Today At The Duck Pond

I have been trying very hard to keep my kids busy during the Summer. The boredom can creep on you so fast, that I've been forcing myself to get out of the house and do some fun stuff. Today, we met up with our friends The Travis' at our local duck pond. The kids were super excited to see all of the ducks and to feed them our hamburger buns. As Jovie says "The ducks were honkin' at us!" We walked on the trails for quite a while feeding them as we went along. Little Gavis was so cute with the way that he would conserve every little piece of bread (just like his Daddy!). My kids would just break the bread in two, and throw both of the big hunks into the water. We even found one with a crazy haircut! (Think Elvis).

The nice thing about this park is that there are lots of trails along a tiny stream, and also a huge playground for the kids to play on. We stayed for a lot of the morning, and probably would have gone for lunch afterward if Jovie wouldn't have taken a fall right as we were leaving. She managed to trip over a crack in the sidewalk and land straight on her forehead without any cushioning at all. It was one of the worst sounds that I had ever heard. Needless to say, she was very upset (so was I). The bump didn't swell right away, and looked pretty funky, so I decided to call her doctor right away. They told me to bring her in, but they couldn't get her in for another 2 and a half hours. I decided just to wait it out a little bit because I didn't feel like she really needed to go to the ER. She came away with quite the bruise, but she's OK now. On a good note, I finally found a tumbling/dance class for Jovie to join. It is a Mom & Tot class that will work perfectly into our schedule because it is only a mile away, and it is during Mikey's preschool class. We will be taking the class with our friends Gretchen and her daughter Lauren (I think our kids do everything together lol!) She's VERY excited to start "dancin school" in the Fall.

Kung Fu Panda

We went to see it yesterday with the kids and their friend Edward. Are you ready for my review on it? Here it is..... It was the BEST kids movie I have seen since Cars (nothing will ever compare to Cars in my eyes). They matched up the voices to the characters perfectly. Everyone knows that Jack Black is the voice for Po (the Panda), but nobody mentions that Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, and Lucy Liu are also in the mix. My kids have a very short attention span (thanks to their father lol!), and there was only a very short part in the middle of it where they seemed just a tiny bit bored. The fight scenes were simply awesome. Even if you don't have kids, this one is a must see. Mike and I found ourselves cracking up at most of the little jokes. Jovie has been running around all day saying "Hi.... YA!" and performing Kung Fu kicks. We even finally conquered the Kung Fu Panda Wii game yesterday. It was a complete family effort with Mike and I passing the tricky parts, Mikey passing all of the fighting parts, and Jovie offering moral support while annoying her brother at times.

Mikey's Trash Talkin'

Lately Mikey has turned into quite the cocky boy especially when it comes to video games.

Here are a couple of phrases we've been hearing from him...

"Dat bawl ain't 'elpin you any"
"You let a window open"

And our absolute favorite.....

"You wanna piece a hot dog" (we think he means "you wanna piece of this?")

A day at the bowling alley...

The Wii has become quite the addiction in our family. It has even stemmed to my mother who will stop by to "see the kids" and play a game of bowling with Mikey. He absolutely loves that his Grandma is willing to play a video game with him.
Last Friday night, my parents stopped by for a little visit. There has been an ongoing challenge between Mike and my mom as to who is the better bowler (I must say that my mom is actually quite good considering she never even mastered the workings of Mario...lol!). Anyhow, the challenge was brought up again and the Wii was broken out to test the strengths of all who were up to the challenge. Let's take a look at the competitors...
First, we have Grandma (sorry that this one is blurry). The thing to know here is that Mikey designed this Mii to match her COMPLETELY on his own. He did a pretty dang good job. Grandma was quite excited that during the five-game challenge she gained enough points to hit her Pro status and claim a new ball as her own.

Second, we have Mikey who for a four year old can really knock down those pins. He recently added some class to his Mii with the added freckles.

Now we have Grandpa. Once again, Mikey designed the Mii all by himself. We think that Dad looks more like a child predator in this depiction, so we're going to be making some changes. One thing that will stay is the mustache that has earned him the name of "Two-Turtle" since it looks like a turtle with two heads.

