Crazy days...

Holy cow, it was a crazy weekend around here. Mostly it was just a crazy Saturday....but because of all the craziness of the Saturday the exhaustion carried over into Sunday.

This past Saturday was the Bismarck March for Babies event. Our family team raised over $3300. I couldn't be more proud... oh wait, yes I can my 7 year old won the award for top youth walker for raising over $1500 for the March of Dimes.

Delainey receiving her award from Sam from MOD.

After the march Delainey had another fun and memorable event. She bridged from being a Daisy in Girl Scouts to being a Brownie. There are several different levels of Girl Scouts and with this bridging means Delainey is now on the second stage. She was so proud and excited.... 

Delainey with her flower and bridging certificates.

Next on tap was a birthday party for Delainey's friend and after that a birthday party for my cousin's son. It was alot of fun! 

Sunday we went to my cousin Amanda's high school choral concert. It was a lot of fun and the girls (Shelby and Avery) had alot of fun being able to watch Amanda sing.

Avery and Shelby with Auntie Amanda

Oh and while we were at Amanda's concert Brody was at Papa Kevin's house having a blast of his own....

Brody dreaming...

Hope everyone is having an awesome week!!!

Understanding...

I recently came into a period of major understanding in my life. For too long I have continued to try when I thought I was doing the right things, but no longer....because you see I now understand.

No longer will I go with the game of 'nice to my face but talk shit when I'm gone" aspect of life... I deserve better than that... and honestly.... so do you. Because you see... I now understand.

No longer am I going to go out of my way to make things easier for you... because you see I now understand that you are spiteful and mean and think you are better than me... you see... I now understand.

No longer am I going to make excuses for or defend your behavior when it is obvious that you were never in my corner... I should have learned my lesson the first time... I now understand.

No longer will I care what you think about me or my husband...we may not be perfect, but at least we are not fake...I now understand.

No longer will I go out of my way to make others happy when it pains others... I was caring about the wrong peoples' feelings...but I now understand.

No longer will I force my family to be part of things that they want nothing to do with...I understand now that I was not helping them at all...just making their hurt worse.

I know that I can not change how you feel about me or my family and honestly... I don't care anymore because I now understand.

I know that what I do care about is how you mean so much to my children...and in the end they mean nothing to you...but I can only hope that one day they too will understand.

I now understand that time changes nothing...and it is exactly the same now as it was then... but what I need for you to understand is that now that I understand... I just don't care anymore.

kidlet funny...* you guess which*

Today the Bismarck Tribune came to the house to take a few pictures of our family for an upcoming story for the paper regarding us having the honor of being the North Dakota State 2010 Ambassador Family for the March of Dimes.... well as the photographer arrived and we were trying to figure out where would be a good spot for the pictures etc ONE of the Krumwiede Kidlets says "oh mom.... Why do we have to be FAMOUS??"....  start your guessing...

The shoot went well and the photographer was fun and the kids had a blast...we will let you know when we do when the story is printed :)

Happy Birthday

Today is the birthday of two amazing women in the Krumwiede Six's lives... We wish them nothing but joy and happiness on this their special day...

Happy Birthday T!

Happy Birthday S!

WE LOVE YOU!!!

Happy Halloween Krumwiede Style

The Krumwiede Kidlets
Shelby (witch), Avery (flying unicorn), Delainey (fluffy sheep dog), Brody (Franklin)

The Krumwiede Family before the 'hunt'

The Kids' candy

Just for kicks...we weighed the candy...
WAY TOO MUCH CANDY...

MY BIL ROCKS

Have I told you all just how awesome my brother-in-law is? I mean really... honestly. He is the BEST... I mean come on...he would have to be since we have picked him and his wife as the gaurdian of all four of our kids if god forbid something would happen to Chad and I and they even accepted... :)

But no really... he is one of the best people I have ever had the chance to meet in my entire life and I am even lucky enough to get to call him my brother.

He is one of the most selfless people I know, he would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it and I know that when it came down to it he would ALWAYS be in my corner (even if he didn't like it or agree with my completely)... My children are blessed to have one of the BEST uncles a kid could ever have... He loves them just as much as he does his own children and Delainey often comments about how she was his 'practice baby' ... she has a picture of the two of them from when she was about 12 months old that is taped to her bed.... he is THAT special to her...he always has been... she loves that guys hands down!

