Just one more reason...

...that I "shop" at garage sales.

This is a purse that I recently bought at a garage sale for $2.

At the store it would have been around $70.

If I had bought it at the store for $70, I would be bawling my eyes out right now.

Here's the story: (This could only happen to me.)

As everyone probably knows, Nathan has been sick and not eating well at all. When I picked him up from Trinka's on Friday, she let me know that he basically ate nothing all day (with the exception of gummy snacks for lunch). The sad thing is that he really is very hungry, but it just hurts so bad for him to eat. I had the bright idea to stop at McDonalds on the way home to pick him up a vanilla milkshake.

Two dollars worth of milkshake was held in his hand the rest of the way home. He handed it to me on the way out of the van and let me know that he didn't want it. I then propped it up in the change tray in the van since both cupholders were filled.

Fast forward a couple hours. We are now at Dale and Shari's working on corn. Nathan keeps getting in the van...needs cough drops, needs medicine....and whatever other reasons he had to get into the van. It's then that I get to thinking that I really need to go pick him up some more medication, so I head off to Rite-Aid with Jordyn.

As I'm heading in to Rite-Aid, I feel something wet on my knee. I look around thinking, "It's not raining!" I look down at my purse, and there is something dripping out of it. I look behind me. There is literally a white line following me from the van to where I'm standing just outside of the store.

Turns out, while Nathan was busy rummaging through the van, he managed to tip the milkshake over. It leaked in to my purse, and I almost dripped milkshake all over Rite-Aid. Just another proud moment in my glamorous life!

Which brings us back to the picture. My purse is currently hanging in the shower, hopefully salvaged. If not, no big deal. Like I said, I bought it at a garage sale for $2...which just so happens to be the price of the darn milkshake!

Long weekend...

It's so nice that a long weekend comes right after the first week of school. Nothing like a vacation 5 days after starting back to work! Gotta love it! Today, we went to Marie's in Wadsworth to eat out with Grandma and the Brinkers. Jordyn was all smiles for Uncle Darrel. I'd like to take a moment to exclusively give a message to Jenna. Have a bad hair day already! If not that, at least a pimple, a hair out of place, a dorky smile for a picture or something! Whatever happened to being an awkward teenager? My entire high school time was spent fighting poor taste in clothes, horrible hair, pimples, having no idea how to do makeup.....the list goes on. (Actually, these still continue to be a problem for me.) I've never seen Jenna experience this EVER. On top of it all, Jenna also happens to be really smart, mature and a great person. So, Jenna, indulge us with some awkwardness already! It will make us all feel better.

Apologies in advance to Nathan's future wife...

...because she's in for it any time Nathan gets sick. Nathan does not go into sickness gracefully. I feel bad for him because I know this hand, foot, mouth is not fun. It's just kind of hard to take since Nathan has lost his ability to speak. No, he hasn't actually lost his voice; he has just lost his words. Everything is communicated with a whine, huff, point, cry, etc.

This morning, around 10:30, I went in to check on Nathan. There's this strange little thing mothers experience when their kids sleep in. At least I do. It's called, "Oh no, what if my child is dead or deathly ill, and I haven't noticed because I'm blissfully enjoying the fact that my child has slept in?" Maybe I'm the only mom who experiences this. I'm probably one of the few moms whose kids actually sleep in! Anyway, Nathan was still in bed (not dead but definitely, in his opinion, deathly ill) and wanted to stay there.

Ben got the rare opportunity to take a bath without his older brother. This should be a treat for him since it means that he won't have water dumped on his head, he won't be pushed to the back of the tub away from the fun faucet and he won't have to share any toys. Apparently Ben must enjoy this torture because, without his brother, he only lasted in the bath tub for about 10 minutes.

Look at that groucho face!

Nathan finally woke up, and the whining has not stopped since. He's at the point of being sick where he's still feeling bad but has enough energy to make his momma's life miserable. The clincher for me today was when Nathan went in the tub for his bath. I walked away to fold some clothes, and I heard him crying. I'm usually pretty good at deciphering cries. This cry was telling me that something really bad had happened, like maybe the water was way to hot and scalding my poor child's skin off. I go running in to the bathroom frantically asking, "What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Nathan looks at me very pathetically and points at the octopus water spout cover and then points at the spout that he wanted covered. Ya, that was enough. My rantings included, "That is NOT something to cry about! Use your WORDS! YOU ARE NOT A BABY!!!!!" and on and on.

