Otter Pops

What are a few of the things that remind you of summertime when you were a kid?

One of them for me is definitely Otter Pops. My mom would buy a big box of them at Costco every summer. I swear I would eat 10 of them a day. I remember her getting really mad at me because I would use her good kitchen scissors to cut them open and I would never wash them off so over time the scissors would get so sticky they would barely open. The other day I got a couple Otter Pops out of the freezer for the boys and I to enjoy. Don't ask me when we bought these because I think it was before we even had kids, but hey they still tasted good.

The boys both loved them and Owen was really good at sucking up all the juice.

Jack couldn't quite get the hang of sucking it like a straw, but Mama helped him out.

Jackanese

Jack has really started expressing himself so much more in the last few weeks So I thought it was about time to start posting about his cute words and actions.

Jack can say the following words...

Mama

Dada

No-No

Hi

Nigh-Nigh

Ah Oh

Maw = More

Mamo = Elmo

Ahh Duh = All Done

Jack can do the signs for - more, again and all done. He does his own sign for No-No which involves him pointing his finger and shaking it up and down.

The other day when I was reading an animal book to Jack he pointed to the goat and said, "Go". He also does the moo sound when we get to the page with the cows.

He can wave hello and bye-bye. He loves to blow kisses. Oh and his new thing is if I ask him to wash his hair, he does the actions for it.

I've been trying to teach him his body parts, but he doesn't really seem interested in that at all.

RIP BMW

Meet Owen's BMW...or affectionately known as BM to Owen. I bought this little car for Owen at Value Village for .99 a few months back. Owen loves his cars....that is he loves to play with them. That includes crashing them, sending them down the slide or off the dining room table. They are definitely well loved. Well about a week ago BMW had some major frame work issues. So Daddy decided to play mini car mechanic and see if he could fix him.

Michael got such a kick out of this mini car being "jacked" up that he had to take pictures. Of course it was lost on me being a woman and all, but I promised him I would post them.

Unfortunately even welding glue was not strong enough to bring poor BM back from the brink. He ended up in the trash after all. Nice try honey!

Working In The Backyard

On Sunday Michael did a bunch of work on the retaining wall in the backyard. Then on Monday night after dinner he decided to do some more work. The boys and I love being out there working and "helping" him.

The rock pile is an endless form of entertainment.

Dumping rock to start a new row for the wall.

Wall is getting taller.

Here's the back side of the wall. It will probably have two more rows after this one. After I took this picture Michael was doing some checking and realized the wall bowed a bit. So it's been taken apart a little in order to fix it.

These are the two buckets that we use to fill up with rocks. Today I decided I didn't want to sit on the ground so we used the buckets instead. The boys weren't sure what to think of that though.

I've been trying to teach Jack how to climb up the ladder for the slide that's in the front yard. I guess he was wanting to practice a bit more today.

Jack and Owen both have colds right now so Jack just wants to be held all the time. This is what I saw most of the day.

While Michael was digging he came across this big rock. I asked Owen to sit on it so I could take his picture. He wouldn't smile for me so I just started asking him to give me his different faces. This was his scary face.

This was his sleepy face!

This was his mad face! I think we need to work on expressing our emotions.

Why The Chicken Couldn't Cross The Road!

If you've been to my house a couple of times I'm sure you seen this funny chicken that I keep on a shelf in my kitchen. Most of the time it's on the floor though because one of the kids has either taken it down or I have brushed by it and it's fallen down. It's constantly on the floor. I don't know why I don't just throw the darn thing away. It's not really that cute! Anyways the other day I think Jack took it down and put it on one of the breakfast nook chairs and Michael unknowingly sat on the poor chicken.

RIP kitchen chicken!

13 Weeks

So I'm now in my 2nd trimester and I'm totally feeling it...better that is! The 2nd trimester is the best. I'm definitely not getting nauseous like I was before, my appetite has come back and I don't have to take a nap everyday. I'm also not getting up 3 - 4 times a night to pee. Thank you Lord! This wonderful bliss should last for the next 3 months or so. YAHOO!

I swear I look and feel like I'm 5 months pregnant when I'm only 3 though. I mean look at me!

I'm already HUGE!!!

Okay, okay I know that was an overstatment. I'm no where near as big as I'm going to get, but for only being 13 weeks along I'm pretty big. I'm now finding it harder to get dressed in the morning. My normal clothes are getting too tight, but my maternity clothes are still a little big. I've had to get creative with my clothing choices that's for sure. The only downsize so far has been this pain I get in my left hip and lower back. I'm sure I'll be making a trip to the chiropractor before too long.

Mmmm.....

