10 Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today:
~ I had just been released of 6 1/2 weeks of complete bed rest (meaning I could ONLY get up to use the bathroom!).

~I thought that once I had my baby, we would be at the end of this long road. Little did I know the road was longer than I thought (at least it was longer than I thought till we were able to bring our baby home).

~I was trying to get the house in order, since I had not done any house cleaning for 6 1/2 weeks. I would wash a few dishes and need to go rest. It really is amazing how tired you get doing the simplest things after such a time of doing nothing!

~I remember Mike called his brother to wish him a Happy Birthday. I was laying on the couch timing contractions and he told his brother it would be a few more days (I laughed inside :)

~I remember Mom had us over for supper to celebrate Lana's birthday. We had enchiladas (YUM)

Today...

I have a fine young man who is interested in baking his own birthday cake.

Austin, you add so much fun to our family. You have very creative ideas, and enjoy learning new things (like cooking). I have been blessed to have you as my son!

Summer Fun

Adam went to an end of the year party at his teacher's house. They had a fun sprinkler out at their house for the children to play in. I decided that if I could find a sprinkler like that, I would buy one for the boys to play in this summer. I found it this evening.

It wasn't really hot today, but the boys had a fun time playing in the sprinkler for a short time. They really enjoyed it, and I think it will be great for when it does get really hot!

A couple of weeks ago my sister had a yard sale at her house. I was selling just a couple of things. When her boys saw one of the items we were selling, they said they wanted it. It worked out well because she had one item that I had my eye on.

Several years ago, for Christmas, Carol had bought her boys a table that had 4 interchangeable tops. It has ping-pong, pool, air hockey, and foosball. I thought what fun! One day we should get something like that for our basement. Well, as it turned out that yard sale day we did. We did a trade, our item, for this table.


It worked out great because since we have been working on the floors, there have been times that we needed the boys to play downstairs--out of the way. This kept them entertained nicely. Every now and then, they would come upstairs and ask Mike to change the table top.

What a wonderful trade!

Floors

We have been working hard, trying to get the floors ready to be done next week. We have ripped up carpet and padding. We have moved some stuff to the basement for storage for a week. The living room is all out of sorts, but that is a minor price to pay for the nice floors that will be coming.

I started pulling carpet in the hallway and found...
I remembered what at this spot. The boys were pretty young, I'd say 1 &3 or 2&4. I had been out somewhere. The boys were under Mike's watchful eye. When I came home I found Mike totally engrossed in some news story and the boys were quietly in the closet getting my food coloring and dripping it on the floor. We were able to get it pretty much out of the carpet, but apparently not out of the padding. Then I found...

It went down to the wood! I really hope that when the floor man comes he can sand it out! If not we have a great story to tell about our green and red spots on the floor.

The boys have been a great help getting the floors ready. They are very excited and eager to help pull up tack stripping (Mike likes this job as well). Which I appreciate since I do not like to do that. I would much rather get staples up!

Austin hard at work.

Adam getting the job done!

(Interesting thing about this picture~ I saw Austin sitting in this exact position the other day, not that that in itself is extraordinary, but while having our walls painted, I noticed that my dad sits that way as well when working close to the floor. They are a bit like their papaw, even how they are positioned while working :)

Thanks boys! I appreciate all the hard work you have done to get the floors ready.

Awards

Friday I was cleaning out the boys backpacks and found a few awards. I thought I might share.

Austin had an award for Music Achievement. I have to say that I am very proud of Austin. He has worked really hard, practiced a lot, and made a lot of progress with his violin. I hope he will take it again next year!



Next I went to Adam's back pack and found...

I had to laugh at this! Lunchbox on a leash...having the most fun playing with his lunchbox outside.

I have several Carabiner clips. After Adam forgetting his lunchbox several times, I started clipping the lunchbox to his backpack. It worked well. I guess I never imagined how much entertainment it could provide at recess time. :)

Bio--What?

The other day we were driving down the road and saw a Honda Pilot just like the one we drive--same color and everything. I pointed this out to the boys. Adam piped up and said it is a Bionicle. I was totally confused, until Mike explained to him that bionicles were a type of Lego. he was looking fot he word biological.

He had the right idea...

Church Campout

This past weekend was our church camp out weekend. Austin had initially thought of going to a one day camp in town. So, the rest of us decided that we would just go for Saturday. However, Friday night Austin said, "I really want to go with you all." I made some quick calls and we thought, "okay we are going as a family, but still for one day."

Saturday morning we got to the camp ground. I was barely out of the vehicle before the boys were asking for the containers I brought to catch critter in the creek. And the boys were off. Mike and I sat and had a lovely morning talking with people in our Sunday School class. The boys would come and show us there latest find (crayfish, tad poles, etc.)

We would see them come and get their bikes and they might yell in passing where they were headed. (I love this age where you really don't need to worry about the boys--we would go look for them if we had not heard from them in an hour or so, but they were always having fun and totally safe.)

After lunch and HUGE storm came in. The camp director rang bell and we all headed for the tabernacle. We barely made it before the storm came. The camp director came and told us he heard major storm, hail, and winds up to 60 mph. I didn't see the hail, but I can believe the rest!

After that passed, the boys were ready to head to the pool!

Adam is the small figure ahead of Mike. :) They got to the pool around 2 and we stayed there until a little before 5. Supper was at 5, so we wanted to have time to dry off a bit, and get ready. By 5:45 Austin was asking when the pool would open again. I don't know how many times I had to tell him, "Sorry, it is not 7 yet."