Mark is over at his parents' house working on preparing and freezing corn. He thinks he has the hard job, but I'd trade him for it in a second. My whining tolerance is at an all time low! :)

Warning...gross blog ahead.

You can always tell when school has started...the blogs became less and less frequent. Since Monday, things have been very busy. So busy, in fact, that I totally forgot to go to Nathan's preschool orientation. Ya, that's right....I'm one of THOSE parents. I got a call the other day from our friends way over in Seville. I had no idea that their oldest daughter was old enough to be at the middle school. Our conversation went something like this. Pat: Hey, you need to settle a bet for me! Andrea: Okay? P: What team are you on? A: Yellow P: Aw, man! I thought you were on the Green Team! A: I was years ago. Since then, I've been on the White, Silver, Gold and now Yellow. No one can accuse me of not being able to accept change! Why are you asking, anyway? P: Well, Bethany said she saw you at school yesterday. She's on the Green Team but she was pretty sure you weren't on her team. A: She's old enough to be at the middle school? I'M SO OLD! So why didn't she say hi? P: Apparently you were pretty busy at the time. A: Oh, what was I doing? P: She said you were busy helping a kid who was puking. A: Oh, ya. I almost forgot about that. That's right...puke on my very first day this year. I didn't even make it into the class before a kid came out upchucking into the sleeve of his sweatshirt. I ran into another teacher's room grabbing anything I could. (Come to find out, coffee filters aren't really made for this sort of situation.) I give the boy props. He did everything he could to contain it. I almost added to the mess. And, of course, since we have glass walls at the Middle School, the entire Health class, which Bethany was in, witnessed the whole thing. That's how my eleventh year of teaching started. It can only go up from here, right?

Hand, Foot, Mouth

It's going around, and I think Nathan's got it. It started with 2 of the babysitting kids getting it. Then, yesterday, Nathan started crying on our way to Wooster. When I dropped him off at Trinka's today, he was crying. When I picked him up at Trinka's, he came to the door crying. All night long he's been fussing and whining. He's handling sickness just like a man...we ladies all know what that means. Nathan doesn't have the rash, but he has a big blister on his tongue. We'll keep an eye on it and let you all know when we figure out for sure what it is. Angie and Janine, I really, really hope this doesn't get passed on to your kids. I'm figuring as soon as Nathan gets over it, it will slowly pass on to the siblings and the misery will NEVER end!

For a good laugh, just hit play...

You have to wonder...

I've come across many products that made me wonder how it got past the product testers. Here's a recent one: About two years ago I ended up in the emergency room with some severe dehydration. Since then, I've tried to drink plenty of water. I'm usually seen at school with water bottle in hand, and by the end of the day, I've usually drank 2-3 bottles. Water on its own can get boring, so I like to buy different flavored packets. As a side note, I happen to have a favorite tea...Lipton's white raspberry tea. So when I saw this at the store....

I figured it would be worth a go. I like apples and cranberries. Same brand. White tea. Has to be good, right? Well, actually it is really tasty. That's not the problem at all. This is the problem: I'm not really keen to walk around school looking like I'm drinking someone's (extremely bountiful) urine specimen.

....this in no way looks like "white" tea to me.

Pier-Lon

Seems that Pier-Lon has been the place to be lately. Today, we all got together and enjoyed a fun day that included (surprise, surprise) corn hole, horseshoes, frisbee, swimming, sand castle building and eating, eating, eating!

Now I'm heading to bed so that I don't fall asleep during church tomorrow.

Visitors from New Jersey!

My brother and sister-in-law from NJ are here visiting.Danielle is baby CRAZY! I love it. She holds the baby all night, and I get a break!

Do you see that adorable dress on Jordyn? Bet you'll never guess which doting aunt bought it for her!

I don't really need to explain the next picture. Just go over to Angie's blog! Ben was our entertainment last night. He decided that Uncle Bill was the guy to hang with. It started with Uncle Bill throwing Ben up in the air. Ben would then say "1, 2, 3!" Except it sounded like da, da, DEEEEEH! My entire family was rolling on the floor laughing. You would have to have heard it to appreciate it. He sounded so silly. Next Ben and Bill tossed lightning bugs in a jar around for awhile. (Don't call the ASPCA.) Bill thought it was funny to pull Ben's shirt over his head. Ben didn't think it was quite as funny at first. Once he saw that he got attention, though, Ben kept coming over to Bill so that he would do it again. Later, Ben moved on to torturing his girl cousins.

