Chicken Nuggets

Are just a means in which to obtain ranch dressing.


James loves any type of dip. Usually we only give him ketchup but when we had Wendy's for lunch, he got his own chicken nuggets (with ranch).


He ate two nuggets and an entire package of ranch dressing.


Since the thought of eating a large spoonful of ranch kind of makes my stomach quiver, maybe from now on we will just stick to the ketchup.

Bye Bye Pool

Even though today temperature was a stifling 114 degrees, we decided last weekend it is about that time to take down Old Blue. The boys really haven't been swimming nearly as much as they had been and if we want to be able to save it for next year we wanted to get it down before grass starts growing through the liner.

Plus Mike and I are really starting to miss our little yard.


We started last weekend by draining the pool. This was no easy task considering our yard is about the size of our living room and the pool holds roughly 4,000 gallons of water.
We decided to drain a little a day and as the water soaked in we drained more.


Marcus decided to go for one last dip in the halfway drained pool.

To my horror, on Tuesday I went outside to find Jason and Nathan both "helping" by pushing down the sides of the pool to drain water in the already completely flooded yard. The water flooded not only our yard but both of the neighbors as well.

I was too embarrassed to go let the neighbors know what happened. I have never met our only remaining next door neighbors and I am hoping that the handicap placard hanging in their minivan means that they never use or look at their backyard to notice it. If they did we probably aren't their favorite people.


Now our pool looks like this. We have to keep flipping it to get it completely dry. Hopefully tomorrow we can pack it all up and pull back that blue tarp to reveal the huge brown circle of dirt underneath. At least we will be able to mow again.


And I will be able to plant my new gardenia plant. I need to hurry and get it in the ground before I kill it. Not that I won't kill it when it's in the ground but still. You get the idea.

Extra, Extra!

Read all about it!


Jason is the head of the school newspaper!

He tried out to be part of the paper at the beginning of the year by writing an article on Michael Vick. You might have heard of him. He had to interview for the job and by golly, he got the head job!

I'm such a proud mama.


In other news, this is the face Jason makes when I tell him don't smile. But I have to say it like, "dooooon't smiiiiiile".


So whenever I want him to smile in a picture I just say don't smile and he just can't resist.

In case you didn't know

Babies feet are shaped like bricks.

They have funky toenails that curl outward.

They don't have any hair on their feet.

Not sure about other babies but my baby does not have visible ankle bones.



Babies have a hard time finding shoes that will accommodate brick feet.

This baby likes his toes popped.

Baby feet are amazingly soft

Baby feet can stink too.

Feeling Recharged

That is us today. We did nothing this weekend and it was amazing. You really have to do that every once in a while. It keeps you sane.

Saturday my mom and Stan came over for dinner and a movie. My talented husband made us ribs. Marcus said one of his ribs looked like a meat flag. Hmm. I made homemade macaroni, and my mom and Stan brought over a five pound chocolate cake. That is true love right there.


We bought a new clock. One to replace my favorite clock that Marcus broke while jumping on the couch. Sad.


We sat on the couch and watched lots of tv.

We ignored the boys as they played tag in the house.


Mike studied for fantasy football. Our draft is next weekend!

We didn't do laundry.

We didn't go grocery shopping.

We did go to bed early.

I don't know why we don't do this more often!

Boys are awesome because

They can go from sad and/or angry


To laughing hysterically, with the sound of one PERFECTLY NORMAL bodily noise.

Pool Party Play Date

Yesterday my friend Amanda brought over her three girls to come hang out with us. Amanda is a friend of mine from work and only lives about twenty minutes away. Compared to my other work friends we are practically next door neighbors. The kids spent the afternoon in the pool and had a great time.


Sophia is only a few months older than James and she is just a sweet little doll. She makes me almost wish I had a little girl. Almost.

I was kind of worried since the boys can be so dang wild, but the girls were able to handle their rabidness.


The boys taught them how to play marco polo and only had to be told to stop being so wild three times.


Brianna mostly clung to the sides of the pool but she was definitely up for all the boy games. She had a little wild side to her too.


Kaiya mostly stayed out of the way of the boys. She was an awesome tube spinner.


Sophia (my little baby doll) and James got to play in inflatable ball pit with some water in it. James had a blast in there and I think he kind of freaked out Sophia with all his wild thrashing and screaming like a banshee.



Sophia was so super shy she wouldn't go near me at first. I even tried bribing her with chocolate milk! By the end of the night she was my buddy though and even sat right next to me while we played Dragon Warrior.



We had tons of fun and the kids played so good together. James is usually not very nice to kids his own age and tends to be a bully. He was good with Sophia and only threw a toy at her once. She was tough though. The girls were super polite and called me Miss Becca all the time. They even got the boys to play kings and queens with them!

I love play dates.

The Congratulations Cracker

That is what Marcus called his self declared reward for finishing his first official homework assignment. No more kindergarten, first grade is tough!

His homework was to write his ten spelling words seven times each.

It only took him four hours.

