Wordless Wednesday: Me and My Boys

Survived 1st week of school & Menu Plan Monday

Well, we successfully survived the first week of school. Well, sort of, not sure it counts since Brendan's school let out early 4 of the 5 days last week due to the heat. But, he is still loving 1st grade. Adam is still doing great at his new preschool. He's a little clingy and cries some mornings when I drop him off, but the rest of the day he has a great time.

Somehow Adam managed to get a whole line of chigger bites on the under side of his legs this weekend, right along his Pull Ups line. It looks just horrible. All red and irritated, and when he walks, his Pull Ups rub right on it making it worse. He's been walking around with his legs spread out real far, which would be hilarious looking if it wasn't for knowing he's in pain :(

Today Brendan brought home a notice from school about joining Cub Scouts. The joining meeting is this Wednesday night, and he is all excited about joining this year. They had a joining meeting at the end of last year, but at the time he didn't want to join and we didn't force the issue. But now, he is SUPER excited about it, so I guess in a few days we will be the proud parents of a Cub Scout. I'm already a little worried about all the driving around I will be doing this fall, between swim lessons, Tae Kwon Do, and now Cub Scouts too. Hopefully it doesn't get to be too much of a hassle. Luckily there aren't sports games mixed in too (yet).

I've been trying to get back on the menu planning habit. I was going good for awhile, but the last couple months I haven't done it. So, this weekend I sat down and planned out the dinner menu for this week, and all of Sept and October. It's so much easier for me to just do a bunch in advance, because it's the sitting down to plan that I always seem to neglect. And, I have certain meats or kinds of meals assigned to each day so that I'm sure to work in a variety...otherwise I'll fall into a rut of pasta all the time. lol

So, here's the basic plan I follow:

Monday= Beef
Tuesday= Chicken
Wednesday= Soup/Salad/Sandwich or Seafood
Thursday= leftovers
Friday= Pizza (family night)
Saturday= Pork
Sunday= Chicken or Turkey

Having a basic idea like that to always start with is a big help to me, and then I just fill in the meals we like on printed calendar pages for a couple months at a time. I've seen on some other blogs that people do something called "Menu Plan Monday" or something like that...maybe I should look into that and join in. Hmmm.

Okay, I talked myself into it. lol I just searched and tracked down the originator of Menu Plan Monday (OrgJunkie) and even though Monday is basically over now, I'll just jump in anyway. LOL







Here's our menu plan for this week...

Monday: Goulash
Tuesday: Joe's microwave chicken/potato/carrot dish
Wednesday: BLT wraps
Thursday: leftovers
Friday: Pizza (family night)
Saturday: Pork Stir Fry
Sunday: Oven "fried" (baked) chicken

End of Summer & 1st Day of School

Well, the boys are officially back in school now. Brendan started 1st grade Monday and Adam started preschool. Both boys did fine, and had a lot of fun yesterday.

Going backwards a little...Joe made it back safely from his Iowa/South Dakota trip for work. He got back Friday just in time to see the skit/awards night at the end of Brendan's summer camp. Brendan won about 5 awards, which were made of circles of wood and rope. To which he said he had "cedar bling". I died laughing. I'm guessing that must have been the joke among the counselors to call it that. heehee.

The weekend before that (I forgot to post about) we did a visiting trip. We have been so busy all summer that we had not seen any of the boys' grandparents for a long time. We knew that it would be difficult once school started, so we took the day to go visit all 3 sets of grandparents. None of them live by us, but luckily they all live fairly close together.

We started at my Mom's house where the boys had fun playing games and with all the toys in her basement. We ate an early lunch while we were there, and had a nice visit with mom and her boyfriend.

Next we headed to my dad's house to visit with him and his wife. They have a pool in their neighborhood, so the boys had a blast playing in the pool. They also had a ton of fun playing with all the toys in their basement.

After that we headed to Joe's parents' house, and most of his brothers and sisters came by too to see the boys and visit. We had dinner, hung out, visited, and the boys played outside for part of the time too. Adam kept going from aunt to aunt asking them to take him outside. (he has 4 aunts on that side, 3 were there). So one of them would take him out for awhile, come back in, and then he'd go to the next. It was cute. Each time he came back with tomatoes from the garden, so he was helping in the garden while he was out there too.

