It's only funny....

Until stool sample collection is required...

Silas has had diarrhea since Friday or Saturday - I called the doctor, told them about the turtle tank water drinking incident and they want to test for salmonella. If it tests positive, they will retest in a couple weeks to make sure it goes away (it should clear out of the system by itself).
Dr. W (aka Mr. Rogers) was really grossed out by Si drinking the water - apparently this is a first in the office.

So, we stopped and got the poop kit yesterday and now we're just waiting around to catch some and drop it off at the doctor's office.

Aren't you glad you read this blog?

Diego meets Duct Tape

"Duct tape is like the force: It has a dark side and a light side and it holds the universe together." - Carl Zwanzig

As usual, when I come home after leaving Justin in the house alone with the kids, there is typically something that has been broken, fixed and/or jimmy rigged. It has bugged him that the Go Diego Go Rescue pack that Si has does not have any straps on it. When I got home from book group Sunday night, it had straps. I didn't ask how long it took for him to construct these strap (none of the kids were bathed at 8:45pm so I figure it must have taken him quite awhile).

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
A few more pictures from our swimming weekend at Beth and Greg's. If you can't tell from all the pictures, we go over there and swim a lot. That's why we aren't allowed to call the James family or go within 200 yards of their property from around Labor Day until December 1st. They are SICK of us :)

oh, how I love toddler toes!

Do Other Moms Feel Like This?

Tonight was book group night - Anytime I am heading out without the husband and kids, I always feel like ugh...I have to get ready to go...have to make sure that I have dinner planned out (something easy for Justin to prepare or just serve up). There is a part of me that feels like I shouldn't be leaving them for the 3 - 3.5 hours that I am gone. (This is no reflexion on Justin and his ability to take care of the kids - it's apparently just "mom guilt". I could vanish from the planet tomorrow and he'd have it all under control. He'd make a really good SAHM/D if given the opportunity).

That guilty feeling usually lasts about the first 2 minutes of a 20-25 minute drive and then I am giddy with excitement about my time with the girls (and Mark - our lone male member who pumps us full of chocolate!). I take my iPod in the van and flip though until I find "the" song that seems to hit my mood of the moment. Today, with it being warm, sunny and summer - the song was Offspring - Come out and Play. I am one of those that sings and dances in the car (especially doing 65 mph on the highway) without much concern for who might see me (red lights are a different story). There are those fleeting moments when I think I must look like a goober, or a 38 year old mom, driving a not-so-cool minivan, that has lost touch with reality - but then I figure -Who cares?! This is MY time and I am not listening to Laurie Berkner, Hannah Montana or sibling fights! Life is good in the car with my iPod!

So book group was great, as it always is, and it was my night to make dessert. I brought Angel Food Cake with/ Lemon Cream and blueberries - it was very yummy and super easy. Most of us read Child 44 and really liked it. For next month we are reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Here's a picture of the girls from back in December - Patty, Marilyn, Donna, Danielle, Me and Susan (this was at my birthday dinner).


Somehow tonight we got to talking about family trips and long drives. I was reminded of the time that Justin, Mason and I were making a drive to New York to see Grandpa J. Mason was only about a year old. We decided it'd be easier if we left at night so that Mason would sleep all the way there. We packed up the car and hit the road around 1 a.m. or so - got to the first rest stop and we were so tired that we fell asleep in the teeny, tiny Honda Civic for about 5 hours - while less than 20 minutes away was our apartment and nice cozy beds - we have not tried the night driving thing since. We know we suck at it!

___________________________________________________________

The rest of the weekend has consisted of hanging out on patios, swimming and I started working on getting the basement cleaned out - going through totes and totes and more totes of kid clothes and stuff that just needs to be donated, tossed and passed along to someone that can get good use out of it!

Mason had his first real boy/girl party at Sarah's Pool Party on Friday night

Here is Mason and his old friend Alex (that he doesn't get to see too often now because they go to different schools.)

And Sarah, Mason and Alex on the first day of 2nd grade 6 years ago!
Have I mentioned that time flies??

I am grateful for weekends like this one - lots of friend and family time, lots of work done around the house and happy to have gotten my ME time too.

Happy Friday!

Yippee! I'm ready for another weekend! Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous day out so I took the laptop and phone onto the deck and worked. The glare was a little hard on the eyes, but that is a small price to pay for enjoying some sunshine. I do love my job!

Silas was loving the nice day too - he occupied himself with his dump trucks and tractors in the dirt pile for a while before dinner - he definitely needed a good scrubbing before we ate!

