Yardwork

 Tis the season!

Brian and I just love getting outside and working in the yard.  And, we have some major work to do at our new house.  The lady that lived here before didn't really tend to her landscaping at all.  Not only did she have  greenery that was not kept trimmed, they aren't even good looking greenery to begin with.

So, we have decided to do the best we can and just tear everything up and start over in the spring.

It's going to take some time, but we are excited to get some color and pretty bushes in our yard. 

The HUGE bushes in our front yard, completely covering up our front windows so there's no light coming in the windows nor any breeze.

We tried to just use our bush trimmer, but we are going to end up needing a saw of some sort.

This is a project for another weekend...

 Then while we were digging around in the dirt, we came across this seriously LONG root that extended almost the entire front of our house.  Colin did the honors and drug it up the hill in the backyard.  He is such a good helper!

 Ugh!  Daddy, I could use a little help here!

 The kids and I were just hanging out before dinner on Sunday and Brian captured this cute picture.  

I just love the ages of our kids right now.

Challenging, yet lots of fun!

Colin was sitting on our front porch and Maggie just walked up and sat right next to him.

I ran inside to grab my camera, hoping to get a good picture of the 2 of them together...

Instead, whenever I had Maggie sit down, she would get up in one second.

So, here's a picture of Maggie walking away from the steps and Colin getting tired of saying "cheese" for the millionth time.

Ha!  Someday I will get a good picture of the 2 of them...

Our 6th Anniversary

Last week was our 6th anniversary.

We didn't do much on our ACTUAL anniversary, which was the Monday of labor day weekend.  I had the day off, Brian had to work, so we really didn't see much of each other anyway.

We took the kids to the pool one last time (both Colin and Maggie are turning into quite the water-bugs), and then we also ended up going to Grammie and Grandad's for some barbeque.  

We just exchanged cards at the end of the night, and went through some of our older anniversary cards, just for giggles.  It was pretty funny seeing how our lives have changed in just this short amount of time.

Changed...for the better, of course :)

We went out for our anniversary just this past weekend.  We did, what is a rare occurrence around this house, a "date night".  

Brian got up at 3:30 am for work on Saturday so he could get off around noon and be ready for an early matinee movie.  I dropped the kids off at Grammie's house for their naps.  

We went to see the movie "Lawless".  It actually was a really good movie, but was pretty gruesome at times.  It was set in the Prohibition times and involved a family of bootleggers and their lives.  I only had to cover my eyes a few times during the movie.  Brian would let me know when I could look...

We then set out to use our Groupon for Em Chamas.  I had called to make reservations earlier in the day, for 6:30 pm.  We walked in at 6:30 pm, were told we didn't have any reservations made, and that it would be a 1.5 hour wait.  Awesome.  That's just about how our luck goes!

So, we ran home, grabbed our On the Border gift cards, and picked up some food, to-go.  

We hustled home so we could put Colin to bed and ate our food at 8:15 pm at our kitchen table.

Ended up being so-so food (you know, an hour after we bought it!), but great conversation and some fun memories made.

After 6 years, I'd say we appear to have this stuff figured out...

but, we don't!!

We've got 2 beautiful children, awesome friends and family, stable jobs, a wonderful house & neighborhood.

The ups and downs come along the way, but we've got each other!

Thanks for 6 wonderful years, Brian!!

Love you!

Gymnastics

 We survived our first gymnastics class with Colin.  He did awesome, especially since it was burning up hot in the gym.  Apparently the air conditioner went out and they had about 3 service vans at the gym trying to get it fixed.  There were a ton of other gymnastics classes going on at the same time Colin had his class, so there was plenty of body heat, too.  He came up from his class a big sweaty mess, but so was Brian, Maggie and I.  

Colin did a great job listening to his teacher, with only a few minor hiccups.  He loved all the different stations they practiced on, and I think he picked up on the techniques fairly quickly.  He was just excited to be there with his cousin Olivia.  I think it's really neat for them to be able to do things together.  Olivia has done gymnastics there before, over the summer, so she was more comfortable with how things went.  

Unfortunately, we won't have class this next week due to Labor Day (our 6th wedding anniversary!!), but we'll get back into the swing the following week.  

Colin said he had fun and can't wait to go back!

(I apologize that the pictures are dark, but we couldn't figure out how to get the flash to cooperate in the dark gym!)

 Before the gymnastic class started, they were going to stretch soon.

There were 2 teachers (Belinda and Katie) and one younger helper, sitting to the right of Colin.  

They provided really helpful instruction while still allowing the kids to try the activities on their own.

Jumping into the foam pit at the beginning of class.

He was pretty much last in line for everything at first, but towards the end, he started to be more comfortable with things and was more aggressive.

There was one other boy in his class, and Colin didn't even seem to mind there were lots of girls.

 Trying out the bars.

He was working on bring his knees to his chest.

 Next up was the rings...

Get those knees up, Colin! :)

He got to run around the gym and do some other stations where there was a trampoline and hula hoops to jump through.

And...his favorite part...

he got a sucker at the end of class.

How we do dinners lately...

Here are just a few more pictures from our photo shoot that I think are absolutely adorable!

Mags and Daddy (love those candid shots!)