These pictures were all taken Friday night. Today, we all went to Pier-lon. I didn't take very many pictures. Hopefully I can get what I took posted soon.

She's obsessed.

It used to be me who blogged all the time. It was I who was first dubbed the "family photographer". Then along came my sister who decided photography was her passion. Now I look like small stuff compared to all the blogging Angie does and wonderful pictures she takes.

I'm not jealous.

Really!

Need firewood?

(click on picture to see it larger)

Hey, Janine. I found a huge pile of lumber near our house. It might happen to belong to the railroad, but, with a pile like that, I'm sure they wouldn't notice if you took a year's supply!

Year 11...here I come!

We had our teacher's meeting this afternoon which only served to remind me that summer is over! I found out that I'm in a different room than I thought. It doesn't really matter since I no longer have a classroom. Mark and I went in to the school and brought home a stuffed to the gills van full of my stuff. It's a very strange feeling knowing that for the first time ever, I won't have a classroom of my own. Technically, in coteaching it's both teachers' room, but ya know.... I'm going to try to get the kids out swimming tomorrow to enjoy our last day of fun in the sun!

We're home!

We arrived home pretty close to 2 p.m. today. Mark got the luggage in the house. I tried to start putting stuff away. By a quarter to 3, I headed to the dentist to have dental work done. Oh, so NOT fun! That was not a good way to end my vacation. I have been having some sensitivity in one of my teeth that I mentioned to the dentist when I had my cleaning recently. Since quite a bit of the last 5 years of my life have been spent being pregnant, I haven't had x-rays for quite some time. Well, I finally got the x-rays done, and the dentist noticed something strange by the tooth I had mentioned. In my gum, there is something. What it is, she's not sure. She said it look like a root that was left behind when a tooth was pulled. Only thing is...I've never had a tooth pulled there before. She said it was also possible that it was a baby tooth that never surfaced. Whatever it is, I get to have another procedure done to get it out. I'm swear I'm falling apart! So, isn't it time for more Nathanisms? Here's some recent ones:

1. Nathan brought me a shiny do-hickee. It looked like something from a Christmas ornament. He whispered in an awed voice, "This is a very special treasure!" Of course, I'm wondering where in the world he got it, so I asked him exactly that. Nathan continued in the same hushed voice, "I got it from the MIST of LIFE!" All righty then!

2. Nathan has taken to bringing me "flowers" (aka weeds) from outside. He always makes a huge deal out of it, and we have to put them in water. He hasn't quite gotten the concept that no matter what you do, the weeds will die once they are picked. Right before we left on vacation, we put some flowers in water and they were obviously dead when we arrived home. Nathan came in with more flowers today and started filling the cup with hot water. He voiced his theory to me: The hot water will keep the flowers' carburetors working so they won't die." We must have very strange flowers in our yard!

3. And finally, Jordyn was screaming her head off as we headed home from Wal-Mart today. Nathan finally shouted, "All I want is a PIECE OF QUIET!" Me too, Nathan. Me too!

I have a group of teachers coming over tomorrow, so I guess I better actually clean my house.

Still driving...

Are you guys enjoying your comfy beds with your soft pillows? I'm so jealous! We're still on the road (in PA now) with at least another hour left before we plan on stopping. I just hope there is a hotel room available. The worst part of this trip has been the hills. My ears are killing me. Okay, I know I'm talking to NO ONE out there since you're all blissfully sleeping. Further updates later.

Virginia Children's Museum

This is our first family picture since Jordyn was born. Lovely, isn't it?

We had a fun time at the Children's Museum. Mark was a huge help by carrying Jordyn around. Real men wear baby carriers! We had a lot of fun with the bubble stations.

At least half the upstairs of the Children's Museum had train layouts. Cori read that their collection of trains was worth over a million dollars. One man donated all the trains. The only thing that would have made it better would be if the kids could have operated the trains themselves. We went on to enjoy an awesome meal at P.F. Chang's and cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. Healthy stuff there!

On Saturday, we spent most our time lazing around the house and enjoying Cori's pool. Ben is still very cautious around the water. Nathan wasn't as crazy as he was the first time we visited at Cori's, but he warmed up more and more as the week went on. By Saturday, he was jumping in without the life vest and getting pretty good at the doggy paddle.