Then we drove the 2-1/2 hours home, and got to bed pretty late, but it was worth it for the boys to get to see all of the grandparents and some of the aunts and uncles. They had so much fun!

So, now summer is over (even though it is still so HOT) and school has begun. We will have one last hurrah for the summer next Friday though. Brendan's school is off that day, and we still have tickets to a nearby waterpark to use up, so we'll go there next Friday. Then, it's on to my favorite season, FALL!

Hope you all had a great summer!

"Traffic" on My Morning Commute

Ahh, yes, the morning commute to work. You city slickers have to deal with rush hour traffic, road rage, idiots cutting you off, stop and go traffic, etc. Me...well, normally I have very little traffic, if any, but this morning I did have to slow down on my morning commute for a different kind of traffic...

Not something you'd expect to see standing in the road, eh? I expect the deer shooting out in front of my car once in awhile, but I still laugh every time I come across a cow standing in the middle of the road. This is one of the roads I travel along on my way to work every morning. A few times per year a lone cow will get out of someone's fence and be *in* the road. This morning I think the whole herd was loose! Adam was in the car with me and thought the cows were great. "Put my window down, Mommy, I see cow" he kept saying. heehee. They were *right* by the window as we drove by. Who needs to pay money for a drive-thru zoo? If you're in the right place at the right time, we've got 'em for free out in the country :)

Oh yes, and once in awhile a free petting zoo too. A week or so ago I pulled up our driveway to find this standing in our yard...

And no, it's not ours. Brendan was with me that time, and he stayed outside for a long time watching and talking to the horse. He said something to the effect of "well we could keep him if the neighbors don't want him anymore". I tried to explain that I didn't think the neighbors knew that the horse was by our yard, and that it didn't mean they wanted to get rid of it. lol

First Overnight

Well, this morning I dropped Brendan off at camp for his first overnight. He's been having a BLAST at camp all week during the day, and tonight they stay over all night. It will feel strange to not pick him up and bring him home after work today. I'm sure he will have a great time. He has stayed overnight at the grandparents' houses before, but never overnight on his own with no relatives there. He is really excited about it. He looked so cute all loaded up with his backpack, sleeping bag and pillow. (that is the lady that runs the camp in the background of the photo).

I'm not worried at all about Brendan, it's Adam I'm worried about tonight. He and Brendan share a room, and tonight Brendan will not be there when he goes to bed. I hope Adam isn't too lonely or sad. He loves, looks up to, and follows Brendan everywhere. And, Joe has been out of the state all week for work, so he's missing daddy too. But, on the bright side, he won't have to fight over toys tonight.

The "meet the teacher" night is tonight at Brendan's school. Since he is at camp all night, I will just go up there without him and try to find out what all he needs to know. I'm anxious to find out which teacher he will have this year. He is starting 1st grade. Hopefully it will be a smoother start this year than last year. There is a new principal too, so I'm crossing my fingers that communication and such between the school and parents will improve this year! But considering I was not informed about the meet the teacher night (had to track down the date/time info myself) and still do not have a school supply list, it's not looking too hopeful for much change. But we'll see.

Wordless Wednesday: 1st Lost Tooth!

Feels Like Home?!

Perhaps I've been working at my job too long? I am way too comfortable, apparently. I just returned from my lunch break, walked into my office, kicked off my shoes, and...wait! What am I doing?! I kicked off my shoes completely out of habit without thinking, like I do when I walk in my front door at home. lol There is something seriously wrong if my office feels like home to me.

Good thing I didn't take off my bra...that's the 2nd thing to come off when I walk in the door at home! LOL

Heat, Wind, and Summer Camp

OMG how many days is this 100+ temperature going to last?! I am dying here. The humidity makes it so much worse too. Joe laughed at me because I said it was too hot to let the boys swim in our little backyard pool, but it's true! I'm sure as heck not gonna sit out there to watch them. They didn't even ask to go out, so I think they agree.

Last night we had terrible wind. I woke up around 11pm and laid there listening to the wind. It sounded really bad. I even got up for a few minutes to turn on the tv and make sure we weren't having a tornado! LOL (we can't hear sirens from our house, so we have to check ourselves). This morning our patio table was on its side, and a big limb had split off from one of our trees into our driveway. The huge antenna on top of our house had been blown off...I noticed as I was backing out this morning that part of it was dangling off the back of the house. I didn't have time to go look closer and see how bad it was, I'll have to do that when I get home tonight. But we could have had much worse! Joe was driving to Iowa/South Dakota yesterday and drove through the storm there, and they were hearing about cars being blown over on their sides and such. Luckily we didn't have that problem!

