Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Summer Storm

The amount of rain we have had this summer so far (and I am counting May) is absolutely ridiculous! I was wondering how I was going to keep up with the watering of my garden, being that it is in the far back corner of our yard and we have no hose that even comes close. Worry not! Mother nature has watered my garden plenty!! I think I've only hauled a watering can out there maybe 4 or 5 times....today being one of them. If I would have known the forecast I would have known that today would be unnecessary for watering by me as well!
The garden is going bazerk and I cannot keep up with the pruning, weeding, thinning of the garden by any means. I am going to tackle it something serious tomorrow if the weather permits, but it is like a jungle out there!!!

This big mess just so happens to be carrots!


Green Beans


Lettuce and more lettuce

And more beans

Cucumber and Peas


Lillies


And Sweet Peas....my all time favorite


Right after I took these pictures we had the biggest summer storm. Black clouds, wind, rain, lightening, thunder. Crazy.
I found Rand relaxing on the front porch....his favorite place to be when it's storming...doing one or two of his favorite things.




So we all hung out and watched the storm. I left early to blog about it. :)





Sammy was a little scared.....but that's what Wyatt is for! :)

Monday, June 29, 2009

Nana's Designs

While on my short blogging hiatus, I have been spending some time helping my mom out. My mom, as I have mentioned before, is quite crafty. She does the basics: sewing, quilting, knitting, crocheting. But she also does a lot of other things like painting, making pottery, weaving, glass melting (whatever you call that!), etc. You can imagine she has a lot of equipment!
For quite a while, there has been talk about her selling some of her creations...especially her quilts which are quite spectacular (she would insert something negative here)! Perhaps you can relate, but selling your own things can sometimes be quite a hurdle to get over. Someone can always do it better, and why would anyone buy your crafts (this is a bad attitute we are working on. :) )?? However, again and again people want to buy her things. She has sold quilts, woven scarves and recently some dolls and baby headbands.
So I've been helping her put together a site that will help her show her work. We used a blog since there are so many tools already in place with blogs and I know the ins and outs of blogger pretty well. Right now she just has dolls and baby headbands listed, but soon she will have quilts and probably other things too!
I think it's pretty cool. Check it out!
Introducing NanasDesigns.

There you go, Mom! Now it's public. :)

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Fireflies

I took a little blogging hiatus! It wasn't planned. We got busy and my battery charger for my camera disappeared.

I took a few pictures of fireflies the other night. Since we don't have any on the West coast....at least none of the places I have ever lived...thought some of you might like to know what they look like! :)
Obviously, it is not easy to take pictures of fireflies. They come out at dusk/dark and they fly. Their "glow" is really more like a spark. So they are twinkling all over the place....only for a split second. Catching them when it is dark is really fun because their light goes out and you have to try and find them. We have bazillions of them around our house and especially in the front yard for some reason. We catch them and collect as many as we can in our bug catcher. They don't really light up when they aren't flying, so it's kind of disappointing to be carrying around this entire container of them and none of them are glowing. When we're done we open the lid and they all crawl to the top and fly away. It's been our evening routine and the kids' favorite excuse to stay up late!
Here are the bugs!

This is what they look like when they aren't flying


you can see the underside of one on the inside of the container. See how his little rear-end is white-ish? That's the part that glows!
Now you know. :)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Kid Quotes::Vol. 4

Yesterday Brendan was leaping through the air from a chair and grabbing a tree branch in mid flight. The following conversation actually took place.

Me: Hey Bren. Do you think you would like to do gymnastics if the doctor tells us it's okay?

Brendan: Yes. I would love that!

Me: (thinking about Rand's plans) What about playing baseball on a team??

Brendan: No. I don't really like baseball. (awww, poor Rand) BUT, I DOOO absolutely LOVE catching fireflies! :)

(well okay then. We'll get you signed up for firefly catching right away!)

