A Baby Shower Gift...

A friend of mine is having a baby boy soon. I made this three tiered diaper cake for her baby shower. The diapers are a larger size so that she can use the cake as decoration in her nursery for a while before having to take it apart to use. (You can click on the picture for a larger view if you'd like.)

I found this great camo material with the cobalt blue. It is perfect because the daddy is one of Nathan's hunting buddies!

I also made these reversible burp clothes and bibs to go with it. Another friend made the comment that I covered both ends with my gift. Funny. I think it turned out pretty good.

I used my new CRICUT Cutter to cut out the gift tags with stars, the bears little sign and the BOY. I love that thing. I really want to get the software for it so I can do more!

Funny boys!

I forgot this picture and I just HAD to share it! Andrew and Ben riding their "big trucks" and wearing hats from the dress up bin. Andrew is wearing a Dr. Suess Cat in the Hat hat and riding a garbage truck. Ben is wearing a fireman helmet and riding a fire truck. Aren't they cute!!!???

A Week of Pictures

This week we had some fun at the Tolman home.

This first pictures if actually from last week. But I wanted to include it. I have been teaching a mother/daughter sewing class at our house on the 2nd and the 4th Tuesday of every month. We have been having a lot of fun and Tatiana loves it!

Ben loves playing with his mosaic puzzle game. He is so creative. Nick helped him figure out his name. Ben started it, but couldn't get it to fit so Nick fixed it. Such nice kids, such smart kids!

Speaking of Nick being smart and creative! He created this knight jousting thing that really works. He didn't have a kit or instruction, he came up with it all on his own! He also applied to be on the Robotics Team at school. We will see if he gets in, not many 6th graders do. But he would be great at it! He loves science and robotics.

Here is a video of his Knights in action!

We had some excitement at our house this weekend too. I needed to get our smoke detectors checked because we had an "incident" and the smoke detectors didn't go off when they should have. No worries it was just a cooking incident, no person or property was damaged, there wasn't even any flames, just smoke. Anyways, I called the fire department to ask them to come and check my smoke detectors. (did you know they did that for free?!) They quickly called back and said they would be here in 20 minutes. I was expecting someone to come in one of their pick-up trucks I see them driving around sometimes. But noooo, they pulled up in a big awesome hook and ladder truck! Andrew and Ben were on cloud nine! It would have not been anymore exciting if Santa himself pulled up in front of the house with his sleigh! After they checked out our detectors they invited the boys outside to look at the truck. YEAH!!!! Ben even got to sit inside. He is wearing his own toy helmet, he just had to show it off (along with every other fire man thing he has...rolling eyes) He had a blast!

While we were out there Nick spotted a snake under the fire engine. One of the fire man crawled under there to get it so the boys could get a closer look, which I thought was very nice. So they had firemen at their house (even in their bedroom!), climbed into a fire truck, AND saw a snake...it was the BEST DAY EVER!!!!

And that is our week in a nutshell.

Summer Flashback - My birthday!

AS is the case almost every year, we were camping at our family reunion during my birthday. I had the added excitement of having one of my best friends and her family there with us! (I'll post more about our trip when I can.) I received a couple gifts and cards and we had peach cobbler with whipped topping. Yum!

Then a couple weeks later I had a Primary in-service meeting and when I came back their was this surprise birthday party for me! Tatiana made and colored the dolphin birthday banner and the boys used their artwork to decorate the wrapping paper. All of which have been carefully saved of course. I was very surprised and felt very loved.

Nathan and the kids gave me a CRICUT machine! I have used it a couple times already. I really hope to get more cartridges or maybe even the software so I can use it more. I was very excited, it is something I have had my eye on! You know me, anything crafty!

And of course strawberry cheesecake for my cake, perfect! My family knows me so well!

Make a wish! Of course moms share their wishes with their kids!

33 years! Really?

School lunch for the boys!

Schools in and that means we are back on for our school lunch dates! The boys love to go to school and have lunch with the kids and play at lunch recess. This year we just have lunch with Tatiana once a week, which is cool for her because she gets the boys all to herself! Then we will be picking Nick up for lunch once a month. Another adjustment of him going to Middle School. It is really fun for everyone to have our weekly lunch dates. The boys have a blast being center of attention, Tatiana loves showing off her adorable little brothers, all the friends get such a kick out of them, and even the lunch aids make comments on how cute they are and it is a highlight of their week. *sigh* it is just so hard having such adorable kids. *wink*

Andrew didn't want to stop and pose for any pictures, we got him anyway!