We were able to meet up with Shona and her kids, Austin and Kayla. They just moved into a beautiful home 2 weeks ago. After taking the tour, we headed back to Cori's to go swimming and play the Wii. Poor Shona has been in training all weekend which involved quite a lot of physical exercise. She was pooped by the time we caught up with her, and she had to go back the next day for more. I hope you made it through your day today, Shona!

This is Shona trying out a balance game on the Wii. ...and Austin (that boy has some moves!) ...and Kayla. She was somewhat disappointed with the Wii. We had the board set for an adult weight, and Kayla wasn't even registering when she stepped on it. You know someone's concentrating when the tongue appears. We are now on our way home. We're probably going to stop at a hotel on the way as we're already tired and only about an hour into our trip. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow. I'm still experiencing quite a bit of pain from my crown lengthening surgery. I'm planning on calling Monday morning to see if I should keep my appointment. If it gets cancelled, we'll probably find something fun to do with the kids and head home at a leisurely pace. If not, we'll book it home so I can get dental work done. I can hardly wait! Regardless, we'll be home by Monday night. (I have teachers coming over to our house on Tuesday. Shari, who has been feeding our fish, can attest that it is not company clean right now!)

Idlewild and Flight 93

We had a great time at Idlewild. It is the perfect park for kids.

We started out with Mark taking the boys on a log ride. I was very worried that Nathan would freak out on it since it had a pretty high hill. He surprised me. Both boys loved it and didn't seem fazed at all. There was a miniature train which we were able to take to see some parts of the park. These pics were taken on the train. We then headed over to an Amazon themed section. It was basically a big play area with really cool activities for the kids. Can you believe Nathan climbed this humongous net? He did question the structural integrity of it a bit, but Mark got him to the top. (Ben beat both of them to the top. No fear of heights in that boy.)

I didn't get a whole lot of pictures in that section since the kids were running from one place to the next. Their favorite activities were a huge ball pit, zip lines and a big slide that required burlap mats to slide down on.

We then headed over to a Storybook section. This was not quite as much fun. My boys don't know some of the nursery rhymes, and there weren't really any rides here. It's basically a bunch of little cottages themed after different nursery stories.

Must keep thumb in my mouth at all times! Mark and I took turns taking the boys on the rides. This one was a hot air balloon that went in circles. Yuck. I hate circle rides. The boys loved it, though. I didn't think for a moment that I'd ever get a picture like this one. Janine, you're not going to believe this. Yes, Nathan went on a full sized Ferris wheel...no tears. This is the boy who has issues sitting on the bar stools at her kitchen island because they are too high.

We then found a section that had rides for kids only. It was so nice not having to worry about having Ben checked each time for height and having an adult available to ride with him. Nathan's favorite in this section was the bumper cars, but I didn't get a picture of it. Ben's favorite was definitely the cars. They ran by themselves on a track, but Ben was convinced that he was doing the driving. Jordyn was a very good girl the whole day. We took turns taking the boys on the bigger rides. There was a roller coaster ride that only sat two in a seat which meant we could only take one boy on at a time. Mark took Ben on with the promise that Nathan would ride with me when they were done. When they got off the ride, Nathan needed to go to the restroom. While Mark and Nathan were gone, Ben kept pointing at the roller coaster ride and saying "Dat! Dat! Daddy, dat!" (Translation: That one! I want daddy to take me on that one again!) When Nathan and I got in line, Ben had a major hissy fit. There was another ride that Mark and Nathan went on that Ben was too short for. That also brought many tears and throwing of mulch. It was then that we decided we'd only do rides that both of them could go on. It didn't help that Ben was majorly exhausted by this time. We left Idlewild around 8. We wouldn't mind going back. It was a whole lotta fun!

On our way to Cori's, we passed signs for the Flight 93 Memorial. We decided to stop by and take a look. It was totally dark outside by that point, but it was still neat to stop and look. It's a tragedy that's hard to get your mind around...such senseless death.

We arrived at Cori's a little before 5 a.m. Ben was awake the last couple hours of the trip. He was so uncomfortable and over-tired. Makes me glad that we decided to split up the 10 hour trip back home.