 Colin cheesing on the bridge

 My favorite family picture.  I wish Mags was looking, but everyone is smiling at least, right?

 Maggie Mae on the swing

Finally, we have been having so much fun at dinner lately.

Colin is starting to get pretty fussy with his dinners.  He doesn't really get all that hungry until much later at night, which doesn't work well for going to bed by 7:30 or so.  I am wondering if it's some sort of a stalling tactic that he has just figured out.  So, long story short, we love eating Ramen noodles.  Both Maggie and Colin can eat it (dairy-free) and they have fun, too!

 Getting set up for the challenge, Maggie versus Colin...

(and yes, that's Maggie's foot on the table...she must think it's really comfortable or something, cause she pretty much does it for every meal.)

It's a tie.

I think the noodle actually broke before anyone technically won.

Love these kids!

Peaches and pictures

Seems like we finally got some really good peaches just recently.

We are big fans of yummy, juice peaches around here.

 Digging in...

Yummy in my tummy!

Happy little girl!

We also got some of our pictures back from our family photo shoot.  I just love them!

Some of them are pretty awkward, but for the most part, they are everything I had hoped for.

It was super hot that day (around 96 degrees) and we had some pretty crazy kids, but they really did well considering...

Here's one of my favorites of Maggie Mae!

Right when we first got to the park, she marched onto this really cool bridge, sat down, turned to the photographer, and said "Eeeze!"  I guess she wanted to get her job done first.  After those first few pictures of Maggie, it was pretty much down hill.  Whereas with Colin, he took a little warming up, then started to get smiley towards the middle of the photo shoot.  We lost both of them by the end, but hey, they are only 1 and  3 years old.

One of my favorite ones of the family.

I just love the colors we have one, so bright and summery.

I had hoped for at least one good family photo to put up in our new house, nice and big.  I think this one might be it!

Some cute ones of Maggie and Colin.  I also really wanted a good one of the two of them.

That was a tall order.

You get what you get, and don't throw a fit, right?!

Some other ones that I really like.

Maggie was pretty spooked in this picture, cause a train was going through downtown Parkville, which totally excited Colin, and totally frightened Maggie.  It was pretty loud!

Thanks for reading!

In this home...

 Okay, first off, I want to apologize that it's almost the end-ish of August and I've only posted one blog post this month.  We've been trying so hard to enjoy every little last minute of "non-school" life with the family.  We've been going to the pools, to the park, to the library, playing like crazy outside in the yard.

It has been so nice.
We even managed to squeeze in some family photos last weekend.  Of course, the one day we had scheduled them to be done, it was, once again, about 96 degrees outside.  Might not have been as big of a deal if I hadn't planned on all of us wearing jeans, not shorts.  Oh well, we all survived.

Our photographer was really nice and VERY affordable.  We got an hour long photo session, with 100 edited images on a CD for our own personal use (with copy right release to make copies on our own).  She posted some "sneak peek" photos on Facebook that I just adore.  I can't wait to get the rest of the pictures. I've got some outdated pics of the kids just waiting to be updated.

As I was saying, I start school on Tuesday.  I have 3 more semesters of classes left, then a bunch of comp exams (both oral and written), then I can start my dissertation.  That dissertation project itself should take about 1 year to research and write.  I know it will be all worth it, especially with the extra job security and such that comes along with a PhD title.

Here are some cute pics of the kids:

Don't mind Maggie on the counter, just notice what a HAM she is being.  

She really must get that from her Daddy :)

 Beautiful!

And big brother Colin, just being silly.

He still has the best laugh ever.

Colin is really starting to test our patience with his "non-listening" skills he has mastered lately.  

Hopefully this will be something he grows out of rather quickly, cause Brian and I have just had it with having to get after him all the time.  Good thing his bad moments are few and far between...

Oh, and one last project I have been working on...

I saw this "house rules" sign on Etsy that I just fell in love with.

Not falling in love with the price tag, of course ($65).

So, Brian bought me a piece of plywood on clearance for 75 cents, I used some tan paint we already had at the house, and I bought a sample of the dark brown paint at Home Depot for $3.

I printed off the lettering and transferred it on the board, 

then spent the last few nights painting away.

It's definitely not perfect, but I like it a lot!

Not bad, for about $4 compared to $65...

We'll probably hang it up in the front of the house, somewhere near the kitchen.  

It'll be nice reminders for those days when things get really crazy!

WE DO LOVE!!

Cheesy kids

So, what do you get when you combine spaghetti night and a self-initiated game of peek-a-boo?

A very messy little girl...

 with spaghetti sauce just about everywhere!

 and a much needed bath at the end of the night!

We had the immediate Teson family over for dinner tonight to celebrate Grammie and Grandad's birthday.  We always have so much fun when all the kids get together.

I snapped a few pictures of Colin and Maggie before the ruckus began.

They are so cute!

(I know, biased opinion, but still...)

 Happy Birthday Grammie & Grandad!

Silly face picture!

Hope everyone has a great week!

We've got an ENT appointment for Colin to get his tubes checked out tomorrow.

Nothing much else going on...I have to find something cute for all of us to wear for our outdoor family pictures on Sunday.  Wish me luck!!!