Everyone needs a sick day...or week.

That's how I feel at least!! Jacob was sick almost the entire time we were in Virginia plus a day or so after we got back home. Zach has been lucky and only felt crummy for a day. I've been this way for the last week just about and my poor hubby...he's going downhill fast! He went into work this morning and came home soon after so he could lay down and rest. Jake is upstairs "resting" with him with cartoons on right now--not sure how well the resting is going!

Regardless of how stinky anyone felt, the boys were so excited to see their friends (our neighbors) on Monday! I wish I would've been outside with my camera when the neighbors came running across the street to our house. Kids are so sweet to each other..most of the time! I'm so thankful to have a great friend live right across from me that is willing to watch my kids when I need to get stuff done or when I just need a break! (and vise versa too!!)

 Yep, I let him do it. Not only did I let him do it...I asked him to do it again-------so I could take a picture.

He knows the cozy coupe has to be on the grass if he wants to climb on it.

Based on cringing look on Daniel's face...I don't think he enjoyed 4 kids climbing on him!!

Connor and Abby. Aren't they just adorable?? Their dad is in the background..coming to rescue them!

The frisbee got stuck in the tree..Daniel thought it'd be fun if we made a tower of kids to get it out. Jake's on the bottom, Zach's on Jake's shoulders...and Abby's on Zach's shoulders. If I weren't so worried about taking a picture we could've somehow gotten Connor on Abby's shoulders to get the frisbee..well, I'm not sure we would've accomplished that actually; the tower pretty much crumbled as soon as I snapped the picture.

A piggy back ride....x2. Right after this Zach started screaming that he was being squished.

Some highlights from our time in VA...
Gabe found a frog and was showing it to the boys...

 Jake thought it was great. Zach didn't know what to think. Daniel had just got our fire going for our hot dog roast and marshmallow toast....then it started raining. bummer. Russ had made us a really nice fire pit out of bricks too! We'll have to use it another time. Our evening had to get moved inside...where Daniel cooked the hot dogs on the stove top and we made microwave s'mores.

 My nephew, Hayden. He's adorable. Pretty sure there's a combination of ketchup, cheese curls, and ice cream sandwich covering his face. yum.

 Everyone needs a good cheesey grin with food covering their face (and hands!)!

 Don't you lick your plate when you're done??

 Back at my mom's before we left for home...Zach really wanted to play frisbee with my mom's dog, Missy. Only problem was we had bought her a new ball earlier in the day and she was obsessed with it.

 Mom's neighbor has the cutest little black lab puppy. Puppies are adorable..then they turn into Ringo and Copper. My mom said "look! The boys need a puppy of their own..but first I think we need another grandbaby!!" I'm glad she has priorities!

 Missy with her beloved new green ball. This was after about 15 minutes of playing fetch.

 Jake needed to play fetch with her too...so she happily got up to chase the ball!

Despite us not feeling great we still had a nice visit! We're always glad to be in VA but we're also always glad to be home!!

electricity...yes, please!

The boys and I are hanging out at my parent's house for the next day or so hoping to stay far enough away from Irene. We woke up to rain and winds and they've been here all day!

The boys and I went to Five Guys one day earlier in the week for lunch and mom has been wanting to go ever since...so, we decided we'd brave the storm today to go to Five Guys for lunch. Yep, we wanted their burgers that badly. Of course, once we got there their power was out--as was everywhere else in the shopping center. We ended up heading back to Powhatan and having lunch at Wendy's. After we had lunch, I dropped mom off at Subway to get dad a sub and told her I was going to drive around the parking lot until I saw her come back out...I didn't pay any attention after she got out of the car and drove off towards the back of the parking lot. As I was rounding a corner I see her waving like a crazy woman from in front of Subway--the lights were on and there were employees in the store but the door was locked and they were closed! We came back to her house and had a few hours before....the power went out! We were without power for about 2 hours and it was a loooooong 2 hours!! Mom and I decided there's no way we could be Amish and have no electricity all the time! And poor dad, I could safely say he was on "kid duty" almost the entire 2 hours..no wonder he's been asleep in his recliner for the last 45 minutes! Needless to say, we were all ecstatic when the power came back on!

Not sure who's more happy in this picture, the boys because they can watch a cartoon

or dad because they're not jumping on him anymore!

According to Daniel we haven't had any storms yet at our house, just rain! Lucky him too, our neighbors let him come over and play for the better part of the afternoon! They even fed him lunch and dinner! 

Happy Birthday to Zachy!

Yesterday was Zach's 3rd Birthday! (and yes, I was hoping to post this yesterday but the computer was not willing to work with me!)

We decided we'd go to Kings Dominion for his birthday and had oodles of fun. Aunt Celia was able to go with us and that made it even better!