Today, we pretty much lazed around and enjoyed the pool. Mark took a nap with Ben and Jordyn while Nathan and I played "gatician". I found a rock in Cori's pool and gave it to Nathan who declared it "very special" indeed. He threw it in the pool and asked me to find it. I pretended that I couldn't find it, and when Nathan wasn't looking, I put it up on the cement. Nathan finally found it, and got very excited. "Wow! How'd it get up here? You must be a gatician!" Huh? He threw it back in the pool and asked me to do magic again. Oh, now I get it. I'm a "magician". We kept playing the game until Nathan threw the rock in the deep end. I let him know that magic didn't work in water that deep, because there was no way I was going to be able to find that rock!

Tomorrow, we are planning to visit the Children's Museum. It's where they take unusual looking children and place them in glass cases. Ha! Ha!

PIttsburgh...not for me.

It's amazing that you can travel just a couple hours from your home and find a place that is so different. When we came into Pittsburgh, we had the most amazing view. There were two humongous bridges down below and houses everywhere. Nathan's eyes opened really big, and he kept saying, "Wow! That's amazing! I've never seen anything like this before!"

The driving in Pittsburgh is another matter altogether. Houses are right up against each other, and very few people have driveways. This means that all the streets have people parking on both sides which makes for very narrow streets. We would have never found our hotel without the Garmin.

Once we arrived at the hotel, I had a panicky moment. It suddenly struck me that I had 6 hours in which I had to keep the kids busy in a motel room. After the hairy drive in, I wasn't too eager to venture out. It didn't take long to realize that I had to take the kids somewhere to keep them from climbing the walls. My first instinct was to find a park. There were 4-5 in the area within a mile. I figured we'd just take the stroller and walk over. I got a block away and decided to head back. We'd seen enough dicey areas on our drive in that I was worried we'd be heading into rough neighborhoods.

I then loaded the kids into the van, used the Garmin to find the nearest Wal-Mart (4 miles away) and headed off. Oh boy! What an experience. Four miles is a long way away in Pittsburgh. Many of the roads were at a standstill. The Garmin kept directing me to a certain road that I couldn't find. It then recalculated me along a side road. When I came up to it, I thought that's a pretty big hill up ahead. I figured it would level out where we had to stop. Nope! It stopped us at the very top of the hill. It was so steep, my heart was pounding. The traffic on the road we needed to get on was non-stop. When it finally cleared, I couldn't get the van going becase of the extent of the incline. I ended up backing the van down the hill almost blindly. (again because of the incline) Nathan kept saying, "I think we need to just go back to the hotel now, mom. I don't like this."

I finally found a different way and then noticed a burning smell. There appeared to be smoke coming from my hood. I figured I had ruined the van. We finally got to "Wal-Mart" which was now a furniture store. Luckily, there was a mall close by. I stopped and discovered the smoke was actually coming from my tire. Mark figures the brakes were protesting their treatment. We went in the mall for a while and ate dinner. The whole time I was fretting the return back. The Garmin took me a different way home, and we arrived safe and sound.

I put the boys into the bath, and as they love to do, they started fighting immediately. So I got Ben out and was working on getting him diapered up. I looked over to the bathroom door and see splashes of water flying out of it. Nathan was splashing water all over the bathroom. The floor, toilet, toilet paper, etc. was covered in it. I had to use every towel available to mop it up. I also had to use every ounce of self control not to beat that child. I still don't understand how a 4 year old boy who has taken about million baths would think that was an okay thing to do.

Anyway, we made it through our first day and are now headed to Idlewild. I consider this the first day of our vacation since yesterday was nothing even close to resembling fun. :)

Jordyn is ready for Idlewild. Aunt Danielle and Uncle Jeff got her the hat. Isn't it "stinkin' cute" on her?

