a little sunday fun

today we took the oldest two boys out for a little fun.

we started the afternoon off with a twins game
and what a good game we chose!



**as you can see i think ben is modeling a little of each thing we ate on his shirt **

after the game we decided to hang out downtown for a bit and ended up at gameworks.

we drove the indy cars ...

and although ben met the height requirement ... he seemed to have a little trouble reaching the pedal ...

HOWEVER ... he made it work.

click to enlarge the picture ...

and see if you can find ben :)

he's the one in the red car ... and if he sat up he looked normal - but then he couldn't reach the pedal the way that he wanted. so he spent the entire time basically laying down :)

note to self ...

... when playing with water just isn't cutting it anymore ...



... but you need the kids kept busy ...

... just add dishsoap :)

you'll never believe it!

we were out for a walk with ben's friend, garrett.
we were enjoying the beautiful weather when out of nowhere we were surrounded by 10 ninjas!
these were not your ordinary ninjas --
they were 10 VERY LARGE and VERY STRONG ninjas!
they formed a tight circle around us!
they were chanting something and waving their arms at us as if to signal they were ready for a fight.
we had no idea what to do!
i looked at ben.
ben looked at garrett.
they smiled -
and what the 2 of them did next shocked me...
together they took out each ninja one by one.
they were SO brave!
and can you believe that they each walked away with ONLY a black eye?!


ok ... ok ... not really ...
but if i told you that ben got hit with a baseball
and garrett just got a nasty infection ...
at the exact same time ...

that would have been quite boring.

ben all wet

i've mentioned many times how impulsive ben is.

today i thought i'd show one of the advantages to this -

all i said was "hey ben ... dump this bucket of water over your head"

and he did.

the info

ok ... i'm glad that you all caught on to alex's exciting news ;)

i figure i'll cover the "info" here for you and if i forget anything ... feel free to ask.

yes. i am serious. ha ha.

no. we were not really trying.
BUT ... we hadn't ruled it out.

my due date is valentines day.

i'm 6 weeks along. NOW ... i realize that a lot of people wait to tell until they are at least 12 weeks. BUT ... in our case ... we have always had healthy babies up until 12 weeks. it was at weeks 13 and 16 that we miscarried before alex. AND ... with how sick i get ... there's no hiding it :) SO ... why not spill the beans now :) PLUS ... once the boys knew ... we knew it wouldn't be long before the rest of the world heard.
more than once we've already heard drew saying "HEY ... should we tell her our secret?!"

so ... do i hope it's a girl? no. not really :) ha ha. truthfully, i really am fine with either a boy or a girl. but no we weren't trying for a girl. and if i got to choose - i'd say boy.

how am i feeling? i've pretty much already answered that. but ... we'll just say not so hot :)

am i still planning on running the 1/2 marathon in september? yes.

are the boys excited? ARE YOU KIDDING?! if it were up to them we'd have at least 12 kids. thankfully it is not and after this we are FOR SURE done!

are we crazy? well ... did you see the blog title?

february 2009

i spy ...

can you spy the troublemaker in this picture?

(click on it if you need a closer view)

social networking for 7 yr olds

a while ago i read about the disney site club penguin.
basically it's a site where your child creates a penguin - then walks around playing games, talking to other penguins, and spending their winnings.
it's a well moderated - easy to figure out website.
naturally, i knew this was right up drew's alley - so i got him set up with his very own "penguin" immediately.
he loved it.

so fast forward to a week ago.
we went over to our friend's house and drew discovered that his friend jordan was on club penguin -
but HE HAD A MEMBERSHIP***!
this created the NEED for drew to have a membership as well.

***when you're a member ...
you get to dress your penguin.
buy cool things for your penguin.
and
decorate and UPGRADE your igloo!
who wouldn't want that?!

being the fun mom and dad that we are (ha!) we decided we would let him try it out for a month and see how he did.

he has had SO much fun with it!
he comes up with some of the craziest outfits ...
he walks around trying to get girl penguins to fall in love with him ... (ha!)
and he redecorates his igloo at least once each day.

it has been fun for him (but even more fun for us to watch!)

it is the PERFECT summer vacation distraction :)
*******************
AND NOW ...
because i know you are curious ...
i took some screenshots so you could see some of his creations

i give you .... penguino319

this was earlier today


i just logged on and this is how he is dressed now (ha ha!)

AND ... because i know you are wondering ...
here is his igloo
now .. if you were REALLY to visit his igloo you would hear some nice background music
you would see the hockey game actually playing on his LCD
and you would see the little pink and black fur balls that he calls his pets hopping around :)



if only fun stuff like this existed when i was 7!!
i don't even think pong was around until i was like 10 :)

bored with baseball

when you're only 2 ...

and you have been to a baseball game at least 2 times a week for the past 2 months ...

baseball starts to get old.



so tonight's entertainment/distraction was the dirt :)

extra dirty - but SUPER fun!


alex and ella ... you 2 are just 2 cute!

all i want for christmas ...

last night drew FINALLY lost his front tooth!

this makes him completely toothless across the front and he's LOVIN it!
he has been showing off his new smile all day!

on a side note ...

the extra fun part about him losing this tooth is that it means his new front teeth are getting ready to grow in!
AND ... the last time he had 2 front teeth was when he was 18 months old! ***

crazy!

