Or maybe several….. No, not Matt and I…. But I bet I got your attention! LOL Our new kitty who adopted us appears to be plumping up quite a bit. I believe she has some kittens in there. However, she has been missing today. So either she is hiding getting ready to have her kitties, or she went for a long walk or…who knows. We’re hoping she comes back. We’re starting to get attached to her.

Not too much is happening around here. The boys have been playing outside, enjoying the summer. I have been brainstorming about a couple new web-sites that I will be developing soon. I actually have four new sites on the back burner! Two of them will be with my online friend Susanne. We already run www.healthymenumailer.com together and we are working on a couple of sites to support our affiliates. (Those who advertise our sites for us), The other two fun domains I bought are MyFavoriteThingsOnline.com and MommysLittleChef.com Those are not online yet. Oh, and I have had PastorsFamily.com for awhile as well. (I guess that makes five.) These are all still in development and are not active yet, so don’t bother trying to visit them. I’ll let you know when there is something worth looking at.

Dane’s newest word is “okay” much nicer than “no”. He really likes to swing these days. I’ll have to get some pictures of our new swing-set and the boys enjoying it. I tried the other day but they didn’t turn out.

Christian is walking around doing his normal imaginative play. He is so fun to listen to.

Ryan at the moment is downstairs – either watching T.V. or playing computer games – not sure which.

Matt is napping (although he claims he is thinking about his sermon, but I can hear him lightly snoring….)

I hope everyone is doing well!

C-

Those words were music to my ears today…Dane has been crabby for a couple weeks now. (Maybe it has been a month!?!) I’m not sure what the scoop is. He was a little bit better while Nana, Papa and Kevin were visiting, but today was just terrible. He wanted to be held constantly by only me. (which makes it a bit hard to get anything done.) Even in Wal-Mart and the grocery store he wanted to be held. I felt for his two year molars and there is nothing there yet. I had the Dr. check him out and he is fine. So I think he is just in the frustrated can’t talk but trying to communicate stage. AKA: The I’m almost 2 stage. I don’t think Christian went through much of this at all, but with Ryan from 18 months – 3 he was a handful. I think we are in for the same with Dane. Anyway, this evening around 6:30 he had been crying almost constantly for two hours and I was starting to get quite frustrated when all of the sudden he comes out and says “I want bath”. Halleluiah I finally know what he wants! So I plopped him in the tub and he played for about 30 minutes. Then he says “I want out”. YEA! He is finally starting to communicate!

Let’s see… Saturday our little town had Fun Days. We went to the parade. Here are the boys waiting for it to start. They have their bags in hand ready to collect candy. (It was like Halloween, they did quite well.)

Then we had a picnic lunch in the park with food from Dairy Queen. Then we went over to the little kids area. They had pony rides, an inflatable slide, a rock wall, and a bounce house. My parents got pictures of all that action, so hopefully they will send those to me when they get home.

Here is Dane on the way home – enjoying his candy and sleeping at the same time.

Here is a picture of the church I took from the car on the way home. You can see the corn starting to grow up. Our house is just to the right of the church. I’ll have to post a picture of that another day.

Sunday we had church of course. Then we feasted on a 21 pound picnic ham that I threw into the oven before we went to church and it was ready around 2:30. Okay, so we didn’t eat the whole thing. I have several packages in the freezer. It was definitely the biggest ham I had ever cooked. Then in the evening we had the youth group boys over (there are only boys in the youth group at this point of time) and they enjoyed a bonfire, snacks and a movie. I’m sure Matt threw in some Bible Study and discusssion as well. Kevin joined them also.

Monday my family hit the road. The week they were here seemed to go by really fast. It was a nice relaxing visit. We were all sad to see them go, but so glad they were able to come out. Here’s the final farewell picture right before they left.

Monday afternoon Ryan and Christian had doctor appointments to have their school entrance physicals. Ryan was 3 ft. 10″ and 51 pounds. Christian was 3 ft. 5 1/2″ and 41 pounds. Christian also had to have his Kindergarten shots. Apparently they do that at age 4 now days. Ryan had his at 4 as well. Christian was such a trooper! He didn’t even cry. He squeezed daddy’s hand real tight and I tried to distract him by holding up 3 suckers and asking him what flavor he wanted and what flavor his two brothers should get. You could tell in his eyes that it hurt, but he was so tough. I was very proud of him.

Monday evening brought haircuts….. But guess what? I was able to convince Matt to not cut Dane’s hair! He got a tiny trim, but other than that it is still long and very white. YEA!

Here are Pics with our newest member of the family – Snickers She is the best kitty! She just showed up on our porch a few weeks ago and she hasn’t left. (After a little food of course) She is really good with the kids and is very friendly. Definitely a keeper!

And here’s Christian just for good measure.