Last, we have Mike who designed his Mii himself. He also earned a new ball during the course of the game to which Mikey replied "That ball ain't helpin' you any". He's becoming quite the little trash talker.

The five game challenge came to an end with Grandma winning the whole shebang! What did that win her? An invitation over for dinner the next day when we cooked a Pork Loin in the "Big Easy" and some Dutch Oven Potatoes. It was quite yummy, and of course another Wii challenge followed (which Mike was the champion of).

Mikey's Growing Up

My sweet little boy is growing up. It's something that I've always had a hard time dealing with, but I know that I just have to get over it and live with it. Kids certainly don't stay little for too long, and I've tried to enjoy every moment of being a Mommy before I become just a Mom.

He proved to me that he's growing up today when I found him studying his arm rather intently. I watched him for a little while wondering exactly what he was looking at. After a few moments he looks at me (his eyes wide with excitement) and says... "Momma! Look! My fur is getting long like Dadda's!!"

One Busy Summer

This has been one very busy Summer for us. Between keeping the kids entertained, millions of illnesses (I may have exaggerated that one), and working on our yard.... we haven't had time to breathe. I thought that I would share some of the major highlights so far...

First, we finally moved into our new home. YAY! We have been lucky enough to finally have some good neighbors. Not to mention that we now live only around the corner from my Mom and Dad. The kids have really enjoyed playing with the neighbor kids, and walking up to Grandma and Grandpa's house. The yard is finally completed (at least for now..... a yard is always a work in progress). Here's an updated pic...

I am simply amazed by how quickly Michael has managed to get it done. He has put in a fence, built a shed, put in a sprinkler system, curbing, flower beds, and grass in less than two months. I will have to post pictures of our backyard later. He's even planted a couple of trees for us to enjoy. He has done a wonderful job, and our kids are loving it!

Mikey enjoyed a session of swimming lessons for the first time. He had a lot of fun, and learned how to maneuver around the water pretty well. One of his favorite parts was "jumping" off the diving board into the arms of his teacher. This pretty much involved me throwing him into the water because he would chicken out every time. He still doesn't care to put his head underwater, but that will come in time.

Jovie finally made the move to a big-girl bed. It was surprisingly easy. There was only one night of major tantrum, and she goes right to sleep in it now. Of course she had to bring her entire crew with her. Notice all of the "chicken bears" that she has lined up beside her, and also the pile of My Little Ponies that are tucked into the bottom. She has to have all 18 of them in bed with her before she will even consider going to sleep. Trust me when I say that she knows exactly where each and every one of those little suckers is, so there's no tricking her.

We took the kids down to Thanksgiving Point to visit the Dinosaur Museum. It was a blast, and the kids had a great time! While we were there we decided to watch a 3D movie. Here are some pics of the kids with their "birth control" glasses on.

The 4th of July was a fun day for us. The kids had been sick the entire week previous, so we weren't sure if we'd be able to do anything. We kept it pretty low-key. We took the kids to the Clearfield Parade in the morning. Jovie was really nervous because of all of the sirens, so she took a seat on Daddy's shoulders. Once the ponies showed up she was fine, and was diving for candy with all of the other kids.Later that day, Michael set up the blow-up waterslide for Mikey and the neighbor boy, Edward. They played on that for hours, and had a great time. Jovie went down a few times, but she got frustrated easily because she couldn't get her little legs up the climbing wall.

Instead, she enjoyed an ice cream cone. Which you can see she really got into...

Michael treated us to a "fried" Turkey that he made with his brand new Big Easy "oil-less Turkey fryer" . I must admit that I was VERY skeptical of it since you can't really fry something without oil right?!? However, it was very tasty and very crispy. Kudos to Mike!

Journaling

Welcome to our new blog! I'm realizing that I really need to journal the funny things that my kids do as they grow up, and this seemed like an easy way to do that while keeping in touch with our family and friends.