Brendan started another camp this morning. I spent about 1/2 hour waiting in a high school parking lot for the camp bus to pick him up...it never came. There was one other family there looking for it too, but we both decided to drive the kids to the camp (making me very late for work) to see what happened. Turned out that the info about the bus picking them up was accidentally left on the website from last year, and that there was no plan for a bus this year because they had fewer kids enroll. So, I will have to drive him to and from the camp every day this week. It's not too terribly far (about 40 minutes from our house but only about 20 from my office), but still a little inconvenient. Especially with Joe out of town and me having to drive Adam to and from the babysitter too. So, the mornings will be pretty hectic this week! I just hope Brendan has a lot of fun. This day camp is more like a "real" camp than the other one he's been going to for the last 5 weeks. They even stay overnight Thursday night. And wouldn't it just figure that Meet the Teacher Night at his school is Thursday night too! Ugh! Doesn't it just figure. So I guess he will have to meet his teacher the first day of school. Crazy that school starts next Monday! This summer has flown by! I'm sure he will be let out of school early the first week though if this 100+ temp continues!

Doing the Happy Dance!

Just got back from this week's weigh-in, and had to share that I have now lost 20 pounds since May! Yippee!!! 12 more pounds to go to reach the final WW goal for me (but I am going to try to keep losing a little more after I reach that too). I'm excited, so I just had to share. lol

Not-So-Happy Camper

Ha! Reading my post from Thursday is very comical to me now! More like I could hear the drunk idiots splashing in the river til 3:30am...birds?! No, the birds were scared shitless and nowhere to be seen or heard, but I could hear the lovely sounds of guys puking, people yelling, car alarms going off, and coolers being drug on the ground as above mentioned idiots went by my tent several times all night long. Fire crackling, yes, I did get that, thank goodness.

If you can't tell, our weekend didn't exactly have majestic relaxing qualities that I had hoped for. LOL

Six Flags on Friday was fun...hot, but fun. We actually weren't there all that long, maybe 3-4 hours. We rode the Scooby Doo ride first, there was a big line but we were afraid it would only get longer, and Brendan loves to watch Scooby Doo, so we thought he'd love it. We got in line and the sign said it was a 30min wait from there. An hour later we finally made it on the ride. About 45 minutes into the line Brendan decided he was scared and didn't want to ride. I'm thinking "we've waited this long in the beating down hot sun, you're gonna ride!". lol Luckily after a few minutes of him saying he was scared, the boy behind us told Brendan that he had been on it before and it wasn't scary. That helped. Then we rode a few other rides, had a pretzel & beer break for Mommy and Daddy, let the kids play in the play area, rode the huge ferris wheel, took a couple pics with Sylvester and Scooby Doo and then Brendan wanted to leave.

So, we headed down to the river for the camping part of our trip. It was so dang hot and humid, I had sweat pouring all weekend. Overall it was fun, but there were definitely many frustrating times. And the campground was very crowded. We ended up in the middle of several big groups, and one in particular was obnoxious! They were so loud, and partied until at least 3:30am. They were across from us, and the river was behind us, so they had to walk through our campsite to get to the river. And they did all night long, dragging their coolers, making lots of noise, splashing in the river and yelling in the middle of the night. They would once in awhile give a really loud yell and it set off a car alarm (which they then cheered loudly). I laid there awake until 3:30am. Joe was awake most of that time, but then he fell asleep and I had to listen to him snoring too on top of everything else. lol Then our boys were awake by 6am.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for hanging out around the fire drinking and such with friends, we've done it many times, but this group was beyond obnoxious and didn't even pretend to care that anyone else was there but them. And, this particular campground calls itself a "family resort" and has a "strict" quiet policy and signs posted saying to please be extremely quiet after 11pm.