Post 401

Can you believe that I'm on my 401st post? I never thought I'd stick with something this well. If I would be as consistent with dieting and exercising as I have been with blogging, my Wii fitness trainer probably wouldn't be making fun of me. Not that I really have a Wii trainer. I tried it out only once so far and experienced humiliation to the fullest extent. The first thing it has you do is practicing balancing. My "trainer" asked me if I tripped often while walking. It then measures your BMI and hits you with a big ole reality check on just how heavy you are. (The trainer says "ugh" when you get on the "scale.") It's a very humbling experience. Tomorrow, we leave on vacation. I had been throwing around the idea of visiting Jeff and Danielle or the Plattner family. The summer was playing out, though, where it was really hard to get away. I'd pretty much given up hope on being able to go anywhere. Recently, Mark's work did a huge restructuring and closed the Columbus office. This, in turn, caused it so that Mark now has a new boss. The boss is having everyone come out to meet him and each other at a (somewhat) halfway point between Ohio and New Jersey---> Pittsburgh. The kiddos and I are tagging along. We plan to go to Idlewild on Wednesday. We're then heading down to Cori's for a couple days. We plan on driving halfway home on Sunday, stopping somewhere along the way (not sure where yet) and then driving the rest of the way home on Monday. Ten hours just seems like too long a haul for the kids. Now for the big news....Jordyn is officially rolling over, back to belly. She is so funny. She fusses and cries in her efforts to turn over. When she is finally on her belly, she screams bloody murder because she wants to return to her back. I remember Nathan and Ben doing the same thing.

I gotta get back to packing. Nothing like spur of the moment vacation plans!

The many faces of Jordyn

Weekend of family...

In addition to spending time with the Brinker side of the family, I also got the chance to see Jon and Kathy this weekend. They were out for a very short visit. Here's my little Michelin baby!

Fierce competition...

I had to utilize the flash on these pictures. There was quite a bit of action going on. We were talking about how Mark and Darren must have looked from anyone watching outside of the living room window. They'd likely call an ambulance thinking that two men were having seizures. This is the boxing game which makes for some exciting motions. Look at that sweat on Darren's forehead!

Wee Wii

See, Mark, how a pro comes up with her titles? (Little inside joke going on here.) Basically, Mark with his typical middle school maturity, tried to find as many ways to say wii-wii this weekend as he could. Don't ask. Drew and Nathan enjoyed bowling with the Wii.

A plethora of pictures...

Can a person really take too many pictures? Darren thought I was taking a bit too much, but I beg to differ. For example, if one male cousin happens to be giving another male cousin a back massage that could be used to blackmail the two for a loooong time, you bet I'm going to take a picture of it. Too bad I was to slow on the draw for that one. Darn!

Anyway, since it's after 1 in the morning, I'm not going to go into too much detail on the pictures. Yes, there are a lot of them, and I may have had trouble narrowing down my selections. Who doesn't like pictures, though? Drew absolutely LOVED the 4-wheeler. I forgot to check the Moser's van before they left to make sure they didn't sneak the 4-wheeler away. They have so many places to hide something like that in their fancy van. (We decided that we have van envy. We thought ours was loaded until we saw the Odyssey. I don't think they could fit one more bell or whistle in that thing!) Mark and Darren took off to the woods to find a tire for a swing. Grandpa risked life and limb to hang it, and the kids enjoyed taking turns on the swing. As usual, Nathan was right at home playing in the dirt.

Drew enjoyed the dirt, but he managed to keep clean...unlike Nathan and Ben. What is this? Corn hole? I hear the Illinoians have this game, but it has a much more lame-o name. Something like "bean bag toss"...yawn! :) More pictures to come...

Nathan's new bud!

This is Drew (Nathan's 3 year old "cousin"). He's out visiting with his parents (Mandy & Darren) and grandma (Sheila). His mommy and daddy are one of those "bleepers" I referred to in this post. So, about two years ago, I found out that Mandy and Darren kept up with our blog, BUT they never EVER leave comments. According to Mandy, she just hasn't "had any time" to leave a comment. Need I point out that she's had time to conceive and bear a child since then....but, no....no time to comment on my blog. The little girl she is holding is Abi. She's only 6 weeks old. If we could manage to see each other more often, I have a feeling Jordyn and Abby would be very good friends. They both like to eat...ALOT. They both like to fuss...QUITE A BIT (particularly Jordyn). They both have boys to deal with. Both of their mommies teach. Both of their daddies think they are hilarious. Sounds like kindred spirits to me.

Drew seemed to enjoy the trains.

Ben did without a nap today, and he wasn't in the mood to make friends. Earlier in the evening, Mark took Jordyn and Nathan to The Barn to eat with all the people listed above + Grandma Doris. I had gum surgery today, so I figured the meal would be wasted on me. I stayed home with the intention of trying to get Ben to take a nap. (Didn't happen.) Before Mark left, I packed a diaper bag w/a bottle which Mark totally didn't see and left it behind. This made for a very ticked off hungry girl by the time they arrived home. Angie, I know you're itching to use your noiseware filter on these pictures. I obviously didn't have the correct ISO and whatever other settings. On top of it all, I had it set for the wrong lighting. Live and learn! Well, y'all. You visited one day too soon, because we are now the proud owners of a Wii! Hopefully we'll get a chance to play against Angie and Jon through cyberspace soon!

