eyes

I couldn't resist. I had to post this picture we took after church - Macy's "eyes" from Nursery. After Jeremy picked her up from class, she ran into the Relief Society room, wearing her glasses and grinning, "Mama - Eyes!" and pointing to her new accessory. Love it!

take me out to the ballgame!

Jeremy and I started a tradition several years ago on a road trip to Denver over the Fourth of July: attending the Rockies baseball game. (Remember? I am married to a baseballaholic.) Pretty much every year since then we have gone to a baseball game either July 4th or July 24th.
After all, what's more American than baseball? This year we hit the Bees game. (Nice pun! I didn't even do that on purpose!) We had a great time with PawPaw, Gammy, Uncle Spence, Aunt Moey, Leini and Whitney, and the kids loved the bopper-noise-maker-thing-a-mabobs they handed out to the crowd.

mopping

Today Nolan found a CapriSun drink pouch in the frig. He came downstairs, where I was preparing for a meeting, and asked if he could have it. He even offered to sit at the table to drink it and share it with Macy. Well, of course I said "yes" with that offering! To my dismay, when I went upstairs to check on them a few minutes later, they had poured it (more like sprayed it) into two cups and then dumped it all over the floor. I had no idea how much square footage one drink pouch could cover! Besides that, before I got to it, they had walked in it and tracked it all over the rest of the kitchen floor that wasn't already covered. I did a quick clean-up. Talk about sticky! After lunch I mopped the entire kitchen floor during their nap/quiet time. Ugh, even though it needed to be done anyway, ugh.

Mopping is certainly not my favorite cleaning chore! Okay, so there are several chores that are certainly not my favorite: cleaning the shower, the toilet, ironing (ask Jeremy, he pretty much does all his own ironing).....I could go on! But I won't.

So, here's the question of the day, what is your LEAST favorite chore?

camp

This picture is one of the funniest things of our camping trip last week. I happen to notice Macy checking out a new friend in Daddy's shiny bumper. Too bad my camera is on its last leg - I missed the shot of her kissing herself and practically licking the bumper!

sunday

We took a few pictures before Church this morning.

So we were a little late for Sacrament meeting...

better late than never, eh?

super heroes

We have two super heroes that visit our house frequently.
Here they are in action....

And off they go.....

....to the rescue!

And then a collision in the hallway.

Thanks to Gammy for the great capes!

play-doh

Today Nolan told me that Karl Malonic (if you don't know Karl Malonic, look here) ate two whole containers of play-doh! Eeeew. Not so good. And his grandpa got eaten by a shark. Also not so good. By the way, Karl Malonic lives in Cincinnati now.

cross-country

Last weekend Nolan and I went with Jeremy to work. We flew to Chicago for a day, Cincinnati for a day and then back home on the third day. We had a great time, and actually made it to all of our destinations, which is a great accomplishment flying standby! (Too bad Jer doesn't always have this much fun on his work outings!)

Downtown Chicago

My favorite place in Chicago - Millennium Park,

a 24.5 acre downtown oasis.

Several giant steel sculptures live in Millennium Park. This one is my absolute favorite!

Nice skyline, eh?

Here's another great attraction in Millennium: a people magnet water feature that is bound on both ends by glass block towers. This picture doesn't show the water spewing out of this boy's mouth like a fountain!

Then water pours over the top.

Between the two towers kids run like crazy! (...even when a bride and her bridesmaids were posing for pictures in their fancy dresses in the water plaza, meanwwhile I overheard the groom nearby, "This is not a good idea!")

This place was amazing! It's a must-see if you're visiting Chicago! (Sorry, I probably get overly excited, no doubt due to the landscape architect in me.)

Self-portrait looking out toward Lake Michigan (downtown behind).

Jer left early the next morning for his work day, and we met up in the afternoon at the Cincinnati airport (which is actually in Kentucky??? Don't ask me!)

Here's Nolan waiting for the 9:30 a.m. flight, which unfortunately we didn't make! (remember, standby? sigh.) Thank heavens for the interactive children's museum-like play area in O'Hare! 5-1/2 hours in the airport with a four-year-old were actually bearable! (I forgot to mention that I left his backpack full of activities in the car in SLC....duh!)

