blah..blah...boring!

So I'm going to be super boring tonight! The boys and I had a GREAT day! We went to the big park near us and played for a while and then had a picnic lunch. They loved it. I did take a few pictures but haven't taken them off the camera yet. . .

Speaking of pictures, that's why I'm super boring. I just realized that summer is almost over and my ONE GOAL for summer was to get pictures printed to fill up my empty frames (and to update some other pictures) as well as print some for my mom and Daniel's mom. I have 2 big collage type frames hanging on my walls with stock pictures in them. Though the families in the pictures look very happy, they're not us! So, tonight I'm hoping to go through some of them at least and pick out some really good ones. I have SOOOO many pictures that it's going to be hard to choose my favorites! Who knows, maybe I'll even delete the awful ones! (yeah, right!!)

the "Breakfast with Poppie" club!

Thursdays are "Breakfast with Poppie" days. Jacob and Zach think that Poppie (or Papa Joe as we sometimes call him) is super fun. I always make sure they have something semi-healthy in their tummies before this event because I'm not sure they eat anything more than donuts! I know Poppie always brings fruit but they really look forward to the donuts. Papa Joe called Zach a "donutitarian" this morning. In case you have no clue who Poppie is, Poppie is one of Connor and Abby's grandpas. We're so happy they've included us in their extended family!

mmmmmmmm! Breakfast!

They always play after they eat too. 

Who doesn't like bubbles!

After a fun morning of playing, the boys got to have ice cream with Daniel (and me) after lunch. Zach is of course a pokey eater and we could've sat at Dairy Queen for an hour waiting for him to finish. So, for some absolutely insane reason I said "He doesn't have much left, he can finish it in the car." BIG mistake!

The carseat cover and belts are now in the washing machine.

You can bet I won't make that mistake again.

Is your garage as cool as ours?

This was supposed to post last night but uploading a video takes more time than I had...so I went to bed.

Our garage is magic...

The kids hit the door with a stick to open it and then clap their hands to close it. (and yes, you guessed it. . . Daniel taught them that) (and the obnoxious background noise is my neighbor's leaf blower)

I told the boys if they ate all of their dinner we'd take a walk afterwards (well, they'd ride their bikes and I'd walk). They didn't eat all of their dinner but they ate enough (even if it took about an hour to eat what they ate!) so away we went!

They love walking by this old train station near our house (its not open anymore but the trains still go by and thats what they like). Next to the train station is a field with bleachers.

Most people sit on bleachers but not my kids...they jump. And yes, they're wearing their bike helmets while playing on the bleachers. As Zach always tells me, Safety First!

 1...2...3...JUMP!

 THUMP!

 He looks graceful...

 I'm pretty sure he yelled "yabba dabba doooooo" as he jumped.

"I'm good, mom!"

Daniel was in CT for the day so I decided I'd make something yummy for dessert. He got home right before it was done (at like 9pm). It's a peach & berry crumble. Yum!

Even better with vanilla frozen yogurt on top!

since it's fruit and yogurt...it's healthy, right?!?

he did WHAT?

My plan today was to work on mudding the living room during naptime as well as making beef stroganoff. Neither happened. I remembered my HUGE bowl of tomatoes sitting on my patio table and figured I should do something with them. Originally I thought I would just peel them and can them and then I decided while I was at it I may as well just make some spaghetti sauce. While chopping and pureeing the tomatoes I decided it would make a ton of spaghetti sauce so why not make chili too. Then, to add to my adventure I thought "wouldn't it be neat if I took pictures as I'm doing it like those really nice recipe blogs???" All I can do is laugh at myself now. I did it all....and we ordered pizza for dinner...and my living room is the same as it was this morning.

Anyways, since I took the pictures I may as well post a few!!
My tomatoes.....

and lucky me, when Daniel got home from work he went out to our garden and brought me some more.

In the boiling water to loosen the peel.

Cooling off so I can peel them without burning my hands.

Not really sure why I thought you needed to see a picture of the tomatoes with the peels slightly burst but I did!

In my super fantastic food processor! In hindsight, I wish I would've' used my blender; it seems to make things smoother.