Guess where Mark is right now????

He is at the Walmart counter buying 2 Wiis. He went there to pick up some groceries and happened to notice them in the case. What are the chances? One is for us, and one is for a friend of ours. Oh, and guess what else. (Angie try not to read this.) He's also buying Wii Fit. They have one in stock. Sorry, Angie. We would have gotten you one, but we're selfish and want it for ourselves.

We need to get fit more than you do.

Now that we have our system, we can hang with the cool kids. We're going to be so popular!

Swimming pictures...

Not a whole lot to say here. I just have a bunch of pictures of my kids and their cousins swimming... ...impersonating Gene Simmons (without the makeup)...

...smiling for Angie who happened to steal her sister's camera...shame...shame... ...hanging out with any motherly type in the water that he could find... ...checking out the world from a new vantage point... ...running from Jacob after getting a good dunking... ...getting spinned by the oh-so-famous Jacob...

...pouting after getting denied candy...

...um, I don't know...just being his usual ornery self... ...pondering some huge problems of a 2 year old...whatever they may be...

...looking all cute for the camera.... ...you again? ...and just generally having some fun in the sun!

Jordyn's not pictured because Alli watched her for me. It made for a relaxing afternoon, and the boys had a great time.

Okay, everybody....give me a big pity sigh. Only two more weeks left of hanging out with my sisters. It really is rotten of the school system to expect me to head back to work and earn my money. (Even worse...there is only 1 more garage sale day....I'm so bummed now!)

Scrabble Babble

Nathan came downstairs shortly after waking up this morning very excited to tell me that, "We're going to play a game!" He then informed me that he had found "a very special" game in my craft room. (Lately, everything Nathan touches is very special or magical, etc.) I couldn't figure out what game he was talking about, so I had him go get it. Down the stairs he comes holding Scrabble.

I tried to explain that this was not a game for him, but he begged to differ. Out spilled all the letters on my floor accompanied by the "rules". Did you know that Scrabble is a game where you match letters and then only place the blocks on the colored portions of the "map"? Well, according to Nathan's directions to Ben, that is how you play the game.
Ben, being a typical middle child, proceeded to pinch Nathan to remind him that he's not the boss.
As Ben then did his time in the corner, Nathan proceeded to explain the rules further. "You see how I matched an 'e' on the map? Well, that means that Ben isn't allowed to play this game." (As you can see, Nathan's rules only make sense to him.)

Nathan then brought me the dee-wreck-shuns (his pronunciation) and asked me to read them. I said, "Honey, I'm afraid these directions are going to say that you have to know how to spell to play the game."

Nathan responded with the voice of an expert, "I do know how to spell. I know how to spell 'cap'. It's this many letters." (Nathan flashes his 10 digits at me about 7 times or so. Apparently, 'cap' has many, many letters to it.)

He continued with, "The dee-wreck-shuns will also tell you it's not nice to cheat." (This from the boy who constantly tries to cheat when playing Memory with Grandma Shari.)

Ya, I don't know, Jordyn. I think you'll be pinching your bossy, know-it-all brother very soon too.

We put up the pool!

We got tired of waiting to see if we'd get the fence or not, so Mark just plopped the pool down right in the middle of our yard. It looks very hillbilly, but at this point, we don't care! The boys are loving it!

Passed with a vote of 3 to 2

Why it was even an issue, I don't know, but we finally got the fence approved! We attended the Creston council meeting this evening. I ended up leaving with the kids because it was taking so long. Mark stayed and defended our desire to have a privacy fence. We got full approval through the last committee. This committee only passed it 3 to 2. You would think there would be more pressing things in Creston than trying to prevent a fence from going in. Especially when you consider that all of our neighbors were contacted and not a single one was against the fence. No one showed at the meeting to fight the fence. Even with that, 2 people voted it down. We're going to find out the names of the nay-sayers and make sure that we never vote them into any position in Creston in the future. The one guy who has been our go-to throughout this whole process really stood up for us and persuaded most the members of the council. We definitely appreciated his help. Ohio

Even though I'm ticked that it was such a long process, I'm deliriously happy that we finally can build this thing! Yay!

