Blueberry muffin...

Help....I ate a smurf!!

Another first day of school...

My Ella Bella had her first day of preschool at the park district.

She was up and dressed at the crack of dawn.

Had her backpack packed with snacks and juice.

Took some time to model it for us.

Then we headed outside to wait for the boy's bus to come. You can't begin to imagine the disappointment when she realized that she had to ride in my car to school and was not getting on the bus with the boys.

"But I can't go to school in the car!! I have to go on the bus!!"

In the meantime...the boys were excited to share her moment.

They distracted her with worm finding. And picking the nose of the tree man in our front yard.

I am so proud of that kid...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUSTIN!!!
You are 6 years old. Where did the time go? What a big man you are. I love that you are so independent and "grown up". I love that you are reading and that you read every sign and package you see out loud, to me. I love that nothing holds you back, that you always find a way to be included in everything. I love that you are a popular dude at school and in the neighborhood and that you do not abuse the priveledge. I love that when given the choice of a big honkin' birthday party with a magician and everything that you decided to invite a few friends to see a movie and go out for pizza instead (thus saving Mom billions of dollars and tons of work!) I do not love that I forgot to bring the camera to this event therefore missing out on the pictures of you and your friends brandishing imaginary light sabers all through the movie and dinner.
I love that you ask me "Do you know what?" and when I say "What?" you say "Chicken Butt." 1000 times a day. Thanks for that...

Happy birthday my little man in the middle.

I love you!!

A tribute to our missing kitty...

Dear Roxie,

We are so sad that you left home one day and never came back. We looked and looked for you and kept hoping you would return. Who will I drag around by the neck now and try to dress in doll clothes? Is that why you left? Please come back...I promise not to put those babydoll dresses on you ever again..

Love,

Ella

Zoo Frenzy

So today Ella gets up and says "Let's go to the zoo." We pack up our stuff and head over to Cosley Zoo which is a small local zoo.

After a brief stop to look at the duck feeding frenzy...

It was off and running...

And running...

"Hey...what's in there?"

oooo...horses...my favorite...

Hiding from Mom.

Ewww...don't touch the piggies...

And there you have it...our morning visit to the zoo which took exactly 10 minutes because she ran through the entire thing at full speed. But isn't she cute...

First day of school

Here are my boys on their way to the first day of school. Shawn is in second grade and Austin is in Kindergarten. They were so excited!

Beautiful Princess

Every night my daughter says, "Mommy, tell me the story about me when I am the beautiful princess that lives in a castle on the top of the mountain." And I do...

Happy Birthday Shawn!!

What? Your birthday was in April. Are you sure? Oh, that's right, you wanted to have a water party outside with your friends and it was too cold in April so we waited, and waited, and waited until the weather finally got warm enough. Of course, sometimes once you start waiting...it is hard to stop. So...happy birthday in August buddy.

Goofing around with buddies in the hot tub.

Playing on the water slide.Water balloon fights.

Pinata.

Cake.

and Dress Up?!?

Yes...the boys thought it would be funny to dress up in my daughter's dress up clothes and pretend they were "Grandmas". Of course I took pictures because some day, they will be teenagers, and I will need ammo baby...can't wait...

Catching up...

It's that time again...time to catch up on my blogging. Yes...I have been a reluctant blogger. You would think that nothing has been going on around here by my lack of blogging lately but really...it is just the opposite. I cant' believe that summer is gone... I can't believe that it is almost Halloween. Where does the time go really...

But...back to catching up...let's see...where did I leave off? Oh yes...we went on vacation in July (yes, I said July) then we came home and starting tearing up our house. Looking back I can see that this was not the smartest thing to do. We finally get away on vacation and all relaxed and then WHAM...come back and start destroying the house just so we can be stressed out all over again. Remind me not to do that next year...

But, we did tear out our enclosed porch and raise the floor up the level of our house. It was something we have wanted to do for so long now and with Austin needing to be able to get in and out alone, it was definitely time. Of course the project that was supposed to take a few weeks turned into the terminal project and is still going on. So here are some photos of it in progress.

And here is a photo of what my children had to do the whole time we were demolishing things. Poor things.

And here is what the room looked like after the floor was raised but before the flooring and windows were in.

I have yet to take a finished picture of it...oh wait...that is because it is still NOT finished. I wonder if there is a support group for people who always have to have some kind of unfinished project around their house. "Hi, my name is Becci and I have rooms with no trim."

I will take some photos of the room now so you can see where we are with it. It is close...so close...maybe by Christmas...

To the beach...

We're back from the beach and I thought you would like to see what I did all week. Yes...that is me...sitting with my feet in the sand doing NOTHING. I know, many of you have questioned whether that is even possible but I would like to assure you that...yes...I actually did this all week.
This is what our little plot of beach looked like. This was a private beach across the street from our house and it was lovely. When we arrived every morning there were no people out there. They trickled in throughout the day and the beach started to look like this about the time we were leaving. As it was, we got prime waterfront real estate so we didn't mind sharing the rest. The beach worked some kind of miracle on my children as Shawn learned to swim almost immediately upon arrival. He was like a fish in the water most of the time and spent the rest buried in the sand. I have no idea what that was about but he seemed to like it. The little Miss Ella was a riot on the beach. She went around stealing everyone's toys. She liked the water but kept getting knocked down when the little waves from the boats would come in. She had to be rescued a few times.

And then there is Austin. Talk about a fish...he wanted to spend all of his time in the water. He learned to float on his back, begged Tim to throw him as far as possible and learned how to fight his way up to the top and wait to be rescued. He also loved to be pushed in the water in his beach chair which floated pretty well also.
Of course when we were not on the beach...we were dancing on the beds...
Sitting out in front on the house waiting to go to dinner...which my husband made sure we did every night so I did not have to cool or clean up all week.

We did manage to take one day and drive up to our old stomping grounds at Big Blue Lake. It was fun to show the kids where we met and all of the places we love so much. It is especially fun to talk about how Mom and Dad used to date. My son Shawn wanted to know if that was "before" you had us and my son Austin thought it was gross that we were boyfriend and girlfriend back then. Then I really put him over the edge by telling him we kissed. That made him cover his ears and say "lalalalala".

Then it was on to ice cream at our favorite ice cream shop where the kids got to eat outside on the porch.

Here are my three favorite closeups from the trip. I might just have these framed!

All in all it was a great week and we were all sad to come home.