Finished products!

spaghetti sauce

 chili

Now they're all cooling off in cute little containers in my freezer waiting for their turn at dinner.

We had another soccer game tonight too.

He kicked the ball!

Celebrating because he scored a freakin' goal!!!!!

(nevermind the fact that he scored it in the other team's goal!)

He's headed in the right direction..

He actually kicked it twice in a row!

I'm proud of my big boy!

This is how Zach enjoyed the game.....2 mini tootsie pops at the same time.

yum. 

I sort of think Zach was trying to get Jacob back for making him sit through two nights in a row of soccer...I was washing dishes in the kitchen while I hear Daniel say loudly "no sir! You are going to time out for that." Jacob was the last one I heard yelling before that so I assumed it was Jacob going to time out. . . about 4 seconds later I see Daniel hauling Zach out of the bathroom in his towel right to the time out chair. What do I hear him say? "Zach, you're in time out for 3 minutes for peeing on your brother."

yep, never a dull moment.

Funday Monday! (I know it's Tuesday but it's yesterday's post!)

It was so stinkin' hot outside that I just wanted us to sit in the house and watch cartoons all day yesterday. We didn't though. The boys were supposed to have an "All About Sports" class yesterday thats done through our town's parks and recreation department but I decided not to take them. It's a 4 week program that meets for 45 minutes once a week. We missed the first 2 classes and when we went to the 3rd I was disappointed in how it went (we've done A LOT of classes through parks and rec with a certain instructor and this class had a different person that was really pretty awful and didn't have a clue!). So instead of going to sports class we went to the grocery store and the boys each got a donut! I did get out a fun sprinkler when we got home so the boys could run around and be silly while staying sort of cool (and getting fresh air).

 Jacob didn't want to put his swimming shorts on.

 Zach loved running through it.

 serious fun.

 Jacob finally agreed to put on his swimming shorts...and yes, there are bowls collecting sprinkler water. I have no clue why. The boys asked for bowls for the water so I gave them some.

 Jakey liked bouncing his foot on the side and making the water go up and down. He sort of looked like he was doing the chicken dance.

While we were out playing the boys discovered what Jakey called "a big giant rat." It was actually a mole that the cats must've caught overnight. I used the pooper scooper to toss it over the fence.

I wandered over to our garden while the boys were in the sprinkler...there was oodles of tomatoes.

I think I'll be making some tomato sauce today.

 

Of course, we had soccer again last night too. Luckily, their coach was back so I got to sit on the sidelines (camera in hand) and yell "Jacob!! Pay attention! Get the ball!!!" We finally played a team that was about the same skill level as us (dare I say we were a little bit better?!?!?!) and the kids all seemed to have a really good time.

 He looks into it...

 did you know pirates like soccer?

 running after the ball (well...the ball was probably already down the field)

 He finally got the ball!

 He kicked it down the field!

And apparently one kick is all it takes. I guess we need to work on kicking it down the field. He kicks it one time and then must figure someone else will take over!

Zach and Abby stayed busy playing angry birds while the big boys played soccer...

Aren't they cute?

My sweaty, soccer boy...with oreos on his face and in his teeth.

I guess I'm officially a "soccer mom."

how we ended our day...

 yum.

a day of tears and joy.

This was how the boys started their day:

They used to fight over Daniel's iPhone..then he got me an iPod for my birthday. I secretly think he got me the iPod so they'd each have something to play on. There are more kid's games on my iPod than there are ones for me.

Today was the funeral for my Aunt Julie. The service was beautiful and it was really nice to see everyone. We had family and friends join us to celebrate Julie's life from Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and all over the state of Virginia. She had such an impact on everyone and it was a blessing to hear so many kind words. My mom put together this photo collage of Julie:

The bottom right picture was taken when Julie was declared cancer free in 2008.

Since the boys, Daniel, and I were all dressed up I really wanted a family picture of us taken. It's really asking too much for all of us to be looking at the camera at the same time AND smiling.

I like it. :-)

We had to take a picture of mom, Celia, and I also. It turned out really nice.

Thanks to everyone for all of your kind thoughts and prayers for our family right now.

Julie's smiling at us from heaven now.