I lied...

Do you remember when I said the beans were done? Well, I guess I just thought we were done. Dale had decided to leave the beans that were leftover for his neighbors, but they only ended up taking a couple quarts. Mark invited mom and dad over to snap some beans for themselves. They snapped while Dale and Mark picked beans. (I stayed inside watching the baby and HGTV.)
What a tough job.

I also snapped a few pictures with Mark's work camera. I must say, once you have a nice camera, the point and shoots are just not the same. Especially the ones Mark has. They are nowhere near as good.

Mark and Dale got the 4-wheelers out. They had some lame-o excuse for getting them out, but the real reason was just to have some fun.






















Mom and Dad snapped beans for 5 or 6 hours. Hope they taste good! They ended up pressure cooking 36 quarts of beans.

























I think I can officially say that the beans are done...especially since I witnessed Mark and Dale pulling up all the bean plants.

Back at it...

I finally got to walk today, and, for good measure, I made sure I went a whole 5 miles instead of 4.6.

As I was walking, I came across the following roadkills:

*couple unindentifiables

*raccoon

*cat

*skunk

*frog

Troubling, I know. But it wasn't until I came across this, that I realized the extent of the carnage: (Please shield your children's eyes)

Because, not even a 1/4 mile away from this was this:

And about a 1/2 mile later, I came across this:

Folks, I'm convinced that the yellow butterfly is in danger.

Don't worry. I have come up with a solution. By taking pictures of this endangered animal and sharing it with my massive blogging audience, I am sure we will all change our driving habits so as to keep this animal alive and well.

Of course, if I'm going to keep taking pictures, I'll need a macro lens for my camera. Please, send your donations to my Paypal address. It's for a good cause.

And remember, just because you don't see one of these:

...doesn't mean that you're in the clear. Drive safely, and send me money. I'm all about saving the yellow butterfly.

(Can you tell it's a bit boring walking 5 miles by yourself?)

Why am I still up?

I've spent the last hour doing basically nothing....which means checking out everybody's blogs only to find out that Angie and Pioneer Woman are the only people out there making any updates! (including me) Which led me to think, "I need to blog!" Then my next thought was, "My life is too incredibly boring right now to blog!" I came to the conclusion that boringness (is that a word?) has never stopped me from blogging before, and since I amazingly am not holding a baby at the moment, here I am, blogging my mundane activities. If you haven't noticed, my walking ticker has not moved for 4 stinkin' days. (I'm so disappointed in myself.) I need Mark to watch the kids for me to be able to go out walking. Typically, I'll go out walking for an hour, and then we trade off and Mark goes out jogging for a half hour. Mark's been busy lately, so I haven't gotten out. I will walk tomorrow...I will, I will! I always feel so accomplished after walking, and I want that feeling back again! Today, I went out to eat at OG with teachers from school. I had to refer to Olive Garden as OG when Nathan was around, or he would have been ticked knowing he was stuck with a babysitter while I went to his favorite restaurant. That's okay...he was at Kim's house which meant he got to play with their pinball and slot machine. Not necessarily kid activities, but it sure makes him happy! Today was the day for gluttony as I also ate at Applebee's. Janine and I went shopping afterwords with the intention of Mark taking the kids home while we shopped. Nathan decided he wanted to go to Walmart with me. When I asked him why he wanted to go, he said, "I want to make sure you get the things I need." (which pretty much equates to, "I'm hoping to talk you into getting me toys and candy and whatever else catches my eye.") We missed out on garage sales today, so I think Nathan is going through withdrawal. Since we've started this budgeting thing, I've really cut back on my spending, use coupons, etc. Which leads to another Nathan story. Shari recently bought Nathan a cute little alphabet writing book. It has a dry erase marker and is laminated so that Nathan can practice his letters over and over. Nathan fell in love with it. He really, really wanted to take it home, but I wanted him to leave it at Shari's because I was afraid it would just get lost at our house. Nathan kept asking Grandma Shari questions about it. Where'd you get it? Are there more? How much did it cost? To which Grandma answered, "It didn't cost much. It was cheap." Nathan comes running over to me. "MOM, WE CAN GET THIS! It was CHEAP!" He then turned to Grandma and said, "We only buy cheap things!" Gotta start them early on frugalness!