The boys were there waiting when the pool did open! Austin was most often at the diving board. He taught himself how to dive, and do flips off the board. Adam stayed near the shallow end. I did have to remind him a few times that he needed to be more shallow. I knew they would both be very tired after all the swimming they did!

The church had planned a luau by the pool for Saturday evening--complete with grass skirts and leis! They were going to play a movie outdoors and have sno-cones once it started to get dark. We were ready to leave before this all started. However, we owned the movie that they were going to show. We told the boys that we would watch the movie on Sunday (since there was no church service at the church building), and we would go to 7-11 and get slurpees instead of the sno-cones.

They thought that sounded fair. We had a great weekend at the campground, and at home!

No Turning Back Now!

Today was the last day of school. I have known that they were having a lot of parties and extras this week.

When we got home from school Adam seemed a bit listless. He even declined when I asked if he wanted to go to the pool. After some time he told me his tummy hurt. I thought, "Well, of course, you have probably eaten more junk in parties today. It's no wonder!" A little while later Austin came to me and told me that Adam had gotten sick.

I went to see what was going on. He had thrown up---on the couch, my shoe, and the carpet.
In the past I would have started working to clean up the carpet right away. Not today! We have the floor man coming the week of June 20 to do our hardwood floors. Mike got a knife and cut the carpet away. That was easy clean up!

Then we decided to see what it looked like underneath. It really is a shame that this beautiful wood was covered by that nasty carpet all those years!

I have a hard time imagining how things are going to look when we decide to change something. I have always liked the idea of hard wood, but could not visualize how it would look or if I would regret it. I don't think I will.

THERE IS NO TURNING BACK NOW!

It All Started With An Idea...

A while ago, my sisters and I were talking. We decided that it was time that we have a new family picture taken. The last one we had done was at my younger sisters wedding almost 3 years ago. Since then, the boys have grown, and we have added Grace to our family. Mom agreed that it would be fine to do that. She said she would contact her friend (the husband of Adam's piano teacher) and see if he would be interested in doing this for us.

Last Thursday I happened to be talking to Lana and she mentioned that they were coming into town for the weekend one reason was the family picture. WHAT?? I had not heard that it was scheduled. We talked about what colors we should wear, who had what shirts, could we share if they didn't look right together, trying to pull together the details over the phone.

Saturday evening came and we went to their house. We had a fantastic photo shoot! Then the boys wanted to go see the sheep they have in a field behind their house. The sheep would not come, but they offered to take the boys up the hill to the pond, and they would give them 4 wheeler rides up on the hill.

We went up the hill and soon my dad had Fotch out on the water. You say who is Fotch? Well, Fotch is a row boat that my dad got and fixed up, painted and now stores it by their pond. They boys each got a boat ride on this special boat.

As they were having their 4 wheeler rides and boat rides Ruel went up to the hanger. Ruel is a pilot for an airline. However, he also has his own hanger, landing strip and a couple of planes. He was at the hanger tinkering with one of the planes. We went up and were talking and then he asked if anyone wanted a plane ride? I think all the boys thought, "Are you kidding, YES!!"

Adam was the first one to have the ride. Diane made sure that he was in and secure. Then...

Off they went! As they went by for take off I looked for him and all I could see was this tiny head looking out the window. They did a nice size loop and came in for a landing.

Adam was so excited when he got off the plane! He came to me and asked, "Mommy did you miss me?" I replied that I knew he would have a great time in the plane, but I always miss him when he is not with me.

Then Austin went. He did the same loop.

I'm just really impressed how mature he looks in this after the plane ride picture.

The cousins went on their rides, then Ruel asked Mike if he would like a ride, since their was a bit of daylight left. I heard that Mike first said no, but soon retracted that and said, "Yea." He hopped right in.

He got several cool pictures while in the air. This is a picture of the pond.

It was such an awesome experience for the boys.

It was an absolutely beautiful evening.

Ruel and Diane go to my church. Sunday morning Ruel was leading singing. As he got up to sing they boys looked at me and said, "He is the best photographer EVER!" and they haven't even seen the pictures yet.

It Only Took 4 Years

On May 4, 2007 Austin was jumping on the trampoline at my parents house. The next thing I knew he was standing next to me, very proud to show me the tooth he just lost. (please note, at this point he had not had any loose teeth.) Somehow, and I'm still not clear on this, the tooth got in the netting and it was pulled out.

Today, 4 years and almost a month later, that tooth has finally broken through. He has been without that tooth for so long, I wonder how long it will take for me to get used to a tooth being there.

Fancy Drinks

The other day Adam did something he was not suppose to do. This ended up with him being punished. He told me over and over how sorry he was--in hopes that it would lessen his sentence. (Although, I do think he learned his lesson and did feel truely remorseful)



He was helping me set the table for supper as I was gathering and preparing the last few thing for the meal. I knew he had been coming and going out of the kitchen, but did not pay much attention as to what he was getting or doing.



When I got to the table I found...

...a "Fancy Drink." Adam wanted to show me how sorry he was so he made me this "fancy drink" so I could see how truly sorry he was. I love the idea, however I find the Santa straw and the strawberry seem like conflicting seasons.

Note: Adam I know you are truly sorry, and I know now that you have learned your lesson. I had to follow through with your sentence because otherwise you would think anything you were punished you could just make me a fancy drink and be off the hook. I love you and I'm sure one day you will thank me for standing firm.