Once again, Andrew isn't wanting to stop the fun to take a picture. Hold him Tatiana!

These boys already rule the school, what is going to happen when they are actually students here?!

Ben's First Day of Preschool!

September 13th was Ben's first official day of Preschool. He LOVES his class and his teachers!

Two of his best buddies are in his class with him! We carpool which makes it really nice for mom too!

That is one HAPPY preschooler!

It was also his first day of speech. He still is in the Early Intervention speech program. But he has progressed quite a bit. He only has to go once a week now and he goes on Monday afternoons. He gets to ride the bus going to speech and then I pick him up afterwards. It is a perfect arrangement. He loves the bus!

His speech classroom. He LOVES his speech teacher too!

It is kind of hard because he only misses the kindergarten deadline by a month. He is very smart and truly ready for kindergarten. But I am okay with the situation because that means I get him one more year before he leaves me for college someday! And it will be good to be the oldest boy in class, more mature and socially ready.

*SIGH* My little Ben is growing up!!!

Family Home Evening at the Park

We went down to another park for Family Home Evening on September 13th. Nathan prepared the lesson. It was a really good one on time management. Ben was his "assistant" and handed Nick and Tatiana each 10 wooden blocks. Then Nathan had a stop watch and told each kid when they could start stacking their blocks. He first let Tatiana go first and she started at 10 seconds and then told Nick he could start when there were only three seconds left. Obviously Nick was unable to finish the task. Then they switched and Nick was able to start first. He told them that when we wait until last minute to do something, like homework or chores, or practicing piano, etc. that we often find we do not have enough time. And if we get the things we have to do done first, then we often find that we have free time at the end for things we want to do. We had an excellent example from early that day. Nick had come home from school, had his after school snack, and then instead of getting straight to his homework he spent some time looking through Ben's book orders that were sitting on the counter. (To be fair, he gets that from me, I love book orders and children's books. But there is a time and place for everything.) I told him he could look at those later and he said things like "I know, in a minute" (Sound familiar anyone?) Over 20 minutes were spent browsing through these book orders. Then he was working on his homework up until dinner. I asked him if he had a choice would he rather look through book orders or play legos. He said play legos. There were actually several things he listed that he would rather do if given the choice. We pointed out to both of them that when you stall, or goof off, or "procrastinate" (they learned a new word), that they are trading the free time at the end that they would have for something fun for time at the beginning doing something that really isn't at the top of their list. We also pointed out that if you get your responsibilities done right away then you are not stressed because you end up with not enough time to complete them. I hope I am making sense. It was an awesome lesson and the kids had some great "ah-ha" moments.

I told Andrew, "Show me your cuteness." And this is what he did, yeah, that's cute!

After the lesson we had fun on the playground for a while...

We had our refreshment on the way home in the van. Tatiana had made fresh Snickerdoodle cookies after school. Yum!

Feeding the Ducks

On September 12th, Sunday afternoon, we decided to go feed the ducks at the park. We know there will not be too many more beautiful sunny days like this before our winter rains kick in.


We fed them old bagels and popcorn, they loved it. There were several fuzzy little ducklings too, so cute!

My 5k Race...leg procedure...running update...

I ran a 5K race benefiting the Albany School District on Saturday, September 18th. It is called the "Eat and Run" because they have a big spaghetti feed on Friday night (I have never attended that) and then the race on Saturday morning.

It was a lot of fun. Several people I know were there racing or helping with the race. I didn't realize how much I have missed the races. I love to run, but the most fun is all the energy and camaraderie at a races. It is really hard to explain. This is the first race I have ran in over a year. Now I am itching to sign up for more! Maybe once a month? The trouble is trying to find them in my area and not on a Sunday. Most races are on Sundays and I refuse to do that, oh well, the sacrifices we make.

I was really proud of myself this time! This was the fasted 5K I have ever ran! My typical 5K is 30-34 minutes, depending on many factors. I finished this race in 27 minutes and 14 seconds!!! My last 5K over a year ago was a little over 32 minutes! I shaved 5 minutes off my time! Yahoo!

So my official results are; I finished 3rd in my age category (30-34 year old females). I finished in 28th place out of a total of 67 racers (I'm above the half!) and my average pace was a 8:46 minute mile!

Running towards the finish line. Nathan and the kids came to cheer me on, that meant a lot to me!

Crossing the finish line, you can see me 27:14 time on the clock. And a tiny peek of Tatiana's cuteness in the bottom right corner.

After the race with my 3rd place medal and t-shirt. Off to shower!

