sneak peek...

I finally had the kids birthday pictures taken a week or so ago. You can see a peek of them here. Aubrey, you always do such a great job! Thanks for going to all those crazy places with us and chasing my kids around with your camera!

Professor Pink Blanket, in the bedroom, with the spongebob spoon

Heaven help the mothers of little boys.




Where was I during all of this? Doing yoga in the front room. He used some serious stealth getting that frosting out of the fridge because I didn't hear a thing! I heard the spoon, but that's not uncommon. He plays with spoons all the time (I shouldn't even bother buying toys anymore). Lucky for him I decided to do Chavasena (sp? I am totally spelling that phonetically. It's the relaxation period at the end of your yoga workout) and was feeling pretty calm when I discovered him. He had no idea what a little bugger he was being. He was actually quite proud of himself. Little stink.
He couldn't have just gotten it on the sheets. No. It had to be the day that I was washing all of the linens off the bed, included the mattress pad. I have scrubbed as best as I can and am going to borrow a steam vac that will hopefully get the rest out!

as previously mentioned...

Here are the things that were making me happy yesterday. Today is a whole other story...
I bought this anthurium (sp?) 2 years ago when we were re-doing the outside of our house while on one of our many many visits to the Home Depot. I was in LOVE with the flowers on it. They didn't last very long though and it has taken me 2 years to get it to bloom again. It had a bud on it about 2 months ago and luke climbed up on the kitchen table and snapped it off in one sad sad moment in time. I saw this one start to come on and have been guarding it even better than I did the first one (since that obviously wasn't enough). This one almost disappeared at the hands of Grace but I was able to catch her before it was plucked and explain to her that it was going to be a flower. She was actually the one to spot that it had finally opened and happily exclaimed, "Look! The flower's open!" Behind it is my African Violet that also took me several years to get to re-bloom from the initial flowers it came with but that's been blooming for a couple years now so it's not as news-worthy although it still brings me happiness.
The other morning, I was opening my blinds and found 2 hummingbirds flitting around my flower pots out front. I have been pleasantly surprised with the new flowers I chose for my pots this year. 1) they turned out much prettier than I imagined. 2) they brought me some hummingbirds! The pictures are grainy because I took them through the window and the screen door so I wouldn't frighten them off by opening the door.


This picture made me laugh more than it really brought happiness, as the end result was not exactly happy for me... Lucas came down the hall, went to the bookshelves, found some reading material, then went back down the hall to this secluded little spot and read his book while making "#2". Such a man thing to do.

happiness is....

when blogger will actually upload your photos to demonstrate why you were feeling happy. grrr.

one for the books...

Both of my kids are in bed, one is asleep and the other is on her way there...hopefully.

summer fun

I love summer. I never want it to end...well, I am looking forward to Grace going back to school. So is she. Anyway, here are some pictures from the last few weeks.
playing with "flags" in the backyard. it used to annoy me that they wanted to wear boots during the summer but now I'm grateful for whatever shoes they'll keep on because of slivers and dog poop.
"don't take my flag!"
look how sad our lawn was. it is doing much better now that I've treated it for bugs and the temperature is down a bit.
Grace made this hat herself.
This day she wanted to go outside so I told her to go get a shirt, shorts and some shoes. Then I told her she needed something to keep her hair out of her eyes and she came back with her "head-stand" (headband).
We had a trip to Lagoon this week and the kids loved every minute of it.
This was by far Grace's favorite ride. She rode it probably 20 times that day. Luke went on it the first time and was not so fond so we didn't try him on it again.
He happily rode this one which is right next to the one's Grace loved.
The kids were ready for dinner right here and were not cooperating for this shot, but you can tell how soaked we had just got on the last ride.
I don't know why, but the kids love the dogs water. Buck called my attention to this funny little trick and I'm glad because she was still wearing her CI and it was getting dunked in the water when she was lowering herself down in.
Last night Grace and her friend Averee from next door, took turns giving each other rides on Luke's trike. It is Luke's now since Grace got her princess bike. Lucas also figured out how to pedal and went for like 4 feet and then decided to go back to scooting with his toes.

stupid windy wind

I remember as a kid just LOVING when the power would go out so that we could use candles and stuff. Last night's wind storm must have surged us or something because when we got back from taking the dog for a walk, our power had been out and was then back on. Well, I hate them now because every time the power goes out here, it knocks out our phone service and I have to call and tell them my phones not working blah, blah, blah and it's like 24 hours before I have a phone again. SO annoying!