My Day

Well my day started with throw up and ended with throw up (so to speak).
No worries, I have no pictures to share with you today.
This morning I could tell that Luke was acting a little funny at breakfast and after talking with him he told me his tummy was hurting. I figured he was just nervous about school today so told him that he would still need to go. Well eventually he did throw up so at that point I had to believe that maybe he really was sick and did need to stay home and so he did. He told me that maybe he had the 2 minute flu so he would be better soon, wouldn't that be nice? I can't believe that he has already missed a day of school and for nothing because he wasn't sick, it was all just nerves, he was feeling fine in no time.

That takes me to this evening. After a dinner of Baked Spaghetti the girls were walking by our house and invited us along on their walk. I told them to go in and ask the boys if they wanted to go. When Ashlynn came out of our house she told me something smelled like throw up in there and Luke replied, "Oh that was just our dinner." Obviously Luke wasn't a fan of it and Abigail told me that it's the worst dinner ever, good thing we didn't have any guests over.

Today was good but tomorrow will be better!

and so it begins...

School year 2010-2011

The boys have been so excited for this day

me, not so much.

I wasn't ready for our summer days to be ending

but

I love that the boys love school, it makes life so much easier.

Last night Luke told us that he was about an inch nervous (holding up his fingers)

for today while Cody said that he was only a half inch nervous.
Even though it wasn't the best night of sleep with everyone waking up once

everyone was all smiles in the morning.

My 1st and 3rd grader

The boys picked out their favorite shirts to wear on the first day,

even though they aren't my favorites

they are so them and match their personalities.

Luke's is an XBOX controller with the words Next Level and

Cody's is a Diary of a Wimpy Kid shirt with the words Indoor Person

Just perfect.

and we're off...

With the new changes we didn't get to meet the teachers until this morning and

had the first hour to spend in their classrooms and help them get everything started.

It was nice that Heath was home so nobody had to go alone to their room

and then we switched so we got to spend time with each of the boys.

Cody was relaxed, saying hi to friends and started right away on his paperwork.

Luke was quiet, a little nervous, but seemed ready just to get his day started.

I can't wait to see what they accomplish this year!

It's going to be good.

Bummer, I just realized I forgot to get a picture of me and the boys!

I can't wait until it's time to pick up the boys,

it's so quiet at the house with just me and Ryan.

Grammy

Yesterday was spent with Grammy

over for a visit before school starts back up

playing with Lego's

a surprise movie-Avatar: The Last Airbender

making dinner-pork chops, rice, corn on the cob (thanks dad)

eating dessert-brownies OR rocky road ice cream in a chocolate dipped cone

Grammy say's why not both?

relaxing in the sun

dog piles on Grammy

riding bikes

hugs and kisses good bye

Brownie stuffed inside the cone with rocky road on top!

Oh yeah!

Delicious!

This tough guy pulled out his own tooth this morning,
he's gonna be looking good for first grade!

Habla usted espanol

translation: Do you speak Spanish?

Well we don't around here.
But thanks to our 8 year old son who can't leave well enough alone
has apparently decided to program our DVD player to play all movies in Spanish.
So until we figure out how to change it back we have to manually
go in and set it to English each time we want to watch a movie.

Between watching movies in other languages and with the subtitles on
this kid needs to get back in school. I can't say that he does this just because
he's bored or because he has nothing to do
because it's not, it's just him
it's how he rolls.

bang bang

When Heath was twelve years old
he got a very special present from Santa,
a .22 rifle.
Fast forward 23 years...
Heath is now taking our boys shooting for the first time with his .22.
My boys, like most boys love guns
they always have and probably always will.
It's something that I don't know a lot about but
want to learn since they will be a part of our lives for a very long time.
We couldn't get out to the dessert fast enough
the boys were so ready to start shooting.
But not before Heath talked to them about the gun and gun safety.
Our future hunters

Loading the gun

Maybe all those war video games are paying off because the boys did so good.

Cody's milk jug shot

Luke concentrated so hard to get the perfect shot

Ryan shot through his bullets in a hurry

you just heard, pow pow pow pow pow and he was done.

Cody's stats 4 out of 5 at 48 feet

Luke's stats 4 out of 5 at 48 feet

Ryan's stats 5 out of 5 at 21 feet with some help from Heath

My stats 7 out of maybe 10 at 40 feet

I thought that was pretty good seeing that this was only the

third time that I have ever shot a gun.

No need in recording Heath's stats since he hit his mark every time.

The boys favorite was when he shot two grasshoppers at close range,

they thought that was pretty awesome!

The boys loved every minute of this and can't wait to go back.

They already have big plans for our pumpkins once Halloween is over.

underwater

1 waterproof disposable camera

+ 5 water loving kids

= some underwater fun.

Amanda and I had the idea but thanks to Jason we got the great pictures,

(taking pictures underwater is a little harder than we realized).

This is something we will be doing again.