The boys and Daniel went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower..and then called me because they wanted to see me.

They're in the far top right. Look closely!!!

We rode Taxi Jam which is like the "rollercoaster" for little guys. It was Zach's first rollercoaster and he loved it. Aunt Celia rode it with Jacob while I sat next to Zach (Jake could've rode by himself but whats the fun in that? Zach was right at the height that still needed someone to ride with him.).

 I attempted to take a video while we were riding...

After that, Daniel took Jacob on Ghoster Coaster (formerly the Scooby Doo coaster). Zach was 4 inches too short for it. Jake rode it last year with Uncle Marc and was scared out of his mind. I think he enjoyed it this time but you wouldn't know it by the look on his face!

Daniel told him all the brave kids hold their arms up...so he did!

Zach rode the hot rod cars while Jake was on the coaster...

and then the monster trucks (though he was ready to get out of them quite quickly).

 They rode this flying plane thing that went way up using their controls...

Then we headed to the waterpark! Obviously I didn't take many pictures by the water. The boys had a lot of fun splashing around. Jacob and Daniel went down a big water slide in a raft while Celia and I had Zach in "Lil' Barefoot Beach." We headed over to the wave pool after that and it made one big wave while we were there and then broke. There was still water and fountains that the boys enjoyed playing in for a LONG time!

 Jake was really tired after this and wanted to sit and snuggle for a little bit.

We did a few more rides and then Zach fell asleep!

Celia and I took Jake to do a few more things while Zach snoozed and then it was just after 4 and the boys were worn out!

The clouds moving over us were also looking pretty stormy so it was definitely a good time to go!
Even though we had already celebrated Zach's birthday we still needed to have cake and candles...we picked up some tasty cupcakes and headed back to mom and dad's house for the night. Zach enjoyed blowing out his 3 candles on his cupcake...

here's to a great 3rd year for my little man!

Zach's waterfall...

Zach was busy making waterfalls in the tub tonight.. . . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKhb1W2unDM

(yep, you have to click the link to watch it. I'm too tired to stay up and wait for the blog to upload the video!)

party time!

There has really been a good reason why it’s been a few days (ok, almost a week!) since I’ve blogged.

We left Maryland Friday around 1pm and headed for Virginia. We were planning to have dinner with my parents’ neighbors at 6:30 and it SHOULD only take 4 hours to get from our house to mom’s. I guess I should mention that Daniel drove separate from the boys and I since he had to work Mon-tomorrow and we were staying in VA. Needless to say, we sat in traffic. The boys and I finally arrived at my mom’s at 7 but about 30 minutes before that I got a call from Daniel saying his car wouldn’t shift into high gear and he couldn’t go above 20 miles per hour. He called my dad and of course my daddy went to his rescue (in Fredericksburg…about an hour and a half from their house). I was glad mom’s neighbors were flexible and waited for the boys and I to arrive to have some super wonderful lasagna. Poor Daniel and daddy didn’t have any until really, really late.

Saturday was party day! We celebrated Zach’s 3^rd birthday in VA with friends and family close by. He wanted to have a Batman party so I made him a Batman cake that turned out absolutely adorable (if I do say so myself!).

fun and tasty.

Daniel showed up at the party just as I was getting ready to start grilling (Mr. Grubbs, my parents’ wonderful neighbor offered to drive his truck and trailer to Fredericksburg the morning of the party to bring Daniel’s car to mom and dad’s house…of course they sat in traffic and finally made it to the park right when the party was supposed to start!). He loves cheese doodles...

obviously.

Zach wanted to sit by his Ggp (pronounced “jeep”..stands for great grandpa) to eat his lunch. I think he ate all of 4 cheese doodles and 5 chips.

They enjoyed being silly together.

We had a piñata that seemed to steal the show. . .

 Jake loved wacking it!

Zach was really determined...

Mary helping Hayden! If the stick wasn't twice his size he might've really wacked it good!

 Zach trying really hard!

Evan taking a turn. Aren't his curls the best? His mommy, Sarah, is in the background on the right. Daniel refers to Sarah as "mommy's old high school buddy."

Mom and Mrs. Davis.

Mrs. Davis (and Richard and their daughters, Amanda & Nicole) lived down the street from us when we were younger. I’ll always think of her as a second mother!

After the little kids had all had 2 turns at breaking the piñata we let a few of the bigger kids have a wack at it.

 Gabe had no clue that Daniel was going to raise it up as he went to hit it!

Jonathan gave it the final wack that it took to bust it open! (of course, he also broke the stick in half while wacking it!!)

Happy Birthday to you…Happy Birthday to you…Happy Birthday dear Zachy….

Happy Birthday to you!!

