Life With Boys

T was standing right in front of me, gave me a goodnight kiss, then walked away.

Me: T, did you just toot in my face?
T: (giggling) Yeah, was it stinky?
Me: Yeah it was!
R: (from upstairs) Dude! That was awesome! Give me five!

Harvest Mania

Can you believe this harvest? This picture is from yesterday and doesn't even count the 5 ripe big and 23 cherry tomatoes that we got today. (Yes, that's Mackinaw sniffing at the harvest in the bottom right of the picture.) Now I need to make some more zucchini bread to go in the freezer for winter. Also, what can you do with more cucumbers than you can handle? I know, I should pickle them, but they're huge. What else can you do with them?

It's just me and the boys this weekend 'cause M is sailing in a three-day race. We went and saw the movie, Underdog, yesterday. It was cute. T and R laughed their patooties off during most of the movie. Today we went to the farmer's market. I had read in the paper that there was going to be an arts and crafts show and a car show at the farmer's market. T was soo excited about those extras. Alas, I read the date wrong and it's over Labor Day weekend. But, he handled the disappointment well. After they played in the park, we went grocery shopping. Then out for the most delicious garlic cheesy bread ever for lunch. Then we drove a half an hour to the next town to go paint pottery (which I have been promising T that we'd do all summer long.) I checked the times online last night and knew that they would be open from 1--5. We got there at 2:00 and the place was closed with a sign saying they were on vacation for four days. Poor T! A second disappointment (he says that it's a third disappointment because the arts and craft show was number one, the car show number two, and the pottery place number three.

We went home and I asked him if he wanted to do a craft with me, so he looked in my "ten minute craft book" (yeah, it's a cool book) and chose to do the paper-mache-on-a-paper-plate craft. We did the paper mache part today and will paint it tomorrow. By the way, I had a big brush to paint the paste mixture on and he asked if he could do it the way he learned how to do it -- which was to drag the paper through the paste and then push the excess off with his fingers. He had such a smile on his face as his hands got all messy! What a cutie.

Then, we made our own pizzas for dinner. We included bell peppers, tomatoes, and basil all from our garden. The boys had a little of the aforementioned veggies, but mainly put on cheese and little pieces of sliced ham (we forgot pepperoni when we were at the store.)

I let them stay up late to watch the National Women's Gymnastic competition ("Holy Cow! Look what she just did! R said over and over) and now they're tucked in bed and I'm headed for a nice long bath.

Birthday Weekend Number Two

Well, I didn't realilze that this picture was so dark when I took it, but you get the idea. It's M and his folks. We were so lucky that they came to visit for his birthday weekend last weekend. Here's what we did...

Friday

They arrived just in time for a great dinner of grilled tri-tip (the meat was part of my father's day present to M), grilled asparagus, a great salad with feta dressing, corn on the cob (picked that day), and blue berry cobbler (my contribution to the dinner.) After cobbler, M opened his presents and we played Pegs and Jokers.

Saturday

M made a tasty crustless quiche that was really tasty. After breakfast we took off for the club. M's folks took the kids in their car and I'm sure had an earful on the one hour drive. Speaking of the drive, about twenty minutes into it, M asked me if I turned off the coffee maker. Nope. We called his folks in their car to see if they turned it off. Nope. M and I turned around and made the trip home to turn off the very-hot-coffee-maker-that-would-have-burned-down-the-house while the kids and grandparents hung out at one of those really big truck stops and had a nice time waiting for us.

At the club, we had a really wonderful time - swimming, sailing, sunning, and catching frogs. We had a picnic lunch of sandwiches, watermelon, cherries, and carrots at around 2 pm. At about 6pm we left the club and checked into this awesome two bedroom condo that we had rented for the night. It had a spectacular lake view from every room. (This condo is just minutes from our Club.) We went out to dinner and headed back to the condo just in time to see the sun set. Nice.

Sunday

Brunch was at 10:00 at the club and it was great. Made to order omelets and breakfast sweet breads. Everybody was in heaven. M and his dad headed out to race the first race. Something went wrong on a jibe and they ended up capsizing, took on too much water, and had to be towed in! I was standing on the beach, when I heard some friends yell, "Hey S, isn't that M being towed in. What a bummer!" Then I looked and saw the poor sailboat with its stern completely underwater and M's dad half in the water and half out, trying to put weight on the stern so the bow wouldn't go under too. M and his dad bailed and bailed in time to get out there for the second race. The boys, gramma and I swam and played all day. We went out to dinner at the little place on the lake and then went our separate ways. It was a nice weekend.

For those of you who were curious about the frog on T's head...this is the day that he caught that particular frog and decided to carry it around on his head for awhile. "He likes it there, Mom. It's kinda cozy for him." is what I was told when I suggested he put it back in the creek.

I Spy With My Little Eye

Summertime Flowers

These are some of the flowers in our front yard. They make me so happy to look at them as I arrive home each evening :>

Birthday Weekend Number One

My baby boy turned Eight last Thursday. I know, it's hard for me to believe too. He's such a great kid. We've been celebrating his birthday everyday since. He says "I love extended birthdays!"

Thursday - The Big Day

We let him open his presents before breakfast so that he could play with them all day. After opening presents, I said "what would you like for breakfast -- eggs, cereal, pancakes, or cake and ice cream?" He started jumping up and down and asked, "are you serious mom! Alright, cake and ice cream please!" So that's what we had for breakfast. (As we were eating the chocolate cake, I couldn't help but think about the Bill Cosby skit in which he gives his kids chocolate cake for breakfast and then gets in trouble by his wife.) Anyway, he had unlimited play time with all of his new toys, including his video game that uses a light saber to fight the bad guys -- "I killed Darth Mal mom!". For dinner, he wanted pizza, so M bought frozen cheese pizzas and we had a make-it-yourself topping bar. (I had fresh basil and farmer's market tomatoes on mine. Yummo!) That night he snuggled into bed with his new Ice Hockey quilt that my mom made him.

Friday
We took off early for the two-hour drive to an amusement park that has "two parks in one" - a water park and an amusement park with roller coasters. We had a really lovely day, getting there when it opened, having lunch in the car for a break, and staying until it closed. We got the tip to rent a cabana in the water park, which allowed us to have a rest/nap for an hour in the middle of the day -- nice! We all went on lots of rides together. R and M went on all of the terribly scary rides -- one that M never wants to go on again (picture three "Ss" on there sides - up, down, up, down, up, down...with no time to breathe in between. ) T and I went on all of the spinning rides and he even went on a roller coaster by himself (it was a smaller, kid roller coaster.) R also went on all of the high, high slides in the water park, one that was STRAIGHT DOWN!. He calls himself "danger boy."

Saturday

We spent the day at the beach on the Big Lake near us. T was disappointed that there weren't big waves like there was the last time we were there -- we brought our boogie boards and everything. They did ride some tiny waves, made a HUGE sand castle, and made some friends. It was a really nice day at the beach.

Today, we were supposed to go to a baseball game, but it got rained out. So we played a bunch of board games and introduced the boys to Raiders of the Lost Ark. In between all of that, I did five loads of laundry. Now we're ready for the week. I'll go to work and the boys will go to South American Art Camp -- perfect for my kids. T loves any kind of art. R doesn't love art, but is fascinated by different cultures and history. Nice combo.