Best buds

These 2 just crack me up.

They really are best friends and I hope they stay that way for a long time.

Earlier this week, we hit the swimming pool for a little bit before bed.

The kids immediately stripped down to their birthday suits before heading upstairs for pajamas.

Before that happened though, they decided they needed to finish their un-eaten pizza from dinner.

This resulted in...

Love these guys!

Happy Trails!

 One of our neighbors told us about an awesome trail about 5 minutes from our house.

We have been wanting to take the kids there, but for some reason, it's taken us a few weeks to get our act together.  Well, this weekend it happened!  It was perfect weather, cool in the mornings, so we packed up our wagon and a picnic lunch and headed out to the trail.

Colin was hoping to see monkeys, turtles and moose.  Maggie wanted to see birds.

It was about a 4.5 mile (round trip), paved trail with lots of other families and pets walking by.

Every couple of minutes there seemed to be something that was really cool, like a waterfall, trickling stream, or an old rusty bridge.  The kids loved riding in the wagon and sipping on their lemonades.

 My boys enjoying a  beautiful morning

 The kiddos and I (too bad Mags couldn't stop sucking her thumb or rubbing her eyelashes for the picture!)

 Not far down the trail was a really shallow stream, and after Colin poked at a few of the bugs with a stick, we were brave enough to walk around in the water.

It was cold, but lots of fun!

Walking in the stream

 Love this cutie pie!

 Colin and Maggie found this huge rock.

This huge rock was perfect for....silly faces!

These kids crack me up!

The kids loved when Brian would RUN down the hills with them in the wagon.

I got left behind, but had lots of fun watching them laugh so hard.

Plus, there were lots of families walking their dogs. And the kids wanted to pet each and every one of them...

One of our last stops was this beautiful waterfall (you can kindof see it in the background of the picture).

There was a pretty big drop off right in front of where Brian is sitting.

The kids had fun throwing rocks as far as they could...trying to hit the waterfall.

We spent just under 2 hours walking along the trail (with many stops), and then had a picnic lunch by our car before we headed home.  Colin and Maggie wouldn't stop talking about how much fun it was, even if we didn't see any monkeys...

:)

Yardwork and more...

 Summer is coming to an end around here, and we are taking advantage of every weekend we have left.

Colin and Maggie are starting their first year of Pre-K in a couple of weeks.  

The kids had to get new lunch boxes and backpacks, as well as nap mats for Pre-K.  

We have them all ready to go, and they are both super excited to go to school.  It's nice that we can keep them both together for another year, even though they will be in different classrooms, they will be attending the same school.  

Showing off their new lunch boxes and backpacks

Colin went with Spiderman and Mags chose Hello Kitty

 All ready for school, Mom and Dad!

 Mags is becoming quite the fan of Superheroes, just like her older brother.  

She has convinced him to borrow his pajamas to wear to bed.

Lookin good, sis!

 The kids trying out their nap mats watching Curious George

 A few weeks ago St. Therese had their annual Ice Cream Social.

We have gone the past few years, and this year was just as much fun, or maybe even more, since the weather wasn't too terribly hot.

The kids spent the majority of the time in the bounce house.

It was especially fun until Mags got a goose egg on the side of her head from a collision.  She goes FLYING around in there since she's so little!

 We also took advantage of a free Curious George exhibit at Crown Center a couple of weeks ago.

The kids really liked it, and they probably would've had a little more fun if there wouldn't have been so many BIG kids around.  They monopolized the more interactive areas, but it was fun for both of them!

 Maggie wanted another picture with George, one of the most popular guys in our house!

We have had such a nice run of mild temperatures the last few weeks, plus quite a bit of rain.

It has made everything so nice and green outside.
Brian and I decided to purchase some things for our "weed patch" in our front yard.

This used to contain the HUMONGOUS bushes that hadn't been trimmed in years (you couldn't even tell we had windows in the front of our house they were so big!)

So, last fall, we tore out the bushes and had plans for some nice plants and shrubs.

 Here is what it looked like, weeds and all.  It needed some major work, from weeding to leveling and removing of the thorny bushes around the tree.

Here is what we've done so far.

We got the ground all prepped, laid down the black weed fabric, and purchase some ground cover, lillies, mums, transplanted some box woods, and bought some new ornamental grass to swap out for our other ornamental grass we planted this spring.

We only get an hour or two at a time, due to kids that aren't so good at staying occupied outside, although Colin has become quite a fan of collecting worms and roly-poly's now.  Maggie just wanders around outside taking our shovels and getting dirty.

We are waiting for mulch to go on sale for the fall season, and then we'll have the majority of our landscaping done in the front yard.  It looks sooo much better with just a little work and probably $150 or less.

A Day at Meemaws

Last weekend the family went to Meemaw's house to celebrate my birthday and spend some time together.

The kids got to play with lots of toys out in Meemaw's sunroom and she had plenty of snacks to tide them over for the morning.

Once Tiff and Chad arrived, we got all of our stuff together and headed out to the pond in her neighborhood to do some fishing.  The pond is stocked with really, really, really BIG catfish and some other small fishies.

We brought along a couple of fishing poles (one of them being a Car's fishing pole, kiddie sized!)

We hooked on some summer sausage for bait and had lots of luck.

We also threw in pieces of bread that the kids LOVED watching the fish swim up and eat.

It was a beautiful, overcast day, with temps in the 70's.

Watching the fishies off the pier

After we caught the fishies, Tiff and Chad told the kids to "kiss the fish" before we threw it back in to say sorry for hooking them in their mouth.

They meant a "pretend" kiss, but Maggie didn't sense the sarcasm, and LITERALLY kissed the fish.

Yuck!