That's it... just needed to toot the horn about my awesome brother-in-law :)

It's "summer"

Yesterday was Delainey's last day of preschool... I am sad and excited for her all at the same time, but right now my 'baby' girl is struggling. As we were getting ready to walk out of her classroom yesterday, I told her "Delainey make certain you hugs your friends and tell them goodbye" to which she responded..."Well I will see them all in kindergarten mom"... uhhhh ohhh. I then had to explain to my child that she will not be seeing her friends in kindergarten. None of the children who were in Delainey's preschool class will be going to the same elementary school that Delainey will be. Once I told her this she burst into tears and was almost unconsolable. She even told me to go home without her because she wanted to stay at school with her friends... it was so sad.

BUT once I got her into the car, I told her we would go to her 'new' school and take a peak around and also find out who her teacher is going to be. This lightend her mood considerably. Once she learned that she had gotten the teacher she wanted *well the teacher we had convinced her she wanted* and that two of her cousins (technically my cousins but they are closer to her age then mind) went to the school she seemed ok with everything. We happend to stop at the school as they were letting out for the day, and Delainey saw said cousins walking home. She then said "Since C and M go here they can walk me home so YOU don't have to come get me".... ummm thanks kid!!! :)

With the new 'summer' is going to come an adjustment period. Delainey being back home with us every day, and also Brody unlike last summer is walking EVERYWHERE and climbing on EVERYTHING... sooo... my challenge for the summer had begun.. yay me :)

I am sure that we will all survive the summer of new, with me also attending summer classes full time... ahhh... :)

Have an awesome summer everyone!!!

CONGRATULATIONS RYAN AND TARYN!!!!

You have GOT to go and check out Ella's Caringbridge site... Her mommy got to do the most AMAZING thing EVER this weekend with Ella, and her daddy got to have some special time too.
www.caringbridge.org/visit/ellakrumwiede

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHAD/DADDY!!!

Today is Chad's birthday... man he is old ;) I can say that because now we are in the 6 months of the year in which my husband is a full 4 years older than me. It is also the portion in which his brother reminded him shortly after we started dating that when Chad was graduating from high school in 1995 that I was STILL IN THE 8TH grade ;) It has been the cause of many jokes pointed at Chad... :) All in jest of course... This is a picture of the cake BEFORE the girls put sprinkles on it... yes we know words are spelled wrong but you only get so many of certain letters...

We have a tradition in our family (well we started it since both Chad and I hated our birthdays... Chad still hates his for reasons I will not share, but for me it is because my birthday is on halloween...jeez let me think...free candy or some lamo kid's birthday party... umm yup). We (meaning the non-birthday people) make a cake for the birthday person and wake them up with the decorated cake singing Happy Birthday to them.... the above picture is of the girls putting the sprinkles on the cake...

The cake after the girls sprinkled the heck out of it

The card that the girls made for Chad--- Delainey did all the letters HERSELF!!

The inside of the card they made... Delainey did the drawing... Shelby and Avery lost interest after the sticker hearts were done ;)

Waking Daddy up to give him his present... he got the new Guitar Hero for the Wii... all I could think the entire time he was opening the gift was of the commercials "Put your pants on Pops" and "You didn't think we were gonna let them dance around in our underwear"...

We had an awesome day together as a family...although...Chad did make one small request for next year... remind him the night before his birthday so he can wear a shirt to bed ;)

WE LOVE YOU CHAD/DADDY! We hope you had an awesome day!!!

AREN'T WE CUTE?!?!?

Notice the new picture at the top of the blog??? How about the following slide show

My friends Kayla and Mel who own/run Studio 309 Photography here in Bismarck took some pictures for us the other day and quite frankly...THEY ROCK!!! THEY ARE ALSO TOTALLY AFFORDABLE!!!!

Studio 309 will come to your home or any location that you want, and not only do get very reasonable prices for your pictures.... YOU ALSO GET THE RIGHTS TO YOUR PICTURES!!! Kayla and Mel were here for an hour and they did an entire family shoot. We had all four of the kids' 'birthday' pictures done, family pictures, Easter pictures, and also 4 generation pictures with my mom and grandparents...
Their business information is:
Studio 309
1004 Sixth Street SW
Mandan, ND 58554
Please call for a FREE consultation:
Kayla 701-400-5975 or
Melanie 701-663-0256
Email: click_photo@yahoo.com

oh..yea and don't forget to tell them that KRISTIN sent ya :)

Happy Anniversary B and T!

Just wanted to do a shout out post Brian and Tracy

HAPPY 7th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! Here is to another wonderful 70 years!!

Worldwide Candle Lighting

Today is a day of rememberance... today is a day for families who have lost a child to be able to mourn properly without the stigma of having to 'act' like everything is fine and that life is other peoples definition of 'normal'.

