water fight!

We've been really enjoying the nicer weather lately! We got a picnic table over the weekend and have enjoyed eating dinner at it every night. After dinner last night the boys grabbed the water hose and started spraying each other with it...Daniel decided his new pvc/tarp lawn mower "house" that he put together was a nice shield from the water..

I know it's longish but they had such a good time!

I'll post some more recent pictures tomorrow (hopefully!).

Zach got to feel baby Emily kick yesterday when he was sitting in my lap reading books and she gave him a little poke..just so he knew she was there. He looked at me like "what in the world did you do to me???" I told him baby Emily had kicked him and he just grinned. Of course now Jacob wants to feel her kick too so hopefully he'll be next! Lucky little men!

Fun with Granny & Pa!

The boys had such a fun weekend; my parents came up to visit and have a good time with us for a few days and the boys wished they could've stayed longer!

The boys taught mom about MarioKart.

They like playing against her because she's about as good as I am. hahaha!

Mom and I toted the boys around on Saturday to run a few errands and then on Sunday we headed off to a yarn shop in Chesapeake City so mom could hopefully find some good stuff! We got back to the house in time to have a firepit and roast hot dogs and marshmallows for lunch! YUM!

 Zach was relaxing. Mom was roasting her hot dog as well as one for each kid.

The wind kept shifting and blowing smoke everywhere! Zach was busy eating cheetos while Jacob was monkeying around with the hammock stand.

mmmmmmm!

Dad and Daniel worked really hard on tearing down a closet and building a wall upstairs so we'll have a room for Emily. (The boys room was HUGE--half of our upstairs so they built a wall in the middle to make it 2 rooms. The boys new room is slightly bigger than the nursery will be.) No pictures of the progress yet.... I'm trying to wait until it's totally done!

Speaking of them working on the wall... as they were ripping out some of the wood upstairs they were tossing it out of one of the windows into the backyard (the side part of it). After Jacob finished eating he was running around and yep, you guessed it, stepped on a board with a nail sticking up. Of course it went through his shoe and into his stinky foot. I called his pediatrician's office and since it was Sunday I had to wait for the on call doctor to call back. It didn't take long for the doctor to call and calm my nerves! Since his shots are all up to date the only thing we have to watch for is infection..I'm supposed to have him soak his foot in warm soapy water a few times a day for the next few days.

He's such a trooper. Once we got a bandaid on his foot he was back to running around again. He was limping around like crazy this morning but went to school and told all of his friends about what happened to his foot.

Zach decided he wanted in on the foot soaking action too...

Not only did he want to soak his feet....

He wanted to be comfy on his batman couch while he soaked his hands and his feet!

Jake snuggling up to Granny before they left.

Earlier in the week the boys picnicked outside..

They opted to sit at the storage bench instead of their picnic table.

We bought this for Emily from Tractor Supply. The socks are like little cowgirl boots.

Of course I couldn't pass them up!

Daniel and Zach reading Dinosaurs Don't, Dinosaurs Do. Pretty sure it's a new favorite book of his. Daniel likes it too because we've read it so much that both boys have pretty much memorized it and are more than happy to "read" it themselves!

We're in for a week of gorgeous weather! Daniel decided it would be fun to take the boys to the driving range to hit golf balls this afternoon. They had a great time! We'll have to come up with some more fun things to do in the afternoons with them. Daniel goes out of town the next couple of days so it was some nice, fun, family time!

Happy Birthday to....who?

Our kids' stuffed animals have multiple birthdays a year.. I'm not sure why I comply with it but I do. There might be some reason why we can't celebrate that particular day that they tell me it's their animals birthday but we celebrate it the next day. Saturday morning Jacob informed me that it was Checkers (his stuffed animal cat) birthday. Checkers would be the  cat from "If you give a cat a cupcake." Going to see the movie on Saturday used up too much of my brain that I forgot to make anything for Checkers. I made brownies yesterday to celebrate though and they were a hit! We sang happy birthday to him and then Zach informed us it was "Big Pup Pup's" birthday too. He quickly got him, I lit another candle on top of a brownie and we sang again.

This morning I was infomed that it was kitty cat's birthday. Kitty cat is Zach's stuffed animal cat who I'm sure has had at least one birthday already in the past year (possibly more!). I told him we could have leftover brownies (sorry, kitty cat) and he was happy with that. Of course tonight at dinner, Jacob told us it was Woofy's birthday too. Luckily I can accomodate multiple stuffed animals birthdays with leftover brownies and birthday candles. Zach raced upstairs to get Kitty Cat and Jake got Woofy. . . . . only they each came down with 2 animals. Zach had Kitty Cat and Little Big Pup Pup and Jacob had Woofy and you guessed it, Checkers.

