finding joy and peace in the season -

And for those of you inpatient for all of those photo posts, I did post a few comments on the December Flickr photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooksgroth/tags/dec07/

and I also started a Christmastime Picasa album:

Christmas 2007

If you look at either the Picasa album or Flickr you will see photos of Rotary Lights, Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Brooks and much more ...

Now, as I was saying -- Peace and Joy to you this holiday season --

Fwd: This is not only a test ... and other randomness

If this works, this will be the first blog post I make via email (hence the test reference). I'm sure this has been an option for awhile, but I only discovered it while looking through my blogger options to change a few other things. If it posts successfully it may help me make more frequent quick posts.

Nessa also gave Shawn a test of sorts this morning. It could have been called, "how you will react when I'm a teenager." Yes, we now have proof that Nessa is as much "Tami's daughter" as she is "Shawn's daughter" (this is the look Shawn gets when Nessa refuses her veggies each night). This morning Shawn was trying to gently wake Nessa up as she has been sleeping later since she was home almost all last week sick and got used to sleeping later (plus it is still dark outside so she thinks it is night yet when we leave at 7ish) ... eventually Nessa turned to Shawn and said: "Don't talk to me now." Maybe this weekend Shawn can commiserate with Shawn, Lance and Scott about trying to get girls up in the morning.

Long overdue Random updates:

• Halloween seems to have been a success at our house. Both girls were dressed as Laura Ingalls (pictures soon!). Megan really, really wanted to be Laura so I found someone to make the dress, bonnet, etc. (thank you eBay!) and then decided I should just have her make a matching one for Nessa as it would be cute together and Nessa could use it to dress up in a lot at other times as well because she loves to play dress up. Megan decided that Nessa could be Carrie or maybe even Grace (Megan likes to go by the age of the girls in the book she is currently reading ... the girls keep getting older see as Megan is getting to the last book in the series.) Yesterday though Nessa caught on that Megan was excited to be "Laura" so Nessa had to be Laura too. :-)
• This has been an especially busy week because we were still recovering from all of the illness of the previous week when we couldn't get anything done (passed around a GI big), had/have something scheduled nearly every night, and are getting ready for our WI Dells trip this weekend.
• Between illness and business I have found a bit of time to enjoy the occasional gorgeous fall days we have had recently. I even took out the Ergo backpack carrier again the other night (we didn't really use it all summer!) and asked Nessa if she would go for a walk with me "on my back" and she agreed. (For months now all walks have been either Nessa actually walking, Nessa using her bike, or us using the stroller or bike carrier.) We had a blast going out for a walk and being able to carrying on actual conversations (because her head is so close to mine this is so much easier!) as we talked about all of the Halloween decorations and various piles of leaves and other fall things. I'm looking forward to doing this as long as the weather permits. It's especially nice to get bonding time and exercise at the same time. :-)
• We leave Friday for a long weekend in WI Dells. My entire family will be there for the weekend for my parents 40th Anniversary! :-) And then Shawn, Nessa and I will stay a couple of additional days to take advantage of the time share and relax a bit. We're looking forward to lots of fun and family time ... and good photo opps so stay tuned for those posts soon after we return.
• We had a great fall photo shoot w/ Tiffany (http://tiffanybrubaker.com/ ), but we're taking our own sweet time ordering, etc. so we won't finalize what we want digital copyrights to for a few weeks yet so general blog readers will have to until then to see the great pics that were captured and what we mean by how old (that is a good thing when you're 10 I guess) and gorgeous Megan looks in the ones we did of just her.
• Speaking of Megan, she has been doing awesome at school by all accounts. I'm thankful she has such a wonderful teacher (best yet at communicating with mom and dad too) in addition to making some wonderful new friends. As you may have gathered she is very much into the Laura Ingalls Wilder series of books and I'm being told that after she finishes the "regular series" there are a number of other books written by Rose and others that she will want to read. She also likes to read horse books and was thrilled to get to ride a horse with one of her new friends recently. I'm quite thrilled that she still barely recognizes the name "Hannah Montana"! Last Saturday Megan and I did manage to have a girls night out and went to see a local production of High School Musical that we enjoyed.
• Nessa still plays the little sister role very nicely and loves it when Megan is home to play with. Nessa has learned that it is fun to go downstairs in the rec room and play with Megan so that has become a regular special request after church on Sunday.
• Other general Nessa updates include: After regression during illness last week she is back to wearing underwear most of the time (other than nap and night) and yesterday was a quite successful day so I'm beginning to be hopeful again; Nessa can really count now (versus just saying the numbers in order) and will practice counting many things and if she's serious (versus being silly) she almost always counts right on for anything under 10 items; Nessa still loves art projects and has discovered that there are art supplies in the rec room (we need to replenish much of the toddler appropriate art items in the house though -- Christmas ideas!); Nessa's creativity is just exploding as she does more and more pretend play and will take almost anything (including her food sadly) and turn it into something to give voice to and create a little story; Nessa sings A LOT although often is takes us a bit to realize what song she is attempting to sing -- very cute though.
• In the keeping busy and enjoying some new activities update: Megan and I have been taking yoga in La Crescent this fall and plan to continue there at least through the holidays and then we may try yoga elsewhere or do another activity together; I have been taking a Spring Forest QiGong class ( http://www.springforestqigong.com/) at the Onalaska Center for Health and Healing ( http://www.mayohealthsystem.org/mhs/live/page.cfm?pp=locations/locationhome.cfm&orgid=FSH&affid=200000000103&nav=Hom) for the last several weeks, and Shawn and I will start the Tai Chi Chih class at lunch time on Fridays beginning Nov. 9th.
• We also continue to be busy with church activities: Shawn is in the choir this year in addition to serving on the church council; Tami has helped start a women's group that meets twice a month during lunch time and continues to attempt to join in the crafting group as well as other activities; Megan enjoys Sunday School and continues to join us in some of the family activities such as the recent movie night to view the new Veggie Tales movie; Nessa is able to stay with us during the beginning of the church service without being too disruptive now and then she goes up with Megan to listen to the Children's service and then Megan escorts her to the nursery where she gets to play with a friend; I think Nessa was impressed with seeing Veggie Tales on such a big screen when we went to the family movie night last Friday too!