Chicken, Spinach & Cheese Ravioli

1 pkg Costco's fresh Spinach & Cheese Ravioli

1 container Costco's fresh Alfredo Sauce

2 Chicken Breasts cubed and cooked in butter

4 Cherry Tomatoes diced (from my garden)

Parsley Flakes

The World's Smallest Corn Stalk

Have you ever seen an 8 inch tall corn stalk actually grow corn? I hadn't either. These are the corn stalks that I transplanted when my friend Steph and I thinned out my corn. We weren't even sure they would make it we just wanted to give them a shot to grow. I was totally shocked that they are actually producing corn. I mean soon the corn itself will be bigger than the stalk. Who knows if they'll even taste good!

Here is one of my normal sized corn stalks with my biggest corn on the cob. Yummy!

There are my pathetic onions! We bought them at Lowe's and unfortunately the roots were already growing together so we were afraid to separate them. We ended up just planting them in the bunches they came in. So they are all clumped together and are not getting very big. I think I'll try growing onions from seeds or blubs or whatever they are next year to avoid this problem.

As for the rest of my garden...my tomatoes are ripening. Now I just need to get my cousin's recipe for Pico De Gallo. My strawberry plants aren't producing much, but I've been told that's what they do the first year. My zucchini is growing just the perfect amount for us. I did end up having to pull all my lettuce and my peas because they were spent. I think I'm going to plant some more lettuce though so we can have another crop.

Prayer Request

I just saw this on one of my friend's blogs and I had to pass it on.

A family that I used to go to my church is in need. The mom is 20 weeks pregnant with her 6th baby. They just received news today that the baby has severe defects and may not survive birth. There is also a risk of Downs Syndrome. My heart is just aching. Would you please pray for them? The mom's name is Randi and her husband is Chad. Let's storm the gate of heaven with prayers for this family and their precious baby.

Tukwila Sprinkler Park (Tons of Photos)

A week ago my friend Carmen invited the boys and I to come with her and her daughter Alysha to the Sprinkler Park at the Tukwila Community Center. I had heard a lot about it, but had not made it down there yet. Oh how I wish I had been taking advantage of this all summer. Hello...it's free and refreshing!

Here was our little pad while we were there. I decided to just pack the lounge chairs and hauled everything over in the ATV wagon. It was really nice to have them...especially since Carmen is about to pop any day now! :)

Love this picture...Owen is so excited about the water coming out of the fishes mouth and look at Alysha lovin' her mama. So sweet!

There are three zones at the sprinkler park and they have to be turned on in order to work. Once they are turned on different sprinklers within those zones will go for a set amount of time and then it switches to other sprinkers. It keeps you on your toes and sometimes gets you wet when you weren't expecting it. I sure enjoyed getting my feet cooled down though.

Owen and Alysha checking out their shadows!

Jack enjoyed himself in the beginning. He missed his morning nap for us to come have fun...not a good idea! He liked trying to catch the water though.

Look at that happy face!

Of course Owen's favorite sprinklers were on the opposite side from where we set up our pad. I just made sure I kept a close eye on him. It was quite busy the day we were there since it was nice and warm, but at the same time it didn't feel really crowded since we were outside.

This was Jack's favorite part...the fish! He loved to try to plug the hole and in turn get Mama all wet. Stinker! :)

This is Jack telling the fish to turn back on.

Sometimes Owen doesn't really know what he's supposed to do until you teach him. It was fun watching him watch the older kids play and then see him mimic them.

Checking out the fun! Owen did really well for the most part. At one point he ended up taking another kids truck and playing with it. Once I told him he needed to give it back he lost it. Lesson learned bring toys!

Jack had just about had it at this point. He is going into total meltdown mode.

Some good snuggle toasty (as Owen calls it) time helps a little.

Yay...time to go home!

A Normal Day...

Enjoy seeing a normal day in my life. These boys are so much fun! Keep in mind that Elmo is Owen's and Jack knows that...he definitely knows how to push his brothers buttons. I thought it was kind of ironic the book that Jack brings me at the end is titled...Dear God Help! I had a good laugh about that one.

Book Worms

We LOVE books at our house. I'm always looking for good gently used books at Value Village or Half Price Books. We started reading to Owen when he was just days old and he's always loved it. Jack on the other hand really was NOT interested in them at all...until recently. After all that hot weather we had we had a week of cooler weather so we stayed indoors and read lots of books. Now Jack is a total book worm. He loves for me to read the same book over and over and over. The nice thing is he likes to just look at them too.

This is what I found when I came into the dining room the other day. I love it!

He saw me...time for Mama to read! Thankfully Owen didn't mind his book getting stepped on.

Long Time No Blog...