Okay, that’s it for now.
C-

I finally took some time this afternoon to update the links area on the side-bar of the blog. I am sure I will add more as time goes by, but I added some of my favorite places on the net there today. You can have a glimpse of where I spend some of my time when I have free time on the computer. (HMMM, that doesn’t happen all that often!) Enjoy surfing!
C-

Yesterday we had a fun trip to Champaign. We visited Toys R’ Us, as Nana & Papa had promised, and both Ryan and Christian got to pick out their birthday presents. Ryan choose Game Boy Games (of course) and Christian choose a big red crayon piggy bank, an outside rocket thing you stomp on and it flies up in the air, and this funny little guy thing that makes music. Dane got the Little People Carnival Set – which all the boys have been playing with. We ate a late lunch at Ryan’s (which is like Old Country Buffet or Golden Corral) but we think Ryan’s is a great name! Then we headed over to Sam’s Club for a bit. (which is like Costco). We came home and relaxed and played with the new toys. I stayed up way too late doing the Sudoku puzzles that I picked out as part of my birthday present at Sam’s Club. Have you ever tried those before? They are adicting! They are kind of like number crossword puzzles. Our local paper has one every day – you might find one there, or I’m sure you could print some off from online as well. Just do a search at google or yahoo for “printable sudoku”.

Today we just sat around doing guess what? Sudoku! We had a thunderstorm this morning. The lights flickered a bit, but it wasn’t near as strong as the one we had a few weeks ago. The kids played and we just relaxed. I took a nap for a couple hours as I stayed up too late last night. I think I will jump in bed now so I don’t stay up way too late again tonight.

C-

Yesterday I spent the day cleaning and Matt trimmed trees in the backyard. My parents and Kevin made it here last night around 6:15 p.m. or so. I can’t believe they made that drive in three days! The kids of course are very excited to see them. We had a nice dinner off the BBQ and then spent the evening in the yard watching the boys play and catching lightning bugs. Great fun! The boys didn’t get into bed until almost 10:00 p.m. I am surprised they aren’t crabbier today. I’m sure they’ll be tired by this evening. Today we are just relaxing and chatting. (Nana, Papa, and Dane are actually napping at the moment.) Tomorrow we plan to go to Champaign to Toys R’ Us as Nana and Papa promised! (The kids aren’t going to forget that promise!)

This evening Matt and I and possibly the boys (we’ll let them decide if they want to come or stay home with Nana & Papa) are going to a BBQ hosted by a couple from the church. My Chocolate Eclair Torte that I am bringing is half-way finished. YUM!

I’ll try to get some more pictures posted soon!

I hope all the dad’s had a great Father’s Day today! My dad is on the road on the way here to visit. They should be here either tomorrow or Tuesday. I guess I better clean house tomorrow!

We of course had church this morning. Thankfully the church has the video of the service available downstairs because I haven’t made it through a sermon yet in the sanctuary. They don’t have a nursery so generally after the children’s sermon he head downstairs for the remainder of the service.

After church we came home and I made Belgian Waffles for brunch. Then Matt and Dane took a nap. Then we jumped in the car and headed to Champaign – one of the main shopping areas that is about an hour away. We stocked up at Sam’s Club. (Like Costco) Then we headed over to the mall and Ryan and I jumped out and ran into Stride-Rite. His tennis shoes had suddenly become too small and they really stunk! (I had the store clerk throw them away once we had the new ones on.) LOL He tried on shoe after shoe after shoe. I think he tried almost everything that was available in his size. Boy that kid is picky in the shoe department! I wanted to get him sandles but we were too late in the season to get those. So he finally chose these: Reptile Shoes. It’s kind of hard to tell but they have eyes on them. LOL They’re pretty fun. (I was going to say cute, but that’s not the word to use for BOYS I guess.) Once we got out the door there the mall was closing.

We headed over to the Chineese Buffet for dinner. (Matt’s choice for Father’s Day). It was a fun place and we all ate way too much. Even the boys chowed down. We came home, unloaded and plopped the boys in bed.

Nothing too exciting happening here today. It was very warm – stayed around 96 all afternoon. We’re thankful to have air-conditioning! Ryan and Christian played in their pool and Dane stood under the water faucet. We have one of those pull up the handle type like they have at campgrounds. So he has figured out how to pull that up and cool himself off.

Matt visited a couple who shut-ins from church to install their window air-conditioner this morning. They called and asked for help. Like I said it was very hot, so I’m glad he was able to do that. This afternoon we had a church member visit for a few hours. Afterwards we went out to dinner at the restaurant in town – Milford Family Restaurant. I can’t say it’s my favorite place to eat, but it is the closest place next to DQ. I think we’ll hit DQ next time. : )

This evening I went to Longaberger Bingo sponsored by the Milford High School Cheerleaders. It was a fun event. We played 18 games of Bingo, but I didn’t win a basket. I did win a doorprize – a local auction company sweatshirt that is too small for either or us and too big for the boys. We’ll use it as a prize for one of the youth nights. There were about 70-80 people there, so that was a pretty good turn out for a small town I thought.

It is supposed to rain a bit tonight and possible storm tomorrow. I don’t think we have too much planned tomorrow besides church. That’s a good thing since we have had such a busy week with Vacation Bible School. I guess I’ll need to be nice to Matt since it’s Father’s Day! He got an insert for his office chair that gives a really good massage as his gift. Ryan opened the package and showed it to him while I was out the other day, so he is enjoying it already.

I hope everyone is doing well!
C-