OK, that is it for this update even though I'm sure I'm forgetting more than a few things (feel free to drop us a line and ask questions!). I can't believe October whizzed right by and it's November already!

Megan -- 4th grade

Here is Megan's school picture for this year. I have the copyright on CD so we have all right to print them as desired ... The only advantage this picture has is that she looks like a 4th grader (those of you that have had a sneak peek at our family pictures know what I'm referring to).

PTO fundraiser

This year you'll have to look elsewhere to get your Girl Scout Cookie fix (Megan is choosing other activities instead), but that doesn't mean we're not selling anything this fall.

Megan is participating in a fundraiser for the La Crescent PTO to help with the cost of field trips and "enhance the educational experience" at La Crescent-Hokah Elementary School. This is a "friends and family" sale only (no door to door), and of course there are incentives ... starting at only 30 items sold there are actually some pretty good incentives so Megan thanks you ahead of time for your consideration as we know there are a lot of fundraisers going on this fall.

So, follow the link and check out what they have for sale. They have a lot of different items, including lots of wrapping paper and other Christmas items. You'll know you're on the right page because I included a picture of Megan (not the best pic but handy this afternoon).

http://www.helpsupportourschool.com/index.asp?PID=21133

Or, if that doesn't work try the tiny url I made (or try copy/paste as recommended below)

http://tinyurl.com/2dbupd

THANK YOU!

