A Welcome Return

Play dates are back! Woo-hoo! My days just got a little bit easier. I don't think I can stress the sheer joy I feel for being able to give the kids another thing to do. And might I add that Alex and Abby are incredibly excited as well? I haven't seen them so happy as they were after our outing yesterday. We decided to go to a school playground and play. Alex and his buddy Wesley chased each other around and played for over an hour. Wesley and Greta have had a cold recently and we were hesitant to go over in fear of the spread of germs. But it's been well over a week and I finally threw my hands up in the air and said, "I don't care. I'm done with the over-protection gig." I figure that if Alex was in school, he would have been exposed to Wesley much sooner than yesterday. So seeing as how Mandy's kiddos seemed well and Alex was devastated at the idea of not continuing his play-date with Wesley, we headed over to Mandy's house for the remainder of the time. So what has kept me in the 'protective' state as far as sickness goes? Oh, that's easy. Alex's doctor. He told me that I need to keep him as well as I can by even keeping him out of school for an extra year until his lungs had time to heal. Well, it's been a year since his last asthma flare and he's doing great. So I'm hopeful that his lungs have healed enough that a little cold now and then won't be so devastating. I hope I'm not wrong about this because I sure don't want to land him in the hospital due to my 'under-protection.' For now, I'm just thrilled to have some normalcy back for awhile. Next week we're even going to go to visit my brother and sister-in law for a few days for some fun for the kids. Wish me luck though, because I'm making the trip alone and I am not good at driving in the city. That...and I have no idea how to get there by myself. Thank goodness I have a friend who's willing to loan me her GPS for the week. Otherwise, our long-distance play-date would land me somewhere half-way across the country. I'd probably hit the Atlantic Ocean and wonder where I made the wrong turn.

My New Porch

If within two hours of waking up on a weekend I'm saying, "I'm bored...hmm...", then I'm more than likely going to find something productive to do with my time. If Josh is home, then I pass the kids off to him and try to find something to do around the house. The theory is that one day (in the not so near future) we hope to move from this house. Since moving in, I've done quite a bit to spruce up the joint. One of the things on my never ending to-do list is to make it so my kids can go out in the backyard and play without me worrying about them running into the street. The only two working exits make it so that they must walk through a gate into the yard. My goal is to have a door that leads into the locked backyard. I just so happen to have one of these doors in my house. Up until now, it's been permanently locked due to its crappy nature. Bad door, bad screen door, bad steps. No aspect of this door screams 'safe for kids!' The pathetic excuse for steps from this door are roughly sculpted from leftover concrete with jagged edges and the first step is a one foot drop. Yeah. Scary. The first step in my project was to make a safe step that wouldn't potentially land them in the emergency room. Today was the day for that. Thanks to my awesome friends Mandy and Sean, I got free wood to build my 'step'. They disassembled their in-ground pool and the deck that went around it leaving them with massive amounts of nice wood. They were wonderful enough to give me 18 2x6's and it was ample amount to make my new 'step'. It's really a mini-porch. My awesome parents loaned their power tools (One day I hope to have my own saw and drill.) and their manual labor to help get it thrown together. It turned out great and the kids love it. Alex and Abby even helped me with the hammering. Alex actually got quite good at it. He must get his accuracy from me. :-) I used nails instead of screws and boy howdy! My arms are hurtin' tonight! My mom also got some free planters from her job and now I have some nifty plants to spruce up my new porch. I was excited to get this done and the best part was that it didn't cost me a penny. What a blessing! Next step...new doors.

In a nutshell

Just a couple of pictures of my kids that pretty much defines them...in a nutshell.

Alex is pretending to drive his 'Cat Machine loader' and this was his safety gear. The kid's got a wild imagination.

Abby smiling for the camera...just so she could the picture of herself...on the camera. Nice smile, huh?

Sometimes You Just Gotta Laugh

Even though you witness something that causes someone (including children) pain, sometimes...well...you just gotta laugh. Today's 'Gotta Laugh' moment has been brought to you by Alex.

We were sitting outside enjoying the evening weather tonight. I just happen to live smack dab in the middle of the mosquito headquarters. Despite my 8th coat of deet-rich bug spray, sometimes one or two of those varmints will still find that one centimeter of unsprayed skin on one of the kids. So I was relaxing on the bench while Alex and Abby were sitting in their cozy coupe toy and talking to me. This is when I noticed a mosquito on Abby's eye. I said, "Abby, you got a mosquito on your eye, sweetie. Smack it!" Before she has a chance to take a swat at it, Alex promptly turns to her, says, "I got it!" and then slaps her, full force, on the eye. Abby, just being whacked unexpectedly in the head by her brother (and for all she knew, for no good reason), stares back at me dumbfounded then proceeds to cry. As I held her and comforted her in her time of pain, I couldn't stop laughing. All I could get out between my giggles was, "Sorry, Abby. My bad!" I couldn't exactly punish Alex for killing the bug. He saved her hours of endless eyebrow itching. After all, he really was just trying to lend a helping hand.

Yee-haw, baby!