You can go here http://www.goodrace.com/ to see the official race results. I copy and pasted my line for you here though.

Place No. Name Age Div/Tot Div City St Time Pace

28 913 Satina Tolman 33 3/6 F30-34 Albany OR 27:14 8:46

Now I am recovering from my leg procedure I had done this morning. I had a "touch up" done to my leg called sclerotherapy. They did the surgery back in May and there has been one section of my leg that has been actually worse and hurting a lot. They have been wanting to do this touch-up for some time, but I put it off because of all our traveling this summer, then the insurance has been slow to approve it and I finally got it done this morning. It hurt really bad! It still hurts, it is all wrapped up and I am suppose to take it easy for two weeks. That means no running. AHG!

I might as well give you my RUNNING UPDATE now since I won't be able to run anymore for the month of September. (Yes, play a tiny violin for me please.)

September total: 45.19 miles

Year to Date total: 301.7 miles

I reached 300!!!! Yeah!!!! Only 198.3 miles to go....I better get going! Wait, have to wait on this stinkin' leg...patience, patience....breath....I can do this.

Summer Flashback - Tae Kwon Do Boot Camp!

August 23rd-36th

Nick and Tatiana went to a Tae Kwon Do Boot Camp and had a blast! They learned a lot and really perfected some skills. But most importantly they had FUN!

Here Nick is running as part of the obstacle course. They did a lot of physical conditioning.

Up and over!

Looking good Tatiana!

Perfecting those form in the gym, good job!

On the last day I made "Ninja Brownies" and brought them in for everyone. They were a big hit!

A week of pictures...

Some of the previous post happened during this past week as well. But here is a sprinkling of pictures I just couldn't leave out...

Andrew playing with his daddy in his room. So sweet!

Ben helping with the dishes. This is actually one of his favorite things to do!

We had our friends, Angie and Trish (Ben calls her "Trishie"), over for dinner when Nathan was gone hunting and Trish made hats for the boys out of the tissue paper from the birthday gift I gave Angie. Funny boys! They LOVED those hats!

Tatiana cutting flowers from our yard to put in the flower press. It was one of the six things she needed to do for a Girl Scout badge.

Tightening down the flower press. Good work! (P.S. Don't you just love her hair!?)

Nathan, Ben, and Andrew watching the Boise State game on the Internet. Go Broncos! It was super cute because every time Nathan would get excited and say "YESSSSSSSS!" or "Come on!!!!" the boys would do the same, copying their daddy and getting into the game. Andrew has watched football since he was 3 months old, not kidding!

Andrew playing in the children's area at the public library. It makes me really want to get him a play kitchen because he LOVES this one.

This was funny. We went to Old Navy to buy the boys some new jeans and the mannequin dog had a superman costume on. The boys just HAD to have their picture taken with the dog. They love that thing and have to say "hello" to it every time we go in the store!

What a week!

First Day of School!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, September 7th, was the first day of school for Nick and Tatiana!!!! They were both excited and did great!

This was Nick's first day of MIDDLE SCHOOL! Ah! Where did the time go? He wasn't nervous at all though, he was cool, calm and collected leaving in the morning and he had nothing but good things to say about school and his teachers when he came home. He is very smart (did I mention he is in 6th grade but in the 7th grade math class?!?!) He is also so laid back and easy going. Everyone likes him, no worries...he's got this middle school thing in the bag!

Nick has to leave at 7:10AM though so I forgot to get a "first-day-of-school-picture" of him, so this photo was taken at the end of the day after his shirt had been tucked in under his scout shirt and he had had a long day. Still so handsome though! And looking so grown up!!!

As soon as he walked out the door I remembered about the picture, slapped my forehead and got the camera out and ready so I wouldn't miss Tatiana.

Here is out pretty, not-so-little-anymore girl on her first day of 4th grade! She also was very excited and seems to be totally fine with the fact that this is her first year without her big brother at school with her. She is very smart and very confidant and has a lot of friends. She'll do just fin!

Tatiana sitting at her desk, Andrew is in his little yellow raincoat on the left. The first day of school was really rainy here in the northwest, but it has been nice every since. I hope our good weather holds out a little longer! Tatiana loves sitting by many of her friends!

On Thursday Ben has his preschool open house and he got to see the classroom. He is very excited! So cute!!! He is really smart. He is kindergarten ready as far as academics go. He is going to be in the same class as two of his good buddies that were in our preschool co-op with him last year!

I wish our children the BEST SCHOOL YEAR EVER!