Here are all the Fresh Face pictures that Melissa took of Ella and Silas:

One of Silas' pictures will be on Melissa's new marketing brochure. She really does great work!!

This weekend is looking pretty low key - I am hoping to finish my book group book (Child 44) before we meet on Sunday. I'm so close! But even when NO ONE reads the book, we manage to keep ourselves occupied with other discussions (aka Gossip) and wine.

TGIF!!

Arm update

We went to the arm doctor today - the short cast is on! It is waterproof so swimming and showers are back on the agenda. There is a chance that the cast will come off in two weeks - which would be great since we will be taking our beach trip right after his next appointment. Mason is so excited to be able to bend his elbow again and to shower instead of taking a bath with his arm wrapped in duct tape and garbage bags!


This was Si this evening with his baby.

And Si sitting by the window doing his etch-a-sketch toy. I love when he sits by the window - so cute

Other appointment updates:
Mason's 13 year check up went fine - he's 55th percentile in weight, 70ish% in height. He had 2 shots which didn't make him very happy.

My dentist and ortho appointments also went just fine - we are getting very, very close to having these torture mechanisms taken off -a few more weeks.
We are shelling out a lot of $$ for healthcare this year!

Ewwww....gross!

We have the Yertle tank on the kitchen counter right now until Justin can get it back to Mason's room. Ella and Si were having fun watching him this morning and then Justin let them pet the turtle-dude.

Justin left to do some work stuff and a few minutes later I look over to see Silas dipping his hands in the water, and then drinking it - GAG! How gross is that (enlarge the photo and you'll see how gross)?!

Justin ate a worm once when he was a kid so I guess it could be worse...

Medicine cabinet

Justin got all itchy and had a few hives today - not sure why - no new food, lotion, soap, etc. Anyway, I gave him Benedryl from our medicine cabinet. I sat the box on my desk and noticed hours later that the expiration on the box was 2/2008 - not too bad...except on closer inspection the 8 is a 3 - it expired in February 2003! How in the world is this still in my medicine cabinet? That was 2 children and one move ago!
I was most likely nesting in 2/2003 (Ella was born in March '03) but obviously never nested as far as the medicine chest!

What were you doing in February 2003??

Another weekend

bites the dust! Why do they go SOOO fast??! The kids got to swim a ton this weekend - it was too hot to do anything else! Ella can do flips in the pool now.



Justin got his hair cut yesterday - very, very short - a 2 all over. When Silas saw him he said "I don't like you hair, go put you hat on" - what a rotten little thing he is!

Silas was rubbing his eyes yesterday afternoon (because he refused to take a nap again and was exhausted) - Justin said to him, "ah, you must be a sleepy boy, you need a nap" - To which Silas replied "I no need nap! I need eye-drops!"

Rotten as he is, my favorite memory this weekend was him coming downstairs Saturday morning and before I saw him, I heard his little voice say "Good Morning Mommy" and then saw him dragging his blankie down the steps. What a doll baby!

Look at what a good girl Zoe is...

Miss Ella hugging her favorite tree

Why you should always look in the fruit bowl before reaching in...

Silas doesn't like the skin...

This is our dilapidated Martin birdhouse. The sky was such a beautiful color last night.

I just love these snap peas - but I snapped too hard pulling one off today and broke the stem. It still has a baby pea pod on it so, I decided to put it in a vase of water to try to save his little pea pod life (so that I can then eat him...)

We have lots of doctor appointments this week. I have an appointment with the orthodontist this afternoon - I'd better get some good news! Mason goes for his annual check up tomorrow and then his arm looked at on Wednesday. We hope that he gets the short, waterproof cast then too! That will make life easier!

A funny cartoon I had to post - this is SO something that would happen around here!
Click on it to make it bigger Mom!

Have a great Monday!

Happy Birthday...

to Uncle Tim!!

He spent the day with my husband and Steve working on my parent's new sliding glass door/window swap. Probably not the most exciting way to spent his birthday but much appreciated by my parents, I'm sure!

My Little Fishies

We have had a great week for swimming - very hot and humid with no storms.
Here are a few pictures of my swimming fishies:



Mason put his blue arm thing on so he can swim with his cast - it's harder than heck to get on but it kept the cast completely dry!


And a video of Ella really swimming!! By George, I think she's got it!