So, you would think I would be happy when she's doing what I told her to do

Yes, Megan is trying very hard to clean her VERY messy room. And she's even listening to me and getting rid of LOTS of clothes that don't really fit well or that she doesn't wear for whatever reason (and no, I'm not saving it ALL for Nessa ... watch for rummage sale at our place soon ... I hope). But instead of only be thrilled that she's actually doing it, even if it is at a pace makes me wonder if there has been movement between my hourly checks, I find myself biting my tongue repeatedly. Yes, it becomes very clear to me why I struggle with clutter as I have to keep myself from saying, "you're getting rid of that?"

I hope I can take a lesson from her and be brutal as I try to declutter this house. I would say it's a fall project, but more realistically it's a life project. :-)

Megan at the Houston County Fair recap

Megan loves her goat Floppy!!!



I just realized that while I uploaded the photos to Flickr I never actually blogged about it which is bad, bad, bad because I should have been brag, brag, bragging about how great Megan did!!

Megan got not one but TWO Grand Champion ribbons for showing her goat at the fair! One for Showmanship and one for Market Goat. Megan also got a blue ribbon and honorable mention for the bird house she made in teh crafts catagory. Megan worked very hard creating her bird house and writing about how she did the project so I'm so glad that was noticed by the judges (and I wish I had a photo to share with you). And of course Megan works hard caring for all of her goats (three of them at her Dad's house) all of the time. Megan also had to teach Floppy how to walk on a leash and do some other special things to prepare him for the fair. Megan also has learned a lot about the goats and this paid off when the judge asked her lots of questions.

I asked Megan what the best thing about the fair was and the first things she said was, "It was fun!." Then she did say it was a good learning experience too. She says that next year she wants to enter more goats and do more things.

Megan and her friends had fun earlier in the week at the fair, but Shawn, Nessa and I didn't get to go until the Saturday of the fair -- the day the rain started (probably why I forgot to blog about it the next day) ... So, we all have our rain ponchos on in the pictures. We spend a fun but very wet couple of hours there seeing not only Floppy but many of the other animals and projects (and eating of course).

Nessa's favorite part of the fair was being allowed to go in and pet "Megan's goat."

To see all of Megan's photos from the fair, look at the set in Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooksgroth/sets/72157601544335368/

Megan's National Park Trip!

100_0759_0002
Originally uploaded by Tami of BrooksGroth

I've uploaded pictures of Megan's trip out west to 8, yes 8, National Parks ... and a Hot Air Balloon Ride to top it off!!!

When asked what the best thing about the trip was, Megan said it was "ALL GREAT!" I guess that says it all. :-)

She's now home with LOTS of photos, lots of State Park maps and other memorabilia and a National Park "passport" with more than a few stamps in it. (She is also happy to now say she has been to even more states ... she's keeping track on a map now and is up to 22 states that she has visited.)

All the photos are labeled as MeganNatParkTrip on Fickr (few more to upload after we get them from Grandpa and Grandpa yet) Click the photo here to go to Flickr and then you can see more pics! :-)

Megan is on vacation and we're happy to be home

OK, super quick update since it's my birthday and I can't concentrate on work at the moment anyway --

Megan is on her "see all the national parks you can in a week" vacation with my parents this week. It's actually more than a week, but with travel time not much more. They left last Thursday and will return this Sunday. Hopefully she'll return with a CD of photos so I can share many of them. The big non-park highlight was that my parents took her on a hot air balloon ride (for her birthday present ... like the trip wasn't enough). I think she's going to be tired when she gets home Sunday. :-)

While Megan's trip sounds great, I'm not even jealous because I'm just so thrilled to be spending more time at home this month. We had a nice relaxing weekend with the bonus of seeing good friends and going to a show last weekend and we have another relaxing weekend planned this weekend! :-) After that we should be all rested up for our Anniversary vacation to the following weekend (it involves a B&B and no kiddos!).

