The Muench Bunch

At around 16 months of age, I began teaching Luke sign language. I thought it would be hard and I didn't quite know how to start. It didn't take long and was somewhat simple. Then I was hooked and wanted to learn more. The first thing Luke learned was "More" and "All Done." He used them for all kinds of things, not just eating. Now he knows so many and is still learning. This are some of the things he can sign at 20 months. More-All Done-Cracker-Eat -Drink-Potty-Mom-Dad-Milk-Drive-Play It is a wonderful thing to be able to communicate without having to hear whining.

Jayden rode the bus home to cousin Jaynie's house and got to spend the night. Jayden was pretty excited as it has been a long time since she has gotten to play at her house. Mark and I and the boys went to Ames to Hickory Park where we met my parents, Alice, Wade, Carina, and Alivia. After having dinner, we headed to Walmart to pick out Jake's big surprise. My parents wanted to get Jake a new bike for his birthday, an early gift. They wanted him to be able to sue it before his birthday before the weather turns bad. Jake has been riding a little tiny 12 inch bike without the training wheels. It is so small we felt it was hindering his learning. Jacob was pretty excited about his new wheels. He tried out a blue transformer 16 inch bike and rode it up and down the aisles. After a lot of checking out all the bikes, that was the one he ended up getting. After the purchase, Jake went back to my parents to spend the night. Jayden rode the bus home with Jaynie as she had been invited t

Luke has been an awesome sleeper. He takes two 1 hour naps a day, goes to bed at 8 and wakes up at 7. It can’t get much better than that. Sometimes if a nap goes beyond an hour and a half, I figure he won’t go to bed very well, so I wake him up. Today was so cute, I went to wake him up and he rolled over, did the “More” in sign language, and went back to sleep.

The first day in the field, September 20, 2009. The new combine for the year is up and running. Mark finished his first field of beans and is waiting for the rest to be ready. Things are still a bit wet. This year we only have 500 acres of beans and the plan for nest year will be 100% corn. The kids are so anxious to ride in the combine and now it rained.

Jayden and I went to church early so Jayden could practice her solo. Today for church she sand "Shout to the Lord". She sings it so well and knows all the words. There is one part of the song that she gets a verse mixed up and I can just cue her with a hand signal and she doesn't miss a beet. Once church started and Mark arrived with the boys, I thought it would be best to put Luke in the nursery. Some days he is fine, others not so much. Today he was yelling no and crying. Back upstairs I talked Jake into going down with Luke to maybe help him feel more comfortable. Leave it to a five year old to take things into his own hands. I am still not sure why the child care providers let Jacob take Luke out, but somehow Jake managed to follow Luke up the stairs and into the sanctuary. As we are sitting quietly her comes Luke shouting as loud as possible running to find me "Mama, mama." he nearly leaped into my arms as everyone turned to see what the commotion was. For

If a person could count the number of drawings Jake has done just on his drawing board, it would be in the thousands. He draws on his drawing board daily and has for the past year. He loves to draw things with great detail. His Pre-school teacher was amazed. Now in Kindergarten, he comes home with a pile of drawings each day. Sometimes he even staples pages together making his own little book. He draws a lot of tractors and trucks. He definitely has an artistic talent. It will be fun to see where it takes him.

Allie is in her senior year of school, wow, I cannot believe it!! The majority of Allie’s classes this year are college classes taken in Ft. Dodge at the college. She is also continuing to work at Dairy Queen. She has had a boyfriend here and there, but is smart to avoid anything serious.

My mom decided it would be a neat idea to take Jayden to her first concert and do it for an early birthday gift. Just us girls went to the concert on a Thursday (school night). We found our seats, 3 rows from the top. When it said row 14, we had visions near the stage, not so. We were pretty high up, but were center to the stage. There were two opening groups, one was Billy Currington. At 9:00 Sugarland took the stage. Jayden thought they were awesome. Sugarland has been one of her favorite groups for awhile. Last year she would sing "All I wanna Do oo oo oo oo" all the time. She could sing that song so awesome. There wer lots of songs we knew and the effects were great. We didn't stay to the end as it was a school night. It was a fun time and Grandma let Jayden pick out a shirt. Boy were they pricey. Jayden remember this night for a long time.

Wow, the weather has been wonderful, all week 80's during the day and 60's overnight. We have spent so much time outside. The kids get so dirty, but it is worth it. Mark has been gearing up to start in the field. Luke got to check out the new big John Deere tractor. Each day, Luke has been helping me feed the horses. It takes a little longer as I feed Joe separate so he gets his meds . Luke likes to throw the horses an apple. He also got over his fear of the horses and has been sitting on their back while they eat. A few times a week I try to ride the bike with Luke also, We both enjoy that.

Auntie Alice came dow to babysit. First for Luke while I mowed, then afterschool Jake and Luke while I took Jayden to dance and I had a doctors appointment. The kids always enjoy Alice watching them. They spent a lot of time outside. Luke got some long stroller rides and played in Alice's car. Jacob got out the garden hose and washed Alice's car. The kids love her so.