For families who have lost a child, their lives will NEVER be 'normal' again. They have to learn to 'deal' with their new lives without their child(ren).

So tonight at 7pm, please light a candle for all the families who have lost a child... and say a little prayer for them all.

So hug your children a little bit tighter tonight and always remember to say I LOVE YOU...

Happy Birthday Auntie Tracy!!!

Novemeber is the start of the 'birthday' month!
We want to wish Auntie Tracy (ok, so she is the kids
aunt not mine) a Happy Birthday! We love you Tracy!

I'm alive.... barely

Hey there everyone ! Sorry for not blogging lately. We have been out of town for a good chunk of this last week and are very slowly adjusting back to life. I promise to do a post later tonight with some pictures from the vacation and also some other fun stuff...

Krumwiede Look-alike Meter

I know that I did this awhile ago (pre-Brody) but the kids have changed so much that I thought it was time to do it again.... :)

CHAD GOT A NEW JOB!!!!

We are so excited to announce that Chad received an offer for a new job (at a totally different company) yesterday and he has accepted. We as a family are very happy to hear this for several reasons (1) He will have day hours, (2) paid vacation, sick days and holidays, (3) day hours, (4)NO WEEKENDS, oh...and did I mention DAY HOURS?!?!?!

Chad and I are going to have quiet the adjustment period to this change as Chad has worked night for 5 of our 6 married years together (well as long as we have living in Bismarck actually). It should be interesting to see if any parenting dynamics change etc.

It will be wonderful to have him home with us in the evenings and on weekends and not have to worry about anyone calling and interrupting our family time. Oh...and another plus (for me anyways) is that he will have to dress up some (well for him it is dressing up) as he has to have office attire... ha! Granted that is just going to add to my laundry issues... HA! Win some you lose some.. LOL

Brody is 6 Months Old

I can not believe that my baby boy is already 6 months old (well he was last week Wednesday). The time is going so fast and it really hits me that he will be our last biological child. He is growing and changing so much every day. He is such a happy baby and bring so much to our family at such a young age.

He is really starting to get fun now! He loves playing with his big sisters...well as well as a 6 month old can play. He loves it when Shelby plays "pe boo" with him. And you can always count on a smile from him if your day is going even slightly sour. Chad often says... "Good thing he looks so much like me, because otherwise I'd think we got the wrong baby"...

He had his 6-month check up yesterday and he is currently 18lbs (70th%) and 25 1/2 inches (25%). It is so weird to me having a child that is on the charts after our struggles with Shelby and Avery. Although I have to say that the "wow...he is a big boy" is almost (ALMOST) as annoying as "wow, they are tiny"... But on the bright side...we are VERY close to having to buy only one size of diapers... LOL!!!

God is good and our precious children are proof of that every day!!!

We are ALIVE!!! I PROMISE

We have just had A LOT of stuff going on this past week. Yesterday we celebrated my grandparents’ 50^th Wedding Anniversary with a renewal of their vows and a reception/open house. It was beautiful…but it was also a lot of hard work. That has been what I have been doing this past week. We have been doing the ‘final’ running and planning, and of course on Friday we made over 600 sandwiches and set up for the party on Saturday. It was beautiful! I wish I could share pictures, but it would take me forever to get everyone’s permission.

March for Babies SUCCESS!!!

I don't have a lot of time tonight as I am studying for finals and also dealing with the bathroom remodel (before, during and after pictures tomorrow I PROMISE) but I just wanted to let everyone know that Team Krumwiede Kids raised $2639 for the March of Dimes March for Babies 2008. We couldn't be happier or more proud of ourselves and also so very very GREATFUL to all of you wonderful people who donated to our cause. We have a ton of great pictures from the weekend of the kiddos with their two cousins, but I forgot to ask permission to post them so I am waiting on that before I post any ( I am sure that you all understand)... But please know that we had a blast and even though they (meaning Brian, Tracy, Kellen and Shea) have only been gone a little over 12 hours we miss them so much already...

THANK YOU AGAIN TO ALL OF YOU WHO DONATED TO THIS WONDERFUL CAUSE THAT IS SO NEAR AND DEAR TO THE KRUMWIEDE FAMILIES!!! BECAUSE OF THE MARCH OF DIMES AND THE WONDERFUL THINGS THAT THEY DO...OUR FAMILIES ARE HERE!!!

Happy Easter

HAPPY EASTER!!! Love the Krumwiedes,
Chad, Kristin, Delainey, Shelby, Avery, Brody and Kyper