Apparently if you have kids, with summer can also come boredom. Who knew? The last few weeks we've been on a play-date grounding. The first week, Alex and Abby got a stomach bug. The second week was my turn for the bug. And this week, our play-date buddies, Wesley and Greta, are sick with a cold. So three weeks of just me and the kiddos (no Josh due to being out of town for work), I've had to get creative with things to keep busy. I was scraping the bottom of the barrel when I had an epiphany. Fishing! Heck, I went fishing a lot when I was a kid so why not give it a go with my wee ones? Luckily, my mom and dad live a stone's throw away from a nicely stocked pond and they are friends with the owner. So after doing everything possible all day with the kids, I packed up their new fishing poles and went on over for some good ol' fishin' fun. Now, when I pulled into their driveway, I started giggling. Why, you ask? Because my mom, true to country (hick, perhaps) fashion, she had the little trailer hooked up to her riding lawn mower. It was packed with all the fishing gear and ready for a ride down the dirt road to the pond. Have I mentioned how much I miss the country life? Well, I do. A lot. Yee-haw!

My dad was already on his way down there, my mom drove the tractor and the kids rode merrily in the trailer. What about me? Yeah...I hicked it up and rode with the kids. And might I add, we were all helmet-less. I figure that all I needed was my farmer's tan. Oh wait...got that too! It was a blast and the kids were super excited for a change of pace. This pond is a thriving ecosystem. We caught a fish after the first cast. The perch here were huge, but I was so busy helping the kids that I missed taking pictures of them all. Alex was a little pro. He was reeling them in with the best of them and had a blast all the while

Abby practiced a lot (hook free...thank goodness).

And then towards the end, Alex got to reel in this bad boy.


With a little help, he got to catch his first bass. *sniff* I'm so proud. (And jealous...all I caught was perch.) Though I have had the joy of catching a much bigger fish before. I used to do a lot of awesome fishing in my old college town. Abby was absolutely fearless with the fish. She jumped on the chance of holding them and throwing them back. But the most entertaining was that she stuck her arm down the throat of the bass. She asked me to take her picture while doing it, but all I caught was her hand in it's mouth.

All in all, it was a winning experience. I can't wait to go again. I miss fishing and I'm glad to know that my kids are finally at the point where I can take them with me. I will leave you with a little video of catching the bass. This one's for my brother-in-law, Ben, who probably wishes he could fish a little more than he does. Enjoy!

Happy Father's Day!

It's been so long since I blogged that I almost didn't remember how to do it! Okay. So not really. But I wanted to say Happy Father's Day to the dad's in my life. I'd list them, but there's far too many for that. From my own flesh and blood dad and my father-in-law all the way to my brothers and my hubby...I hope that your special day was one to remember. I know that I appreciate each of you in different ways and love you all. We are all blessed and thankful that you are in our lives. So Happy Father's Day! Here's a coupon for you. Just print it off and give it to your wife. After she's done laughing hysterically at the audacity of attempting to cash in said coupon, then you can shrug your shoulders and tell her you're cashing it in anyways. :-)

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FREE DAD'S GAME NIGHT

Print this page for one free night of kid-free video gaming.

This coupon is only valid upon the authority of the wife of the household. Not responsible for repercussions of handing actual coupon to wife. Hurry before offer ends!

Expires: 07/04/2010


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Monster Free for 1338 Days

If you are anything like me, then you are sure to be sharing your bed with a kid at least twice a week. I sure don't think my bed is any more comfortable or interesting than my kids' beds. Actually, our mattress is the exact same mattress as Alex's only two sizes bigger. But for some strange reason, the kids prefer my bed over their own. I believe that they think that our bed is safer in some way. If one of them wakes up scared, all I have to do is let them lie down in our bed and the fears instantly fade away. Why is it that monsters lurk under the beds of children, but mom and dad's bed is monster free? Maybe it's because there is always empty space under their beds. I have so much junk under my bed that a monster couldn't possibly fit under there. (Our house is lacking in storage space.) When one of the kids is sick, it's just a given. I'll be sharing my pillow for the night. Hence, why I get sick when the kids get sick. Power outage - kids in my bed. Bad dream - kids in my bed. When it's storming outside - kids in my bed. Apparently even thunder is less threatening when you're in mom's bed. I believe that Alex's first night of life (1338 days ago...ahh...now you get the title, right?) was spent in bed with me. Granted, it was the hospital bed and the nurses were scorning me for sleeping with a baby on my chest, but still. I used to be extremely annoyed with sharing my bed. Eventually I waved my white flag on the subject. I'm too tired to be annoyed. Besides, once their heads hit my pillow they are out like a light. I just wait until they re-enter dreamland and quietly transfer them back to their own bed. I figure, as most things go, they will grow out of it soon enough. For now, the only problem I can foresee is if we ever decided to have a third kid. Fitting four people in a queen size bed isn't as comfortable as you might think. I can't even imagine five. I think there are nights when Josh would prefer to sleep on the couch so he can stretch his legs. But it hasn't come to that...yet.