It's Potter Time!

This Saturday, I will finally be able to view the long awaited and highly anticipated Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Woo-hoo! Not only will I be enjoying the wonderfulness that is Harry Potter, but I will be getting my daily recommended dose of Mama-me-time. Ahhh...getting out of the house is so wonderful. But now that I have come to enjoy my out-of-the-house-away-from-the-kids-time, I think that I would not appreciate it as much if I were to do this too often. Nevertheless, it is fun to get out and spend some quality time with the hubby. I think it will be healthier for us in the end.

So Harry Potter time has come (finally...sheesh). The money-hungry movie studios decided to push the movie back so that they could enjoy the monetary benefits of a summer blockbuster. Annoying...yes. I mean, come on! The movie has been done since last year! Oh well...it'll be fun to watch even if it is almost a year later than anticipated. I'll be sure to let you all know how wonderful the movie is come Saturday. The next movie I am wanting to head to the theater to watch won't be coming until November. (see Mama Monkey's Movie Countdown on the sidebar
---->) But to fill the long time between this weekend and that faraway date, I will be going to see Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen once more. If truth be told, I'm actually more excited to see that a second time than I am to see Harry Potter. Why? I don't know. Cuz I'm a total geek, I guess. Unfortunately, Josh will be dragged with me. He isn't thrilled, but he'll deal. :-) Anyhoodle...In case I don't blog before Saturday, I hope everyone has a magical weekend. I know I will!

Weekly Winners

Okay...So I'm a bit late on the weekly winners this week, but I don't have a mass load of time to blog today seeing as how Abby took an early nap, sooo....here ya'll go!

Penny...our one-eyed kitty.

Isn't my corn huge!? It's like 8 feet tall now...amazing.

You just wonder what he is thinking, don't you?

Wild Wild West birthday party at Wesley's house.

Alex in the garden...a popular hangout in the backyard.

Diaper boxes: Better than real toys any day of the week.

Birthday cake...mmmm...Abby's favorite.

Happy Birthday Blog

This weekend comes with multiple birthdays so I shall send a big Happy Birthday shout out to all those who are celebrating the day of their birth. I hope you all have wonderful birthdays. First up,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT RITA!!

Today is my Aunt Rita's birthday. Thanks to facebook, I actually get to keep better track of birthdays then I used to. It's kind of nice. So Happy Birthday Aunt Rita! I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful aunt in my life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMIE & LINDA!!

Next up, tomorrow are my twin niece and nephew's birthday. Eight year's old! Wow...how time flies. Happy birthday to you two! We hope it's an awesome birthday for you and that you have a super-duper blast doing whatever you are doing to celebrate the big day! Alex say's Happy Birthday too!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WESLEY!!

And on Sunday, my friends little boy, Wesley, is turning two! Holy cow! Two years went too fast. It just makes me think that it means I only have three months until Alex is three. We are so excited to go to the big Wild Wild West birthday party tomorrow. Alex is pumped to wear his cowboy boots. We hope you have an awesome Wild Wild West birthday Wesley!

Josh is going to get home from another week of working out of town so I'm sure blogging won't be happening this weekend. So happy birthday to all and I hope you all have a really great weekend.

It's Always Better on a Beater

You remember being a kid, right? Mom is in the kitchen whipping up something tasty with her trusty old mixer. The sound of the beaters draw you into the kitchen. Perhaps you stand by the counter, eagerly awaiting the taste of cake batter. Suddenly Mom hands you the sticky, dripping beater to lick clean. Yes...I believe we all have those memories. I think it might be engraved in a child's brain that if it is on a beater, then it will inevitably taste better. Actually, you can come very close to comparing it to Pavlov's Dog theory. I can actually spot the drool escaping their mouths when I fire up the ol' mixer. Mashed potatoes were a winner for the longest time with Alex and Abby, but in the last few months, it's all I can do to get them to even look at the plate without turning their noses up in disgust. I make some dang good potatoes, too! So bring on the picky eaters! I decided to give them the beaters and they gobble up the potatoes like it's some special treat concocted specially for them. I thought Abby might not be interested in the joy-joy goodness of beaters, but I was mistaken. She was just as happy to nom-nom-nom the beater clean. They even ask for more and I just dip the beaters back into the bowl until they have had their fill. In fact, they enjoy eating from them so much, that I might just try whipping up a few other side dishes. What do you think about whipped green beans and broccoli? Too much? Ah well...at least I can gaurantee they'll eat potatoes.