Nessa just keeps on being an amazing toddler that comes up with new sentences every day and on the good days she does not come up with new ways of being contradictory (things MUST be her idea). Lately her talking is much more conversational so it's really fun talking to her. She's really into playing kitchen and feeding her dolls and animals as well as doing puzzles and reading books. She still plays with trucks once in awhile but now they usually haul things from her kitchen around and then end up under her blanket asleep. :-)

We've avoided posting about it but we're down to one toilet again. This time it's the downstairs one so it's easier to ignore the problem on a day to day basis. I'm letting Shawn handle this one though. Sadly that's probably NOT the cause of our occasional water in the basement bathroom and laundry area so we'll eventually have to figure that out.

It's been dry (as in no rain) and hot and humid here so we haven't been spending as much time outside as Nessa would like and I haven't been out on my bike much either. Today it actually feels much cooler even though it's still about 88 ... but I think the humidity finally broke with this cool front that's moving through ... I hope it stays cooler for a bit ... August is when I wouldn't mind living in a COOLER climate LOL.

Hope to have more photos to share soon --

Nessa's rainbow chair

During summer school in Cumberland Megan painted Nessa a chair ... and here are a couple of not very good pictures of Nessa with her chair.



Nessa really does love her chair -- she loves all of the colors, the "one fish, two fish", the ABCs, the pretty gemstones, and her name on the back of it! She doesn't love getting her picture taken with it though. So

We think Nessa will cherish this chair that her big sister made for her even more when she's too big to sit in it. :-)

Few pics from Megan's week in Cumberland

In June Megan spent a week at Grandma and Grandpa Groth's going to summer school (Aunt Ellen was the teacher -- how much better can it get?) and just generally having fun. Thanks to Ellen we have a few photos.


The trip to the circus included an elephant ride so here is Megan (and a few other people she knows) riding an elephant.

Megan keeps telling me she could live on the lake in the summer. The lake here is Sand Lake in Cumberland (just down the back yard hill at Grandma and Granpa's ... how convenient). Megan is learning to really love to ride on the inner tube (can you call it that when there are seat backs?) and I'm hoping soon she'll decide to try to water ski. Below are a few pics of Megan (and other) "on the tube."

THANK YOU GRANDMA AND GRANDPA!!!!!

Happy 10th Birthday Megan!!!!

Yes, 10 years already!!!!!! (I'm pretty much in denial that it has already been an entire decade.)

Megan's birthday is July 16th (Monday) but we've been celebrating already. :-)

This year Megan only looked slightly embarrassed when we sang to her before church (as in the entire congregation singing). Today after church Megan requested that we go to Hackberry's for brunch. Megan has obviously inherited my good taste. ;-)

As I briefly mentioned her fun celebration and gift was getting to go to the Mall of America last Saturday with a friend and also with Aunt Ellen as fashion consultant (see photos). I did manage a few small surprises for her to unwrap this morning at brunch that received a few wows and that's cool. :-) We decided to let her unwrap them at brunch today because tomorrow she'll have summer school during the day and then has a 4H meeting at night so it will be a bit rushed. Also, she's celebrating with other friends at with her Dad this afternoon and evening.

I'm so proud of my "big girl" that I could almost stop giving her a hard time for growing up so fast. Almost.

I like Megan to think that I still know a few things and that she should listen to her mother. But already she's taught me way more than I think I'll ever teach her. She taught me to listen to myself as a mother from day one when she didn't follow the eat, sleep, poop newborn pattern (well she had the eating and pooping down pretty well, but that sleep part ... sometimes I think I'm still working on that one with her!) ... she was a smart baby and she new what she needed ... she's still pretty brilliant but even for smart kids there are all kinds of challenges and tough times. Megan has continued to teach me so much through all of her, and my, hard times and challenges. I have a feeling that Megan has gone through more emotional and spiritual growth in her first decade than many humans do in many more decades. The next decade will hopefully bring the maturity to integrate those emotions, the knowledge to put it all to use not only in her life but also the wider world, and so much more ...

{{{{ I love you Megan }}}}