If you don't like to hear complaining please do not read this entry. I am 34 years old and sometimes I feel 74. I am much too young to feel this darn old! My back hurts me 24/7 and that has a lot to do with lugging around a heavy toddler. It hurts the most when I sit on bleachers, mow, drive for over a half hour, stand for long periods of time, and of course holding Luke while standing. Then there is sitting, sleeping, and riding horses. My neck gets to hurting along with my back and when they both are bothering my my muscles start hurting in my shoulders. I have been going to the chiropractor on and off. Them my legs get to aching and are restless at night when i try to sleep. I had one large varicose vein removed already and i am sure it won't be the last. Next to me eyes, no pain here, just when I read a book for more than 20 minutes or take lots of photos with my camera, my one eye goes blurry and stays that way for hours. My teeth, I am tempted to pull them and get denture

Jayden and I loaded Dakota and Joe and headed to the arena for the fun show. Mark brought Jake later. Luke was with cousin Abby, and my parents came to watch. My parents have been so good over the years coming to all my rodeos and horse shows, and now they come to cheer on the grandkids. Jayden always does better for an audience, she likes her own fan club. I rode Joe before the show started. He has very limited vision, but he trusts me and was fun to ride. IT is sad to know I can't ride much and soon, he may be completly blind. Jayden started out riding in the walk trot class. There were a lot of nice western pleasure horses in the class of 16 kids. Jayden got second place. We were very impressed as there was some tough competition. She also rode in the western pleasure class, milk can race, and barrels. During one race, her pony did a little hopping on the run back and made Jayden pretty uneasy. She didn't want to run after that, however mommy gave her a pep talk, said a litt

Aunt Alice, Carina, and I went to Brushy for a morning trail ride. Carina brought my dad's new horse, "Jack." He was a great horse to ride, as easy as they come. I just sit on him and enjoy the ride. It was a perfect day upper 70's. This was Carina's very first trail ride. We went on an 8 mile ride around the river at the day camp trails. I really have the bug to find some new horses.

Jayden is starting another year of dance lessons at Carol Renae dance in Boone. I left the decision entirely up to Jayden. I think she really enjoys dance, however she likes to be home and gets so tired going to dance. She chose to continue and I think it is great. She doesn't have a lot of interest in sports, so mayeb she will go far with dance. The next challenge is finding soemthing for Jake and Luke and myself to do in Boone for 2 hours.

After the kids got home from school, I took them to the YMCA for a swim. Jake was so happy to be in the water, he would just smile and giggle as he paddled around. He has to wear a floaty as the water is too deep, but he spent most of his time dunking. Jayden showed me some of her swimming moves from lessons. I hope she will keep her skills and not forget how to do them. We just don't swim enough. Luke was pretty happy to be in the water in his little floaty boat. After our swim, we picked up a pizza and took home a movie. Ahh, I like nights like this!

We went to Dayton for the parade. I have only been one other time 7 years ago. Those who sat on the curb with us; Grandma and Grandpa Wahlert, Grandma and Grandpa Muench, Donaleen Alexander, cousins Maggie, Jaynie, and Rylie. The parade consisted of tons of horses, fire trucks and tractors. The weather over the entire weekend was perfect, 70's and 80's.

Our family met up with Aunt Alice and Grandma and Grandpa Wahlert . We were headed to the Dayton rodeo. We arrived over an hour early in order to stake our claim of ground on the hillside. We had a row of lawn chairs setting on the the edge of the steep hillside. The chairs are in so tight and on the very edge of a steep fall. We grabbed a bite to eat, then settled in for the big rodeo. I have been going to the Dayton rodeo for years, since I was kid. I haven't missed many years. This was Luke's first year. He was cute as a bug in his wranglers , boots and cowboy shirt. Jacob was all decked out with his super long feather in his cowboy hat, spurs, and red wrangler shirt. He sat on a blanket on the hill so he could wiggly and roll around next to Aunt Alice. Luke went from my lap to Mark's lap the whole rodeo, but was pretty good. This was Jayden's first year that she sat in her lawn chair and watched the entire rodeo. She usually sits with cousins and plays. She really

I am not potty training yet, but we have a potty chair and Luke sits on it and before baths we just sit him on it. On occasion he will tell us he needs to go and he does. He knows the sign for potty, most the time he just yells “P”. He has had several successful B.M. and gets very excited. It is a big deal to watch it flush!

Jacob amazes us with his drawings and creations. He spends hours drawing very detailed pictures. He likes to draw trucks, tractors, and scenes from movies. He is very creative. He also always building or creating things. One chore I have him do is unload the dishwasher. In doing so, he takes the cups and plates and stacks and builds something out of them on my counter top. The other day he was outside creating a caterpillar home as seen in the picture above. Someday I think he will use these talents to be something, architect, engineer???

It's been fun over the summer watching the progress of our new grain bin. Mark put up a 325,000 bushel grain bin. Our previous two grain bins always seemed gigantic to me, now the new one towers over them. It is massive. Mark has always been a top of the line farm manager, staying on top of the latest technologies. Farming is getting more high tech all the time!

Luke makes me laugh so often at the silly things he does. He was trying to make a squirt bottle work. The bottle had water in it and Luke had it facing himself pulling the trigger like handle. Squirt, in the face. Over and over again he would squirt himself in the face. I had to put a towel around his neack as he was soaking his shirt. His face was dripping wet and he would flinch every time. Some times he would just laugh other times it was a fake cry, but he continued for a long time.

The weather has been very fall like, 60's for the low and 70's for the high. I love this kind of weather. Luke and I try to go outside several times a day. A big highlight for Luke and our dog Daisy is a ride in the bike wagon. I ride Mark's bike with the (Burley) wagon pulled behind and the dog runs along with us. When we head out to the shed to get the bike, Daisy runs circles around me she is so excited. Jayden and Jacob get home from school and for the first hour the house is so quiet you wouldn't even know they are home. Jayden sits down with a book and reads while Jake will either sit down and draw or play the computer. Jacob has been drawing tons. He brings home pages and pages of pictures he drew in school. I am guessing his teacher isn't too happy about all the drawing. The kids will usually play outside awhile before coming in for supper, then baths and to bed by 8. It all goes so fast and soon we will be adding evening activities to the agenda.