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Dad Day

Today is the day to brag on dads. I just love my Dad. I wish we could hang out more. When I think of my Dad and our relationship, I think about laughing. I don't know if we just have the same twisted sense of humor (which others may label as 'stupidity') or if we both just like to laugh and so we do. It always seems that even in a group my Dad and I will get laughing...and we're the only ones....and so we keep it going by whispering and snickering...and well, I just love it. I think he's funny and I love his laugh. He's kind of like a kid in that way. :)
It is no surprise then, that one of the very first things I loved about Rand was his laugh. He laughs mostly at himself because he thinks he is soooo funny and that alone makes me laugh.
Rand may be one of the best dads I know. I realized after having kids that I majorly lucked out. You just can't know totally ahead of time what a guy is going to be like as a father. How will they bond with their kids? How involved in parenting will they be? Scary, I think. I often watch Rand with our boys and think, "This guy was meant to be a father." He loves it and I couldn't have found a better dad for my kids if I had looked forever. I know he's not perfect, but he is practically perfect in his love for them and devotion to parent them. I love watching it. I mean, he cries when he reads books like, Raising a Modern Day Knight because becoming a dad has deeply affected his heart. And if it were up to Rand completely, he would have 4 or 5 kids by now. He loves babies, and toddlers and 5 year old little boys. He changes diapers and rocks infants and carries them around on his back everywhere he goes. I wish I was as good of a mom as he is a dad....maybe then I would be ready for 3 or 4 more kids! :)
I'm grateful for the Dads in my life....but I'm even more grateful for the Dads in my kids' life. Papa, Grandpa Mike, and Rand....your lives and influence and example are creating a legacy for my boys to pass on to their families some day. Thanks for being Dads and loving them like you do!



Friday, June 19, 2009

Googly Eyes

We're recovering from the "Busiest Weekend Ever" and looking forward to another busy weekend with Rand's mom in town. Today we have a friend over and some new craft supplies. So the kids got to work with their glue. It all started well and then it turned into this:



SUCH BOYS! :)

Sunday, June 14, 2009

The Busiest Weekend Ever

You know how sometimes being busy makes time go by so fast? You look around and all of a sudden it's 3 days later? Yeah. That didn't happen to me this weekend. This has felt like the absolute longest weekend and boy were we busy!

Let's start with Friday, shall we? Friday evening Rand and I hosted our church's monthly summer Family Night. I've been preparing for a week and at 6:00pm 75 people showed up at our house for food and fun. We really did have a great time and I think our house was almost made for this kind of thing...at least the yard was. We had bike/scooter/tricycle riding, sprinkler running, squirt gun shooting, potlucking, blanket sitting, swing set climbing, sandbox digging, wiffle ball playing, soccer ball kicking, pitch golfing, and badminton. I wish I would of had my camera going from the beginning, but I was pretty busy. After people were done eating I finally had a chance to think 'pictures'. I think everyone had a great time......we definitely did.



By 9:30 most of the party was over except for a few stray firefly catchers and my feet had never hurt so bad. I had been going since about 5am. Totally worth it, but I was tuckered out! On to Saturday. In the morning, Wyatt and I went to a birthday party and Rand and Brendan went to Target. The kids spent the afternoon playing with their new toy.



Then we had some backyard shade time. I was all about the hammock. The kids were all about taking pictures and looking at them (we do this often).



And then....because we just didn't feel like we had been busy enough.....we invited some friends over to use the slip 'n' slide and help us eat a few more burgers and hot dogs. AND we invited our neighbors too since they missed the BBQ the night before because they decided to go to a 13 inning Phillies game instead. Our plans of more outdoor fun were thwarted, just in time for the guests to arrive, by a torrential down pour that lasted all night. So our second-night-in-a-row party was moved inside. It ended up being a blast and we even whipped out a board game and laughed hysterically for at least a solid hour. (no pictures to prove it)

Sunday....church. After church I really thought it was all over. I read a book in the backyard shady oasis all afternoon and even thought about throwing on my PJ's. But no. Why stop now? We decided instead that we should do some more. So we hopped over to a nearby park to check out a church service that a couple churches are putting together for the summer. After that, we hooked up with a couple friends that lived nearby and had some ice cream and strawberries. Wyatt fell in the pool while we were there....fully dressed(he can swim. no worries) (again. no pictures to prove it.) The kids just ran around like wild animals (they were with friends, so the wildness is always bumped up a couple notches) while we chatted until almost dark. More firefly capturing ensued on the walk back to our car and the kids were tucked in bed for the third night in a row more than an hour and a half past their bedtimes! The beginning of summer has offically arrived!

I almost forgot... Here's a video of the kids cracking up at themselves and the video they made with the webcam while I was cleaning the bathroom on Friday. (I'm not sure, but they might have sent like 3 of these messages to my sister Joanna) I managed to catch the 10th time they watched it on my camera. Enjoy! :) The beginning of a busy week starts tomorrow!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Improvising

Today....


...my dryer broke. Big. Bummer.