The next day was fun playing in the river though. We have a 2-person raft that we put the boys in and we pulled them upstream, floated down, swam, splashed, and watched (laughed at) all the hilarious drunk people who couldn't manuever their canoes right, and were tipping over and running into each other. heehee. Oh, and then there was the large guy who decided to just lay on his back and roll down the shallow stretch of the river...yes, a log roll on the rocks in the water like he was a 4 year old rolling down a grassy hill...only he was more like a 44 year old and rolling big belly and all on rocks. I'm guessing he was feeling that one the next day! LOL

We also went by Johnson's Shut Ins, to see what it looks like now, after the dam break and all. Last time we were there was right before it happened (we were there in Sept '05 and the dam broke in Dec '05). I was really impressed with their clean-up efforts! We could tell the park looked different, and there are a lot less shut-ins, and the deep swimming area where people used to jump off the cliffs is no longer water, but a big pile of gravel, but they did have it open and you could get in the shut-ins that were left. They have a display of photos in the office with before and after pics of all the destruction and mess. They still have a big part of the park fenced off with restricted and caution signs and such, but the parts they have cleaned up look great.

Here are a few pics I took while we were there:

I took all the pics of playing in the river with a disposable waterproof camera, so I don't have those to share yet.

All in all it was a fairly good weekend, but we've decided it will be a long time before we take the boys tent camping again. Or, at least we will not go on the weekend. A cabin seems to be the better choice until Adam is older.

So now we're back...tired, and sunburnt. It's one of those weekends where you need a weekend to recover from the weekend.

Happy Camper :)

I most likely won't be at my blog again before we leave tomorrow morning, so I'll say "See ya later!" now. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

We'll be HERE Friday,

followed by a weekend of playing in the river,

sleeping in this:

and sitting around this:

AAhhh, yes. I can almost hear the river flowing, the birds singing, and the campfire crackling.

Wordless Wednesday

How Many More Days 'til we Go Camping, Mommy?!

Yes, this is the question I've been hearing every day for the last several weeks. Followed by Adam's reply of "I go camp too". And now, finally, it is almost here. "Only 4 more days, Brendan, 4 more days" was my response this morning. What's interesting to me, is that we are going to Six Flags on Friday before we go camping, yet all he asks about is the camping part. That's our boy for ya. Definitely inherited his mommy and daddy's genes on that one! We love camping. Joe and I used to go camping and canoeing several weekends a year when I was in high school and college, and up until we had kids. That was our favorite thing to do together. And we're going to our favorite river this weekend again too. The boys have been there with us, (those who have been around awhile know that we baptized both boys in the river too) when Brendan was a baby and then again a couple years ago when Adam was 10 months and Brendan was 4. We didn't attempt the tent that time, with Adam being so young. But this year, we are going back to the tent camping, because that's what we enjoy...and now the boys are 2-1/2 and 6-1/2, so we're thinking they can handle it now. Our site is on the river, and I can't wait to be sitting in front of that campfire again. I have missed it greatly!

He Passed!!!!

He passed! He passed! Yes! Brendan finally passed Level 2 in swim lessons this time, woohoo! Now it's on to Level 3...after a break...because I'm very tired of taking him every night after work. I need time to catch up at home. And we have some conflicts in the next couple weeks anyway. So, next session (Fall) we'll rejoin and in the meantime, he can practice in our 12ft x 3 ft inflatable pool at home. lol

Swimming Lessons...AGAIN

The next session of swimming lessons has started again already. So once again we are going crazy with these things every night last week and this week. It is so hard to get anything else done on these weeks when we're at work all day and then swimming lessons every night. *sigh* But, the boys have fun, and it's definitely something they need to learn.

Adam is even in swimming lessons this session...in the parent-child class...


Brendan is still working hard to try to pass Level 2...

Brendan is still having a blast at day camp during the day too. I hope we can get some pictures of that soon. There is a family night next Thursday, so I guess I get to take pics then.

Hard to believe his school starts up again in about 4-1/2 weeks! Yikes!

Photos from 4th of July

I'm finally posting a few photos from our 4th of July celebrations. These first few are from when we went to the city's fireworks display at the stadium. It looks empty, but it wasn't. There were tons of people there, we just happened to be at the far end where there weren't as many. And after I took the pictures, more people filled in around us too.

(In true "Brendan" fashion, you'll notice he is flipping off the camera. I didn't notice this until I was uploading just now. This is a pattern with him, ever since he was a baby! He somehow always manages to accidentally be flipping off the camera in SO many photos we have. Sometime I'll have to gather all the photos through the years of him doing this and post a collection- from a few days old until the present time. lol)

The next day we had a BBQ at our house and shot off fireworks:

(My nephew and Adam at the little table)

(Brendan and my other nephew at the picnic table)

(Joe, my boys, my brother-in-law, and my mom's boyfriend getting fireworks ready on our driveway)

(one of the many fireworks we shot off at home).