One of the big ol' ugly catfish that we caught...

and no, we didn't kiss this one!

Daddy fishing with Mags

(she loved it!)

Colin was a little timid at first, but warmed up to it pretty quickly.  

Colin even caught the biggest fish of the day.

If you ask him how big the fish was, he spreads his arms out as wide as he can, and we figure that just makes him a good fisherman, right?  The fish gets bigger every time he tells the story!

After the kids took naps and we had a yummy dinner, Meemaw revealed GGRice's recipe for her famous pigs eye chocolate cake.  It is SOOOO good.  

It was SOOOO good.  Meemaw did a fabulous job on the cake and frosting.

The kids loved picking the frosting off, but I'm pretty sure I did that long before they did!

It was a great birthday weekend!

My 32nd Bday

 I have had such a wonderful birthday today!

Nothing big, but just enough to be special.  The kids sang me Happy Birthday this morning (after both of them slept all night long without any waking up!), and my co-workers got me a really awesome birthday cake, ordered me Panera lunch, and a thoughtful bunch of KU balloons.

I got home, opened my gifts from the family, and headed out to On the Border for dinner.

The kids each picked me out a necklace, I got some hot chocolate for our Keurig machine, and a stability exercise ball for working out in our basement.

Very thoughtful gifts, and a wonderful day all around.

A few days ago, we busted out Colin's slip n slide that he got for his birthday...

So Much Fun!

I seem to remember them being much longer than this one was, but that could be because I was much smaller the last time I used one...

 Mags needed a little help, but still had a lot of fun!

 Brrrrrr!  Hose water is cold!!!

 Colin running back for more...

 And of course, the biggest kid (I mean, my husband), had to enjoy the fun too.

This picture cracks me up!

Nice form, Daddy!

I love my kiddos!

Another year in the books.

I hope the blessings continue for a long time!

Colin's Superhero Birthday!

We celebrated Colin's birthday with family and friends on Sunday.

We decided to hold the party at English Landing Park, at one of the shelters there.  I knew it was probably going to be pretty warm outside, so we had the party at 10 am until 1 pm, hoping to miss some of the extreme July heat.

Of course, that day was calling for rain (we haven't had rain in weeks!), but it looked pretty spotty on the radar, so we went ahead and started decorating.

Colin has wanted a superhero party all year, so this was a lot of fun to plan (with the help of Pinterest!)

Colin just kept looking at all of the balloons and decor, saying "this is all so cool!"

I'm going to miss these days when simply getting a bunch of balloons is considered cool!

The superman cake that I decorated

(The icing was pretty gooey after being outside for a couple of hours, but it was still yummy!)

The shelter at the park

We had planned on having the party in a much smaller shelter area, but the groundskeeper was driving by the park that Sunday morning and told us this much larger one hadn't been rented out by anyone for Sunday morning.  We packed up all our goodies and started decorating this one, instead!

The 'happy birthday' banner that I made

One of my favorite pictures from the day...

Colin and Maggie doing their superhero impersonations

Maggie loved the swings at the park, just don't push her too high or she'll freak!

Olivia loved the sand area

Silly Maggie

All of the superheroes eating lunch

We ordered pizza, and had veggies and fruit salad.  

Yummy!

All of the kids lined up ready for the pinata

(Johnny didn't feel well and refused to sit down!)

The order goes: Brendan, Evelyn, Maggie, Olivia, Colin, Dylan, Johnny, Sophia and Alex

The kids had a blast with the pinata

The string holding up the pinata broke before the pinata did, so they all just pulled the strings at the bottom and attacked the candy!

Getting some goodies

Colin got some awesome, thoughtful gifts for his birthday.

He got some new books, pajamas, superhero action figures, a sleeping bag, new sports balls, sidewalk chalk, movies, a fishing pole, lunchbox, Legos, plus we got him a slip-n-slide that we will hopefully be trying out soon!

Blowing out his birthday candles

Colin, my big 4 year old!

I still don't know where the time has gone...

We love you so much, Colin!

Birthday cupcakes and Chuck E Cheese

We had so much fun getting ready for Colin's 4th birthday!

Since his birthday was on Friday, we made cupcakes to share with all of his friends at Ms. Robin's house on Thursday.  The kids were really helpful (okay, so not THAT helpful) with mixing the cupcake batter and adding food coloring to the icing.  They both just loved holding the mixer for me while we were getting the batter ready.  

My 2 little helpers

The best part of baking....licking the beaters!

Colin being silly with his blue cupcakes!

Friday morning, Brian had an early morning work meeting, which meant he wasn't going to be around to sing Colin happy birthday.  We called Daddy and did a "through the phone" birthday complete with 4 mini-donuts!  

Blowing out his birthday candles

We went to Chuck E Cheese on Friday afternoon to spend a few hours with family.

That's really about all we care to spend there, plus, it starts getting pretty busy around 6 pm, so we usually try to leave around then.

Maggie could've spent all afternoon on this horse.

Colin zipped from game to game, he was hard to catch up with for a picture...

We danced and got lots of tickets from Chuck E Cheese.

Colin even got a picture with him!

More time on the horse

Then, after the kids were in bed, my mom and I got to work on making the "superhero" shirts for the kids on Sunday.  It was really easy, just made some stencils out of freezer paper and dabbed on some white fabric paint. There were 9 kids coming, so by the 9th one, I was ready to be done! :)

The freshly made super hero shirts

Meemaw took us all out for dinner on Saturday to celebrate Colin's birthday (yes, another celebration!)

I love this picture of the 4 of them...

Colin even got a HUGE  bowl of cake and ice cream for his birthday.

We were hoping they would sing to him, but they didn't do that at this particular restaurant.  

It was still an awesome night.

More to come...Colin's Superhero party!