We sang Happy Birthday to Kitty Cat and Little Big Pup Pup and Zach helped them blow out their candle (yes, I made them share a candle) then it was time for Jacob's animals. We got halfway through singing Happy Birthday and I burst out laughing. I couldn't help myself. For the second night in a row we were singing happy birthday to stuffed animals. I couldn't even finish the song!! Not only could I not finish the song, I couldn't stop laughing to tell Daniel what I was laughing at!

The boys loved it and I know that one day when they're bigger they'll think back on when we had birthday parties and I made special goodies for their stuffed animals and they'll smile.. and probably laugh at how big of a nut their mom was to go along with it!

Daniel was making Checkers and Woofy talk and the boys thought it was a hoot!

Then Checkers stole Zach's brownie.

Checkers had a secret for Jacob..

clearly it was hilarious!!

Then a secret for Zach..

that was just as funny!

Lastly, he karate chopped Jake in the head.

As you can see, it was oodles of fun!!

Movie #2 for the boys!

We wanted to do something fun with the boys today that didn't involve being outside. I have seen a lot of previews for The Lorax movie lately and really wanted to take them to see it! The problem was it came out yesterday and I knew it would be a busy time at the theatre! I really wanted to take them to the first showing today at 11:15am but for some reason we couldn't get out the door. The next showing was at 12:45 and Daniel didn't think we needed to leave very early to get there...what was he thinking??? We didn't get to the theatre until around 12:30 and that showing was already sold out; the next one was at 1 something and just as we were next in line, that time sold out!! Go figure! We were able to get tickets for the 3:20 showing but had a lot of time to spare so we went home! The girl at the ticket counter advised us to get back early for the movie because she was certain it would be sold out and busy. We got back there around 2:30 and waited in line outside of the theatre for a while before we were allowed in to sit down and get comfy! Once we got in and seated Daniel went out to stand in line for popcorn. I had brought my iPod with us and snapped a couple pictures of the boys waiting for the snacks! (I know, the quality is absolutely stinky!)

The boys LOVED the movie. It was really cute and had a good message for us all! Might I also add that it is crazy expensive to go to the movies!! The tickets for the 4 of us were $37!! And it was considered a matinee! Add another $15 for popcorn and a drink! geeeeez!

We stopped at Tractor Supply on the way home. I saw a metal chicken that reminded me of a blog post I read a while back that was absolutely hysterical. If it hadn't been $50 I would've bought it.

Why everyone needs a giant metal chicken... (these weren't that huge though, maybe 2.5 feet tall)

I attempted to tell Daniel about the blog when we were in the store a little bit and he chuckled..but I decided he needed to sit down and read it. He did..and he laughed. :-)

We worked on the closet in the office today. It still needs paint but it looks like a closet now! I decided to hang Emily's clothes that we've gotten so far in it. :-)

(after all, until we make our house a construction site again she won't have a closet of her own!)

I had the brilliant idea to wash our cushion covers for our couch and loveseat today. When we left they were in the dryer and I had covered the cushions with blankets.

Guess what happened while we were gone?

Anbody want a dog?????

Needless to say, Ringo spent a LONG time in the crate after we discovered what he had done. I'm temporarily fixing it until I can get a new piece of foam. Actually, Daniel is temporarily fixing it until he can get a new piece of foam because after all, Ringo is his dog.

our week in pictures!

Blogging has clearly not been a priority of mine this week! I was super tired at the beginning of the week and the last few days I've had a cold and have felt like doing absolutely nothing!! I'm pretty sure the weather is to blame (on top of being pregnant!) for feeling crummy! Add 2 kids that were up at 5:30am this morning to feeling crappy and you can figure out what kind of day we had...

Anyways, our week wasn't super exciting. Our fun and excitement today was the tree truck coming out for the power company and cutting down the limbs/trimming the tree hanging over our power lines. Didn't help though that they decided to show up at naptime...oh well. What were the chances that anyone would actually nap anyway?!?!

both boys and Daniel were clearly in awe of the big tree truck.

My best attempt at getting a picture of the boys with the man in the cherry picker. They had just started up the mulcher and it was extremely loud...which is why Zach is covering his ears.

Despite feeling stinky this morning, I drug the boys out to the fabric store (and my box of tissues) to find some inspiration for Emily's nursery.