Have you missed me? I've missed my computer that's for sure. My wireless mouse started freaking out about 2 weeks ago and then last Friday it stopped working altogether. I am not one of those talented people that can use a touch pad mouse. Not only am I not patient enough, but I also have a tremor so I shake and that doesn't really work well with a touch pad mouse. So after completely resetting my computer back to factory settings my computer is now recognizing my wireless mouse again. It was definitely a trying experience, but at the same time the person helping me online or on the phone all the way from India was very knowledgeable and patient with me. This whole process took 3 days and he took care of me the entire time. After the first night HE was the one that was calling me back at a designated time to help me with the next step. I was really shocked by the level of service I was provided with. And to top it off his manager is going to be calling me tonight to make sure everything is still working according to my standards. Oh yeah and he even help Michael figure something out that was going wrong on his computer. So Dell is definitely still on my good side as of right now.

Anyways it's back to blogging...be on the look out for new posts!

Hoodlums

This last week the weather was a lot cooler than it was just a few weeks ago. It's funny how it can go from over 100 degrees to 60 degrees in such a short time. Not that I'm complaining 100 degrees was a bit much. We did get quite used to that hot weather though so since it was cooler the boys wanted to wear their coats to go outside. Of course they had to have their hoods up.

We had fun playing outside and digging up the veggies that had seen better days. Owen wanted to go over to our neighbors so I told him to go ring their doorbell and see if they were home. He did just that after double checking with me if it was really okay. I heard Vonda answer the door quite surprised and then I heard Owen say, "Hi Vonda!" He was so happy that she was home. After I finished pulling out the old lettuce Jack and I headed over there to hang out too. Of course Owen had scored himself some candy while he was there. We had been playing for about 10 minutes when Owen looked at Frank, Vonda's husband, and said, "All done Frank!" It was his way of saying okay I'm done here...let's go home. I love how he's figuring out how he wants to spend his time and telling me about it.

McQueen Couch/Bed

Last Wednesday I headed to my mom and dad's to clean there house. When I walked into family room I immediately noticed there was a new addition that was there the last time we were. The funny thing is Owen walked right by it! He was so focused on getting to the toy box and finding his little McQueen Car to play with he didn't even see it. After I noticed it and got all excited I showed it to Owen and he was a little unsure of what to do with it at first.

Yeah...that didn't last long! He was so excited he wouldn't sit down for me to get a good picture at first.



After Jack woke up from his nap I told the boys I wanted them to sit together so I could get their picture. Owen kept say, "Jack, sit together!" So cute!

The couch also folds down into a bed. The boys prefer to have it like this instead of set up like a couch. Of course it takes up more room!

Jack has chilling on the couch down to a science. He even has a car in his hand, but it looks like a remote control. Not sure what that look is on his face, but I imagine he's saying something like..."Hey mom...you're blocking the TV!"

Blog Help

Does anyone know why the top part of my blog (where the Pyzam part is) is freaking out?

Show Us Your Life

This week Kelly wants us to talk about our favorite vacation spots. My first is without a doubt San Francisco. We went earlier this year. To check that out click here, here, here and here.

Our first trip to San Francisco was in June of 2006 with our friends Micah & Kim. Micah had just started working for Alaska Airlines so he let us tag along and use some of his guest passes for the flight.


It was literally a 24 hour vacation, but it cram packed full of fun.

We went to Fisherman's Wharf.

Ate at the Crab Pot! YUM!

Visited Ghirardelli Square.

Rode on a cable car.

Saw the Golden Gate Bridge.

And took a cable car tour of the city. It was so much fun and at the time we didn't even know I was 4 weeks pregnant with Owen.

My second choice would be Disney World. Michael and I took this trip in May of 2006. We had purchased tickets to Denver for my cousins wedding, but then I miscarried and the doctors wouldn't let me fly. So as some sort of therapy we decided to turn the tickets in and take a vacation all by ourselves. We usually would go on vacation with family.

We bought a package deal where Disney did everything. They picked us up at the airport on this bus and took us to the hotel. We never had to rent a car. There were so many different modes of transportation for us to take.

When we got to the Magic Kingdom we went to City Hall and got Magical Wishes buttons since we were there during our 7th wedding anniversary. They are buttons you wear with Mickey and Minnie on them in their wedding wear. They get you lots of special treatment.

Like 2nd row seats to see Beauty & The Beast. This was probably my favorite part of the trip. I love the music. I'm sure I actually sang out loud along with the production and annoyed everyone around me, but I was in heaven!

We spent a lot of time at Epcot...loved all the food choices and the fireworks show!

We also went to the Animal Kingdom and went on a safari tour.

We ate at so many wonderful places because we signed up for the Disney Dining Plan...totally worth it! It's like eating the food on a cruise without having to get on a boat.

I can't wait to go back when the kids are older and will appreciate and remember it. The only part of this trip that was awful was the 6 hour flight home. I don't like being stuck on a plane that long.