It's going to be a long year.

Can they build it?

Yes they can!

This past weekend was a big one for Mike. He was asked to build a temporary wall at my mom's house for my aunt and uncle. They are going to be moving in with her for a while and wanted to make one of the living rooms enclosed to make a bedroom for them. Mike is not a carpenter and has never built a wall before but he was pretty sure he could do it.

We headed on down to their house around noon on Saturday. My mom and I took bets on how long it would take for him and Stan to build it. I guessed around four hours, and my mom guessed nine.


Three hours later

I knew I was going to lose the bet when the MEN took two hours just to buy the supplies. I think they were secretly just enjoying themselves perusing the aisles of Home Depot.


The start of the wall is born.


Four and a half hours in the bones were in place.


Seven hours later the drywall was on and there was an official wall!


View from the other side.

It looks pretty dang official to me. Mike knows about every little flaw in the wall and it just eats at him I can tell. But everyone else was impressed.

It was no easy task to keep James occupied the whole day while the boys were building. The big kids were having a great time watching youtube videos and playing video games. My mom even had a special dinner planned for them.


They got to cook their own meals. They cooked shrimp, hotdogs, broccoli, ham, and sausage. This kept them entertained for a looong time and in fact I am now in the market for one of these little fondue-ish type grills. Anyone know what the heck they are called?


Entertaining James was a little harder. He always enjoys outdoor nudity so we let him do that for a while. He got mud in every possible crevise while he was gardening in the mud, and seemed quite pleased about it.


He helped Grandma and Nathan make a nice shady home for their turtles.



After all that, which was only about 1.2 hours of activity we decided it would be easier to just hang out at Walmart for a while. James had fun pushing the cart and running away from me as fast as he could. That boy is dang fast for a little chubby kid.

It was finally time to go home just before midnight. Wall was built and some other minor projects were completed. We had taken out our middle row of seats in the van so Mike and Stan could fit the drywall in. I thought I would save time and put the seats back in and get it ready.

Not a good idea.

Apparently there is a difference between the left seat and the right seat. And apparently you have to install the front of the seat before the back of it. I screwed it all up. After trying to "undo" my installation error for an hour we gave up. The three older boys rode in the back bench seat, James rode in the front seat with the airbag disabled, and I got to ride in the death seat that wasn't installed properly and didn't have a functioning seat belt. Thank God we all made it home in one piece and Mike was able to fix the seats in the morning.

He is so darn handy.

I See Him

Just when I think he is turning into a moody tweenager. When I see him so often walking around the house moping or angry at everyone. He turns around and does something like this.

And I see my sweet little Jason again.

Last night I had a terrible migraine. You know one of those ones where if you see bright light you might just throw up, literally. Jason looked after his brothers and cleaned up the kitchen for me without even asking. What a sweetheart.

I am such a lucky mom to have such a sweet little boy.

Yard Sale

This weekend all the ladies of the family decided to make some money having a yard sale. Everyone seems to be moving and it seemed like the perfect time. Since my aunt just moved out of her house and it was empty we decided to have an indoor yard sale. We dragged ourselves out of bed at 4am, pumped ourselves full of Starbucks Frapuccinos, and started peddling all of our treasures.

We had an entire house full of stuff. It's crazy how much people will offer you for stuff. Some people seem to think that nothing should be valued at more than a quarter. Brand new shirt with tags? One quarter. Wireless printer? One quarter. They look so shocked when we told them no. Then there were the thieves. Someone stole some pillowcases, a translator, and some VHS tapes. How ridiculous is that??

By the second day of waking up at 4am we were pretty beat. My aunts even had a hard time trying to figure out how to get the radio to work.

It was a very successful yard sale. We had tons of people come by. Next time maybe we could have my dad work security to deter the crooks.

Totally Gross and a Sneaky Little Boy

Okay this first part is gross and it may make you think twice before making potatoes again. I was getting dinner ready before it was time to go pick up the boys from school this afternoon. Just peeling some potatoes for a casserole when I got to a little brown spot. You know those occasional icky spots on potatoes. So I started peeling out the brown spot when all of a sudden I saw a real dark spot that was wriggling. It was a pincher bug!

ICK!
I hurled the the peeler across the room and dropped the potato so I could properly do the bug dance.

Upon closer inspection I realized that the bug was wriggling because I peeled it's pincher off. Notice the digusting slime that leads from the bug to it's pincher.

I am not sure if I will ever eat another potato again.

While I was on the phone consulting my mom about her potatoes and asking if hers ever have bugs (no), one sneaky little boy decided to get into the cabinets.


He made confetti out of all the sandwich bags.


It was way more fun then examining the bug innards.

First Day of School

An anxious night of sleep

A futile attempt to claim a stomach ache

Eggo waffles for breakfast


Flashy new backpack


Preppy new school clothes


A long sweaty walk


Cross seven lanes of traffic (which is why mom comes everyday too)


Check out the new fancy playground complete with rock climbing wall

All adds up to one perfect first day of school

Complete with no tears