Fourth of July

Last week, we had the pleasure of visiting Josh's family in Oklahoma. We had fun spending some quality time with them. Josh got to hang out with his brother for the weekend and he had a great time. It's nice for them to get to see each other because they are so close. Honestly, I think they miss each other more than they let on. We used to live about five minutes from each other about 3 years ago. Now there is a whopping four hour gap between our happy little families and the boys barely get to see each other. It can be a hard thing for us to take Alex just about anywhere these days. He seems to have some kind of breathing issue whenever we travel due to allergies and asthma. I hope that the mountain of medication he is on will change that over time. We shall see.

So on to the week of the Fourth of July. Early in the week, we went to our local firework tent and bought some snappers. You know the things...you toss them on the ground and get a nice little *pop!* They are perfect for kids because they pose very little threat to them. No burnt finger or loss of eyebrow risk involved. Alex loves them. He enjoys throwing them and stomping on them.
Naturally, Abby didn't want to be left out of the festivities. She was just as keen on throwing them as her big brother was. Of course, they rarely had enough oomph behind them to explode, but she ran over to them and tried to stomp on them too. She laughed every time one would snap. It was adorable.

That brings us to the weekend. We set off for Oklahoma. Alex was beyond thrilled to see his cousins, Lauren, Linsey, and Kate. Lauren is the oldest. As most parents will tell you, there is something engraved in every young child that makes them gravitate to the oldest children in the room. Something about them is awe inspiring. Alex and Lauren became quite good little buddies during the weekend. They played together constantly and were always holding hands. Alex is still talking about her today. Lauren was just wonderful with him too. She got him to play 'grocery store' and 'house' and all sorts of little imaginary games. I think Alex will miss her dearly now. He talks about her as much as he talks about his other cousins, Jamie and Linda, who are also quite a bit older than him.

My father-in-law smoked a mass load of meat over the weekend. That's great for the adults, but to kids, there is nothing more evil than random chunks of meat. So they ended up dining on ever-faithful cereal most of the time. Cereal is the food that most parents can gaurantee their child will eat at least once a day if given the opportunity.


All the kids ended up enjoying each others company. There were the off moments when two of them would become temporary mortal enemies, but after five minutes of cool-down time, they would become bosom buddies once again. Alex even got to go with Lauren and Linsey to watch Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs in the theater. Josh and Ben took them. He had a lot of fun for his first movie on the big screen. I'm glad that he got to enjoy that experience. It gives me hope for future movie outings.


Abby wasn't smitten with anyone in particular (except Mommy of course), but she did enjoy tagging along whenever she could. She tried her best to keep up and got a kick out watching them play.

So other than the weather, the weekend was great. It decided to rain for a good chunk of the time we were there. The kids all passed out early on the Fourth and it left us with no other option but to miss the local firework display. I will say that I missed that. Maybe it makes me a big redneck, but I love a good fireworks display. We always had fireworks to shoot off when I was a kid. Nothin' better than spending your hard earned money on a bunch of cheap fireworks and then blowing it all up. It is a bit like flushing your money down the toilet, but hey...that's how I grew up. We always had fun though. I think Alex would have loved watching them this year. There's always next year though. I hope you all had a great Fourth of July too!

Weekly Winners

Okay, so my friend Mandy does something now called Weekly Winners. She said I should try to do this and I agree. It's a good way to put pictures up of the week. You basically put up your best pictures of the week every Sunday. I'm not always that great about posting updated pictures so I'll do my best to do this every Sunday. Hope you all enjoy!

Logan gettin' up close and personal.

Bonding time with Logan.

Abby enjoying her outdoor time.

Alex pickin' our first edible strawberry that the birds didn't get.

Firework snappers! Alex was jumping on them.

Alex checking out a monarch butterfly we found freshly hatched.

Alex and new buddy, cousin Lauren.

It's Video Time!

It's been awhile since I posted a video on here. I know that there are certain people in the family that do so enjoy a good video of my little monkeys. So here is a good one that demonstrates Abby's abilities thus far. (physical abilities anyhow) She truly is taking after Alex in so many ways. It's amazing to see. She is even adding new words to her repertoire almost daily just by listening to Alex. Alex will ask her to say something and she gladly does her best to repeat it. Then they both enjoy a nice round of self-congratulatory applause and giggle about it. It's pretty darn cute, to say the least.



On another note, we will be heading out of to see Josh's family for the Fourth of July weekend. Josh is super excited to spend some time with his brother and Alex is pretty excited to see Uncle Ben too. He's begun doing the "Uncle-Ben Dance" again to prepare for seeing him. So have a great weekend all! God Bless America!