Of course the day after we took these pictures,

Ryan started diving underwater all on his own!

Looking at these pictures

will forever remind me

how we spent the summer of 2010
in the sun
at the pool
splashing
playing
diving
jumping
swimming
laughing
with friends.

now we know...

Finally after the long wait

the teacher and class lists have been posted.

The kids have been very anxious and excited for this day to come,

even though they didn't seem to have a care once we looked at the lists.

Luke was happy to have his same teacher from last year who moved up a grade.

Cody didn't care who he got, he just wants school to start already.

They both have a few friends in their class from last year so that always makes it

easier too, having some familiar faces to look for.

Even though we love school

I'm not ready for all of this to start back up in 9 days,

I'm still enjoying summer too much.

This year Cody will be starting third grade

Abigail second, Luke first

and these two crazies...

Preschool (but not together).

What is this school year going to be like?

All good I hope!

sleepover

So the other day Luke and Ashlynn came up with a plan.
The plan was to have a sleepover.
Ash was coming to our house to stay the night.
Last night was the night to put this plan into action.
Amanda and Abigail walked her over and all of a sudden Abigail had a new plan.
This plan was for Cody to have a sleepover at her house.
This way everyone could be happy.
This was also going to be Cody's very first sleepover, but I knew he was going to be in good hands so I wasn't worried.
These three kiddos at my house.

while Amanda had these two at hers.

We laughed thinking she got off easier because Luke and Ashlynn are two of a kind.
When they want to be sweet, they are the sweetest
and when they want to be naughty, they can be all kinds of naughty.
But it was good.
They played, ate popcorn & watched Spongebob and finally managed to all fall asleep after a little scare of telling ghost stories.
Luke and Ryan insisted they both sleep next to Ashlynn, so the beds stayed empty while they all cuddled closely together on the floor.

One by one they all woke up in the morning, Ash sleeping in the latest!
The kids loved the fact that their play date started right back up first thing in the morning and
are already planning their next sleepover.
What did we start?
Cody and Abigail had a great time together too, I'm sure Amanda will have something to say about it here.
These kids have been together for as long as they can remember, they are the closest thing to brothers and sisters that they have.
It's sweet because Luke always refers to them as "our very first friends ever"!

highlight

Yesterday we made it back to the water park but this time with Grammy.
The boys kept her busy and showed her everything that they loved to do.
Luke and Cody each tried some rides that they haven't been on before and loved it.
Ryan still wasn't going to try the racing slide but enjoyed every minute in the wave pool, on the teeter totter and chasing his brothers through the river.
After six hours of playing we were ready to head home but Luke still wasn't done and wanted to go on one more ride.
The ride he picked out made me very nervous for my beginner swimmer, my beginner swimming who just began swimming this summer that is.
It's a short racing slide that shoots you off into 10 feet of water where you then have to swim to the other side to get out.
I didn't want to tell him no but kept asking him if he thought he could really do it.
He said yes each time and seemed so confident not one bit nervous.
I told him the minute he came up in that water he would have to start swimming and not stop until he reached the stairs and he just said okay mom.
My heart was in my throat when I sent him up the stairs by himself so I could stay below and watch.
I told the lifeguard that it was his first time and I was nervous about him making it to the side so she said that she would watch him closely.
After a quick prayer from my mom it was Luke's turn and
Off he went.
Down the slide
Going really fast
Splashing into the water
Underwater
Popping back up
Swimming like crazy
and not stopping until he made it to the side.
He came out of the water so excited and proud of himself.
He absolutely loved it.
It was some of the best swimming I have seen him do.
It was so awesome and my heart felt like it could burst.
I was so proud of him for being so brave to try something new all on his own and believing in himself to do it.
One ride wasn't enough though, I did the ride three more times with him before we were finally done.
The whole day was good but that was definitely the highlight of mine.

working hard

Cody has been telling me over and over that he wants to learn how to cook things on his own,

so at the beginning of summer I had Cody write down 5 things that he wanted to learn how to make.

The other day I surprised Cody that he would be making a cake all on his own from scratch.

I decided on an old recipe that a friends mom used to make when I was young.

Mayonnaise Cake

The kids were disgusted at first seeing the mayo as one of the ingredients but realized that it is a really yummy, rich and moist cake.

Cody did a great job and wanted to do it ALL on his own, even getting all of the ingredients out.

After the cake cooked and cooled, I helped him make a frosting and we all enjoyed a piece.
Oh so good!

That same day Cody decided that he wanted to teach Ryan how to build legos by following the instruction manual. Cody loves any chance he can get to teach someone about anything. He figured that since this lego set said between ages 5-12 that Ryan was close enough and would be able to do it. Ryan was excited but soon became frustrated, Cody was right there to help answer his many questions and help him fix a few mistakes. It was so cute seeing Ryan concentrating so hard on trying to find the right piece and follow along with the directions.

Ta Da.....he did it!

My boys worked really hard today and I was proud of them.