Even with our four-hour delay, we made it just in time for dinner and swimming with my sister and her fam who made a 2-1/2 hour trek from Muncie, Indiana so we could meet up at our hotel.

We made it home because we caught the 6:10 a.m. flight Sunday. Keep in mind, we were two hours ahead of local time, which meant we woke Nolan up at 2:30 in the morning! He actually did quite well! Thanks, Nan, for watching Macy. She had a blast, too! This morning when Nolan woke up he asked me where Daddy was. When he found out he was at work, he burst out, "He forgot to take us!"

happy little plants

(This post is named in honor of Bob Ross, the painter that used to be on t.v. Do you remember him, or am I dating myself?)

I'm trying to expand my "greenie" thumb, meaning, I haven't had much experience caring for plants, just planning where they should go. We've slowly but surely started working on our yard. This is one of the first areas....the strawberry patch. We pulled out more sod to create a planting bed just for the berries and planted one of my favorite ornamental grasses Karl Foerster to help block some of the reflected heat from the house and keep them from burning. (They're on the south side of the house.)


We've also had a trouble spot in our garden that manages to grow weeds all summer long. It's only about 18 inches wide, and, up until yesterday, it was barren. I decided to try tome new groundcover this summer to see if it will help the problem.

It's called tricolor sedum, and, as you can see, it's obviously named for the green, pink and white. In case you're interested, there are several different kinds of sedum - some are more of a groundcover type, some will fit it better with your perennials. Some change colors throughout the season. All are drought tolerant and love the heat!

We'll keep you posted on our garden progress...so far, so good! (Well, that is except for the marigolds in the garden, which are still not doing well. On the positive side, we've only completely lost one of the sixteen! The others are dismally hanging in there!)

ears!

Macy made this lovely head-dress in Nursery at church Sunday -- "I'm thankful for my ears!". She left her "ears" on during class, walked all the way home, and made it to the kitchen before she took them off to eat. This is really an amazing feat for someone who doesn't like to leave her barrettes in for more than 15 minutes tops!

Oh, and this is Nolan pulling a face in the garage after we took Macy's picture......"Take one of me, too, Mom!"

"purse"nal enrichment

Last night was our Home, Family & Personal Enrichment night for our church. (It's a program for the women to enrich our lives, and we have meetings/activities at least quarterly.) I am part of the committee, and wanted to share this idea. It seemed to be a real hit and helped us have a great time together as sisters!

Here's the skinny: (Sorry the pictures aren't all the greatest...my zoom function isn't all that, and neither is the photographer, for that matter!)

We called it Home, Family, & "Purse"nal Enrichment and spread the word that everyone needed to bring their purse. Aren't these posters the greatest? (Compliments of the graphic designer Lisa on our committee.)

We started out the night with purse bingo. You had to find someone with a specific item in her purse and write her name on the square. This helped everyone mingle and meet other sisters.

Everyone had to weigh-in (their purse, that is). We gave out prizes later for the lightest and heaviest purses.

We followed with a version of the "Let's Make a Deal" game show, hosted by a member of the bishopric, who played the part to the tee! Everyone played for a variety of themed bags -- e.g. The Mommy Bag, the Girl's-Night-Out Bag, the Girl's-Night-In-Bag, the Book-Reader's Bag, the Sewer's Bag (which, incidentally, was a kit to sew the bag herself!)....you get the idea.

We wrapped up with an inspirational thought from the Relief Society President about how we all have different things in our hypothetical purse throughout different times in life. Sometimes our purse is heavy and sometimes it's lighter. All of our experiences are added to our purse and we carry it to help us with situations in the future....

To close, we had tea-party theme refreshments -- delectable cheesecakes, cream puffs, cheese ball and crackers and yummy fruit slush (I'll have track down the recipe and post it!)

These are the party favors -- little purses filled with sweet treats.

This is a long post, but I had to share the fun and the details!

jello legs

Tonight we went out for a bike ride, and I'm embarrassed to admit how much my legs resemble jello from such a short distance! We rode from our house to Lowe's for an errand then to Wendy's for, you guessed it, chocolate frosties. The kids had a great time in the bike trailer, as you can see (sorry it's a bit blurry; I took it with the screen down). Jeremy pulled the trailer (all 65+ pounds!) by the way, but I'm the one with jello legs!