***he fell on a sidewalk while we were in boston, hit his mouth, cracked his tooth, and they had to surgically remove it :(

happy fathers day!

happy fathers day, stacey!!

we hope you had a great day today!

but we hope that you know EVERY DAY how much we love you and appreciate EVERYTHING you do for us!

WE LOVE YOU!

oh ... these are the people in my neighborhood ...

katherine, brett, drew, cade, alex, gordy, and ben

(FYI ...there are 4 more kids missing from the picture that are usually part of this crew)

if you ever happen to be looking for one of these crazies .... chances are ... they're in my backyard :)

it's official

after 3 days on the market we got an offer.

we officially accepted today!!

along with that comes SO many feelings.

relief. excitement. sadness. happiness. wonder.

we've even gone so far as to say to ourselves ... are we sure we want to be doing this?!

but ... we do.

in the mean time ... i am going to enjoy this beautifully staged home and see if we can break a lifetime record for the number of days in a row we've actually made our bed! :)

our future T.P.'er

the past few days have made me think that we've been REALLY busy getting the house ready and ben is lacking a little attention.

i know i have mentioned before that he is SUPER impulsive and that he is VERY much like curious george.
he doesn't necessarily do things to be naughty. but what goes through his mind before he does them that says "WOW that sounds like a great idea!" is beyond me.

let me just run through the last few days ...

this weekend he was with my mom. he dumped her laundry soap, fabric softener and bleach all together into the laundry tub - just to see what would happen.

on monday he peed into the bathroom garbage can - just because he kinda likes to pee in there. (i do have to say - one advantage ... he's a better shot into there than the toilet!)

on tuesday - i took him to drew's baseball practice. during baseball practice i look over and there is ben - running out of the port -a-potty with a big long string of toilet paper. he ran over to the playground and started "decorating".



i have no idea what makes you tick ben.

i have no idea why you do the things you do.

you may drive me crazy ...

but at least you make me laugh
(even if it is when you aren't looking).

my 2nd grader!!!!

today was drew's last day.

so that makes it official - I HAVE A 2ND GRADER!!!!

he had so much fun in first grade. and he learned SO much!

i owe a HUGE part of that to his teacher. she was amazing and we will really miss having her next year.
although we've already said it - thanks mrs. n for all that you do!
have a great summer!!!

as for us ... the "real fun" starts tomorrow.
pray for me. drew just went from 26 people to listen to his stories to 3 :)

ATTENTION!

dear june bugs,

i love june. but every year you decide to show up with it. i hate that.
please go away.

a REAL man

last night while we were driving the boys to WI, drew told us "i am going to keep my DS for a really long time. AND ... when i have a family we are going to take lots of vacations! AND ... my wife is always going to drive because then i can play it."

HA HA!

don't get any ideas, stacey!!

the difference a day can make

today our entire house got staged to sell!
we had taken about 3/4 of our stuff out and new furniture and accessories were all brought in!
it looks FABULOUS!
they put in SO much work today - and we love everything they did!

HOWEVER ... do we love it enough to stay?

nope. not quite :)

freckle remover

i walked into the bathroom today to see ben looking in the mirror with soap all over his face.

i asked him what he was doing.

his response ??

"nothin much. just trying to wash some freckles off."

ha ha :) sorry buddy ... i hate to break it to you ... but i have a feeling those freckles are there to stay.

life is precious

so ... we learned today that both of the victims from the tornado a week ago were from our church. the first being the little 2 year old boy. the second being a mother/wife who died on thursday while cleaning up what was left of her family's life.

because of this ... and because our church has so many attenders that live in the area ... the series we were on was paused and our senior pastor did a special sermon today.

he started out his sermon by describing where he was a week ago - it was a normal sunday afternoon & he was sitting & watching golf. at one point he got totally annoyed that such a good tournament would be interrupted by what was probably another false alarm tornado warning. when he got the call minutes later that hugo had been hit so hard - and that a family had lost their baby boy - life was instantly put in perspective.

after a very emotional sermon ...one where i fought back tears THE ENTIRE TIME ... i've been challenged to remember what REALLY matters! to keep my focus where it should be. that could have been us. have i prepared myself for that? do i live my life knowing that every single second is numbered?! knowing that i have done everything possible to show my kids and stacey how much i absolutely adore them and can't imagine my life without them?! AND ... if every single thing that we had was pulled from us and we were left with nothing - would we be content because we know what's important?! i sure hope so!

every time i think of this family that lost their son, it makes me cry. PLUS ... their little girl is still in the hospital and it's not looking as promising for her as they once thought. this family has truly been stripped of everything! i can't even begin to imagine what that is like. our pastor told us this story today - he was talking to the dad about all that had happened and all that their family had lost ... and the dad's one wish was that they could find nate's teddy bear. (ok ... can i just tell you that is the point where i TOTALLY lost it!)

we put so much time into building "the perfect life". (or finding the perfect floor plan ... or the perfect school set up :) ha ha!! ) but it doesn't matter!!! all it takes is 30 seconds and it could be gone.

of course i still need to live life ... mine may not end tomorrow ... or the next day.
unfortunately i still have to make decisions.
but today just reminded me that in the grand scheme of things ... they don't really matter.
we're going to love our house regardless of what it looks like ...
ben is going to be fine no matter where he goes to kindergarten ...
and ... i WILL make it through this week of getting the house ready without going TOO crazy:)

life goes on ... we're in it together ... with God at the wheel ... and THAT is what matters!