Well, a no go on both the waterpark again and South Dakota. They ended up not sending Joe. And he had had an exhausting week and didn't want to go anywhere so we didn't go to the waterpark either.

Brendan's summer school is over now, and today he started day camp. He'll attend day camp for the next 5 weeks. Tonight starts the next round of swimming lessons too. So I'm in for another crazy 2 weeks of taking him to that every night after work again. Hopefully he will have a good instructor and learn a lot and pass Level 2 this time!

We found out that a spot is opening up for Adam at the day care center we've been on the waiting list for. So he will start there Aug 20. He will greatly miss his babysitter that has been watching him in her home for a long time. But now that he's 2-1/2 (almost 3 by the time he starts there) we really feel he needs more structure, discipline and learning activities and such. It will be a huge increase in price, unfortunately, so Joe is starting to freak out and go into one of his anal-about-money-moods. *sigh*

I still need to post some pics from 4th of July, I keep forgetting whenever I'm near my digital camera.

Okay, for some reason Blogger is not letting me give this post a title. Very strange. Anyone else had this problem?

Waterpark, South Dakota, etc

Well, we didn't end up going to the waterpark this past weekend afterall. It ended up being kinda chilly and stormy all weekend. So, we will try again this Saturday (tomorrow) instead. His free ticket expired last Saturday, but it is still good for 50% off until August so at least that's something. Tomorrow is supposed to be very humid and in the 90's so it should be perfect waterpark weather. The only problem now is that Joe might have to drive to South Dakota this weekend for work, and if that happens then we might have to cancel the waterpark trip again. We'll see. I was thinking maybe we could go with him to SD, but it is such a quick turn-around (going there one day and coming home the next!) that it really isn't worth it to put the boys through all that driving for less than a day's worth of doing things. So, most likely that won't happen.

We had a good holiday. I'll post again later with pictures from our celebrations :)

Now THAT'S a frog!

Just had to share a pic of Joe with the huge frog they found at his work. Now THAT'S a frog!

The 2 Worst "S" Words...

Swimsuit shopping. 2 of the worst words in the English language. Nothing like a 3-way mirror, flourescent lighting and 59 non-fitting swimsuits to dampen the spirit. I had to do it this past Saturday, because of our upcoming day-trip to a nearby waterpark this coming Saturday. Brendan earned a free ticket from school, and it expires this Saturday, so we can't wait any longer. Before kids, I always wore a bikini, but now I need to wear a one-piece (at least for this season until I lose the remaining 20-ish pounds). It is amazing to me that it could possibly be so difficult to find a decent one-piece!!! Would it kill them to have some support, helloooo?! I went to Kohl's & JCPenney, and it took me trying on about 60 different suits before I could find one that my "girls" were not spilling out of or looking squishy or what have you. And I don't have huge ones, what do the rest of the women wear??? The rest of the suit would fit, but the top part was seriously lacking support. I remember seeing online that there were special D-cup suits, and so I looked all around for that, thinking those must have extra support cups or something, but no luck finding those. Now come on, there are LOTS of women with my D-cup size (and bigger), what do they know that I don't? There must be some secret I'm missing! lol After about swimsuit 49 of 60 I began thinking I was going to have to borrow some boob tape from Katherine to get a suit to work for me! lol
After way too long of searching in crowded loud stores (and those who have been around awhile know that I already don't like shopping and can't stand crowds), suit #59 actually fit me well on the top half, but the bottom part of the suit "legs" came down so low and resembled something an old-fashioned grandmotherly figure would have worn in the 50's or something. Not very flattering. But then it finally happened. Suit #60 was one that actually fit me everywhere, and that I wouldn't be too self-conscious wearing in public while I'm still losing the remaining 20-ish pounds. Whew! So here it is, only the one I have is black with brown, not purple. It was the only color combo they had, and at that point I was taking what I could get! When I got home and put it on for Joe to see, he liked it. Then he said, "So what are you going to do with that in a few months when it is too big for you?" I will happily get rid of it and go back to wearing cute bikinis, thank you very much! But for now, it will do for the waterpark this Saturday.