On Sunday we took Daniel to the train station in DC…..well, we all went to Franconia-Springfield and got on the subway and rode to Union Station…had a bite to eat and then Daniel rode back with us to the metro center station to make sure we got back on the right subway to get back to the Franconia station and our van.  If it would’ve been up to me to figure out the subway map we might still be riding!

Waiting for the subway to come…

 (Zach refused to be in the picture with Daniel!)

The boys are excited because Daniel comes back to Powhatan tomorrow evening.. hopefully his truck is more dependable than his car!

Thank you to everyone who helped me at the party..setting up...cleaning up...celebrating.. all of it!

I know, I know...it's been too long!

For the last week we've been crazy busy working on our house. Towards the end of last week Jacob broke one of our upstairs windows (I'm not even sure what he was doing but it broke.. at least it was an old window that needed to be replaced.) so lucky Daniel got to replace a window after he had already had a long day at work. Maybe I should rewind a little...we bought replacement windows for our entire house (not counting the sun room) last November......................and most of them have been sitting in a cute pile in the corner of our garage. Daniel did put 2 of them in our living room right after we bought them and one in our room; when it was pretty chilly out in either late November or early December we decided to replace 2 of the 3 windows in the boys' room. Not only did we replace them but we knocked the opening out a little bigger so there'd be even more light. The window Jacob broke last week was in our room so after that one was taken care of we only had 3 left upstairs to replace. Daniel got up early Saturday morning and started working right away..

 (window opening and useless closet)

I had checked the weather forecast on Friday and we were supposed to have nice weather on Saturday and a lot of rain on Sunday. He got the window out of the boys' room and the other 2 (one from the bathroom and one from the old kitchenette that will eventually be our master bath) also. We found some mold and A LOT of rotten wood that had to come out and be replaced.

We needed to make a supply run to Home Depot so just before lunch we left and of course had to stop for lunch somewhere and where better to go with 2 kids than Friendly's. It also helped that it's right where Home Depot is! While in Friendly's Daniel checked the radar map and got a little worried about the big storm that was headed right for us. We didn't have any food yet and had 3 big holes in our house from the windows. As you can figure, it poured. It rained and rained and rained. We got everything we needed except the sheet of drywall (that would've been a total disaster in the rain!) and drove home in the pouring down rain.  

(POURING outside...big hole in the boys room...not to mention the 2 on the back of the house)

We wanted to knock out the stinky closet in their room that we don't use (there's 2) and give them a little more room......I took it upon myself to get all the sheetrock off of it and when I was ready I said to Daniel "So, I just take the saw and cut this 2x4, right?" He looked at it and said "woah! I don't think we can do that. It looks like a load bearing wall." Of course I called my daddy and sent him a picture to look at of it and they determined that it was in fact load bearing (though based on what Daniel said if the house/roof was framed out properly it wouldn't have been load bearing). After this discovery we decided it needed to be closed back up but I was not wanting to make it as un-useful as it was before. Daniel was willing to comply and we widened the door opening (after installing a header above the door). We're in the process of mudding it now and hopefully it'll be totally done and functional by next week! Good news...all 3 windows are installed upstairs and just waiting for trim! woo-hoo!

(window installed and closet all drywalled!)

Anyways, onto life with 2 kids. We had a soccer game tonight (it's been over a week since we had soccer!) Jacob was AWESOME!  He actually kicked the heck out of the ball tonight. At some point he kept a little girl on the other team from making a goal, somehow he ended up on the ground and the little girl that he kept from making the goal stepped on him! Of course his coach (our neighbor!) came to his rescue and sternly told the little girl that we don't step on people (ok, let's be honest...she yelled at her! If you know Megan you'd laugh about it!). Regardless, the little girl cried her way off the field which really makes me laugh since she stepped on my kid and he stood up and kept playing!! The same little girl that stepped on him would just sit on the ball frequently throughout the game if other kids were going after it and they were all huddled together.  Obnoxious!!

As usual, Zach enjoyed lollipops throughout the game!

This is how Daniel and Zach ended their day....you can bet that the simpsons were on.

Zach was tired and Daniel was feeling crappy. Poor boys.

Tomorrow's a big day for me to get stuff ready for Saturday's party! As well as folding the 3 huge baskets of laundry sitting in front of me right now that I'm ignoring!

Here's some pictures from the end of last week...............

 BEST slide ever!

my silly cats. They're inside/outside cats but they know they eat their wet food outside (so the dogs can't eat it!). It wasn't dinnertime for them yet but they kept staring in at me like they were starving. Anytime I opened the door to let them in they walked over to their food dish on the deck! stubborn cats! (I remember before I had children and used to take pictures of my pets frequently........not so much anymore!)