Here's a picture of the fabric I found that I liked:

I know the paisley material on the left doesn't really go with the other 3 but the colors are the same and I just really loved it! I'm going to fit all of them in somehow! I'm still trying to decide exactly how I want to use them all...both of the ones on the far sides are fleece so they'd make a snuggly warm blanket if nothing else!! I'm so excited to get started making stuff for her nursery! Of course, the nursery doesn't exist yet and requires some construction on our part.... we're 5 1/2 months along in the pregnancy so I'd say we better get started!! (and by we, I mean Daniel of course!)

I had bought this rocketship cardboard playhouse thing for the boys before Christmas and had put it in the garage where they wouldn't really see it and figured we'd pull it out on a rainy day to play with in the house (i know, that was a killer run on sentence). Daniel moved stuff around to work on the iron railing he's been working on and it of course ended up in plain view and the boys saw it earlier in the week. He apparently can't tell them no and ended up bringing it in the house where I got to burst their bubbles and tell them we weren't doing it right then. Mean mommy, I know. As luck would have it, we had a rainy day and they bugged me enough so we got it out. If it doesn't get destroyed first it might end up colored nicely but for now, they were simply happy to have it put together!!

Before our cold, rainy days, we had a couple really nice days! The boys enjoyed eating lunch outside and running around. We cleaned up the backyard a little (it was gross..we have dogs) and the boys played on their swingset....they even got out a couple of our water guns! They were searching for their battery powered ones but I do have a few brain cells left and actually hid them!

Daniel thinks it's great to give both kids a piggy back ride at the same time...

And my sweet Jacob.. I'm not sure how but somehow probably a month ago we got on the topic of one of our cats that we used to have.. Peanut. Peanut was such a sweet and lovable cat and really seemed to adore Jacob. I know that sounds goofy but the cat just loved him and was constantly by him. We used to joke around saying it was Jacob's cat but compared to our other 2 (Popcorn and Jelly Bean) he was so friendly -- especially considering Jacob was a baby/toddler when we had Peanut. Peanut moved from VA to CT with us when we were pregnant with Jacob and less than a month before we moved from CT to MD, disappeared. We had some woods behind our house and it was fairly common for him to venture off and sometimes be gone for a day..but not any longer. I asked our neighbors and no one had seen him for a few days (and he was always over at our sweet neighbor, Pat's house sitting at her sliding door taunting her little dog.  I called animal control to see if he had been picked up as a stray since he didn't have a collar on and they told me they didn't have any cats there. I ended up taking a picture of him down there and the officer on duty said he appeared to match the description she had received from a police officer that had taken him to the local vets office after being hit by a car. I did call the vet's office but wasn't given much information other than if it was the cat that the officer had brought in that his injuries were too severe and had to be put down. My heart sank. I remember praying that it was a different cat and that Peanut would come home but it didn't happen. I made sure my neighbor had our cell numbers just in case he showed up after we had moved. Nope. He was definitely in kitty cat heaven. Now, imagine this cat coming up in our conversation one day and Jacob asking me what happened to his cat, Peanut. At first I didn't really know what to say. He knows that pets die and go to heaven but I knew his next question would be how did he die. We had been talking about what caused Aunt Julie to pass away fairly recently so he asked me if Peanut had cancer. I could've told him yes and left it at that but for some reason I felt that I needed to be honest with him and I told him that Peanut had gone out into the road one day and a car had hit him. Then he asked me if I got to see him, which I told him no. Then, in true 5 year old boy fashion, he said "I bet there was blood oozing everywhere." While wanting to puke after hearing him say that I told him that was not very nice and that we don't like to talk about things that are in pain or dying that way. He very quickly said "I miss my cat, Peanut. I really miss him." Ever since this conversation, every single day, he tells me how much he misses Peanut. Now we've expanded to our other cats that we've had that have passed away. He misses the cats he never even met! He does get to remind me that Great Aunt Julie and Great Grandpa Gibson are giving them lots of love everyday though. Of course, we were on the letter P week at school. Jacob told me he wanted to take a picture of Popcorn the cat in so while I was searching the computer for pictures of the cats and coming up empty handed, Daniel reminded me of some printouts we had. Of course, there were pictures of Peanut too. I'm sure his teachers were just thrilled when he shared his picture of Peanut with the class during show and tell...and you can bet he told everyone "This is my cat Peanut. He was my cat and the best cat ever and he just loved me soooo much. He got hit by a car and is in kitty heaven now." I know he said it...because he told me so. I actually think he rehearsed what he was going to tell his friends. I'll have to scan in the picture he took in of Peanut. However, he insisted I take his picture with Jelly Bean because Jelly Bean has taken over Peanut's role as the "kids' cat." It doesn't seem to matter what the boys do to him..he keeps coming back for more!

(I'm pretty sure Jelly Bean figures any attention is good attention!)