My Husand Swings Both Ways...

between the Indians AND Yankees that is. He grew up in Upstate NY as a Yankees fan, moved to Cleveland in middle school and became an Indians fan and we've been Indians fans forever.
It appears that now he is finding his inner Yankee-ism again and I cannot say that I am happy about it. This is what happens when I'm out of the house (I'm sure Grandpa J will love this...). Personally, it makes me want to file for sole custody...or maybe I'll just become a Denver Broncos fan this NFL season (the team any loyal Browns fan loathes)...




__________________

On a side note (or maybe I was passive-aggressively trying to punish my husband), I broke a personal record today for the longest time spent at Target in a single visit. When I was checking out, the lead cash register guy (the one that walks up and down the check-out isles and makes sure all lines are flowing smoothly) stopped short when he saw my stuff piled on the check out counter and exclaimed (and I quote) "HOLY Mackerel!" and then started bagging my stuff for the poor cashier. I'm not sure if I should be proud or hightail it back for a 2nd round of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace classes.

This is how I know I say a phrase too much

As Justin was leaving for work yesterday...

Ella: why is dad going inside?
Me: he probably forgot something
Ella: Like what?
Me: His phone, I dunno, it's hard to say
Ella: Man, everything is hard to say for you.

MORE Happy Happies!

July is a very happening time in our family!

Cousin Tyler's 10th Birthday was yesterday - Happy Birthday!

Ty-ty (aka Tara) and Steve are celebrating an anniversary today - I believe it's 30 years - I'll have to verify that!

And Grandpa J and Rob are both celebrating birthdays today as well - Happy Birthday to you both - we love you!!

55 Years!

My Parents have been married for 55 years today!!! Isn't that AMAZING!! Here are a few pictures of them over the years...

A few quotes I thought they'd appreciate :)
"It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life." ~Rita Rudner

Mom is a Robert Redford fan:
"Infatuation is when you think he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford - but you'll take him anyway." ~Judith Viorst, Redbook, 1975

An anniversary is a time to celebrate the joys of today, the memories of yesterday, and the hopes of tomorrow.
~Author Unknown

Happy Anniversary - we love you!!

Weekend Update

We spent a low key evening at home on Friday, anticipating a jam-packed Saturday of events. Well, Saturday morning I woke up at 6am - sicker than a dog. Stomach pain, diarrhea (or my butt pee-peed as Silas says - sorry to be gross!) and I was miserable. I laid in bed as long as I could but then had to take the kids to get their pictures taken for Melissa's Fresh Face contest. (To see the contestants and vote, click here )
We were there for only about 20-25 minutes but I barely made it home alive...
Here is one of Melissa's pictures of Silas - man, he looks like such a big boy here!

The real bummer from Saturday is that we had plans to go out with all our friends for Jodi's 40th (I mean 30th) birthday celebration - we were going to dinner and a little bar hopping out at Easton and then we had rooms at the Hilton for the night. Well...I tried to be a trooper - I showered - crawled back in bed - got up and put make-up on...crawled back into bed. We never made it and I'm so sorry that we missed all the fun :(

While I was sick in bed, Justin was bored (or trying to make me feel guilty) and cleaned out the atrocious mess of a toy box in the living room, and did some decluttering of the house - it was almost worth being sick just for that. He also took one of the crib sides off of Si's bed and put the rail up - so now Si has a "big boy bed" that he is very proud of.

Today I woke up feeling better, but didn't feel "normal" until about mid-afternoon. It was a gorgeous day out so we took the kids to the school to play and then played outside for awhile. Here are a few pictures from the day.

Mason and Ella - this is Ella's rock star face. She makes this face when she plays air guitar too.


Zoe enjoyed laying around in the grass while the kids weren't tormenting her. And Ella again - she decided she didn't need a shirt since Silas didn't have one on...or it could have been the other way around.


This tree is in our backyard. It's a Canadian Cherry and I love it. It gets beautiful, fragrant flowers in the spring and then the leaves turn this deep red by summer. Here is Miss Boo going down the slide backwards.


We had our own little Fresh Face contest...Fresh Full of Mosquito Bites - Ella got eaten up AGAIN! This picture is the epitome of summer - bug bites, dirty face, rosy cheeks, mangy hair




Siley J. being his rotten little self...with the smile that typically gets him his way.


We checked out the garden while we were out. The snap peas are climbing like crazy and we've got a million flowers on the cucumber vines. We picked some of the cherry tomatoes- they are juicy and sweet!

Here's a snap pea shooting up

And Ella inspecting the tomato plants

This is a random picture of Ella and Silas in their new flip flops. Silas is completely obsessed with flip flops so I went to the dollar store and this is all I could find. At least his are the blue ones...

And that wraps up the Weekend Update...have a great week!