Happy Grandparents Day tomorrow to Nana & Papa and Grandma & BoBo. The boys drew you pictures today, but obviously they aren’t going to arrive in time so we wish you a happy day! We love you!

Thursday was a great day. Christian, Dane and I went to do some errands and then spent quite a bit of time at the park – the weather was perfect. Then in the evening we had a picnic outside with BBQ Hamburgers and watermelon freshly picked from a church member’s garden.

Today was one of those crazy days. Matt went to a race with 10 people from church. It wasn’t a Nascar race, but was at the big track they use for Nascar. I’m not sure what it was… So our day started at 5:45 a.m. when the doorbell rang to pick Matt up. He was just jumping out of the shower as they originally said they would be here at 6:00. So Matt rushed out the door and I finally fell asleep again and about 10 minutes later the boys woke up – at 6:45.

We went through all their books and set aside some of the baby books to send to their cousin. Then Ryan was playing in his room and he tripped and got a small piece of something or another in his knee. It was a nice bloody puncture wound and you know how much I love blood; but I did fine, and we got him all cleaned up. Although I can still feel a little bump there like there is something stuck in there but Ryan, Matt (after he got home) and I all tried to get it out with no luck…

We had finally settled down from Ryan’s owie when the high school boy who mows the church lawn rang the doorbell and asked if I could help him because he got stung by a bee. We doctored him up with some vinegar (which I know works great on bee stings, since we had so many in WA). Thankfully I had just bought some just to have on hand in case.

I moved on to the laundry downstairs – which is always a big mountain… The last week or so it has smelled like pee down there. I kept looking for a pair of underwear that maybe Christian had an accident in and threw down there or a diaper that got mixed up in the mountain… but couldn’t find anything. It was driving me crazy. Finally today I discovered that someone had peed in the shower that is down there. So up I trotted upstairs and had both Christian and Ryan in front of me and said “Which one of you peed in the shower downstairs?” The answered -” we both did… but we’re really, really, really, really, really, sorry” And then I was given numerous hugs. So down they went with the bottle of sanitizer and the scrub sponge and scrubbed away. They then were informed that if that ever happened again they would be in much bigger trouble. BOYS! At least my laundry room doesn’t stink anymore. It smells like nice fresh clean laundry again. YEA!

Of course our entire downstairs (and this one was even upstairs) is still infested with these lovely little guys. YUCK! (Those are crickets – we have the nice outdoorsy sound inside…) Matt has sprayed and it helped some but not completely. If anyone knows of a trick to get rid of them please let me know!

There are also tons of dark brown fuzzy caterpillars all over the place lately. They’re staying outside thankfully. But apparently when there are a lot of those it is supposed to mean that it is going to be a cold winter. HMMMM I wonder if they are right?

Snickers decided to bring the kittens out of the shop today. They are all under the deck now (or they were this evening anyway). When we go out they all come running for some love – except for one who is a bit shy still. He does eventually make his way out though. One of them even snuck its way into the house when one of the kids left the door open, but he quickly got sent back out. They’re so fun to watch play.

Christian is FINALLY getting interested in writing his name. I have to write it and then he copies it, but that is a start! Here are a couple samples from today. (And no, I do not write my h’s backwards. LOL)

Ryan has been bringing home great grades this week as well. I am surprised how much his handwriting has already improved. He seems to be reading a bit better already as well. Although, that is something he is picking up on his own as it doesn’t sound like they are reading much in class yet. We just finished reading Dr. Doolittle tonight. That was a fun story. It is a classic, but I had never read it before. (that I can remember anyway…)

Well, Matt is holding the Confirmation Parents Meeting in our living room tomorrow morning and it is 10:30 p.m. so I better go vacuum and get things picked up a bit.

C-

It was so quiet this afternoon as everyone was gone except Dane, and he was napping. Ahhhhh…. It was a nice little break. Yesterday I tried to get something done on my web-site for about an hour and Christian did not stop talking for over an hour straight. He could have written a ten page paper on a pack of gum that he was telling me all about for an hour. (It was so cute, mind you…) but all I ended up with is a headache and nothing accomplished. Oh well. That’s how it goes some days.

I have been thinking about health a lot lately – maybe it is the turning 30 thing… I don’t know. I was just realizing that I have 2 friends that were both diagnosed with cancer at age 28 (You can read both of their blogs in my other blogs that I enjoy section. Jeremy Erickson and Nature Moms). Then the former youth director at our home church almost suffered a major heart attack at around the same age. This is OUR age. It seems major diseases are striking younger and younger and it’s kind of scarey. So I am trying to little by little eat healthier (including more organic and whole foods) and exercise more. I’m not ready to be stricken by disease… Of course Matt has no interest in such healthy things so I’ll have to keep working on him…

I hope everyone had a good Labor Day. We traveled off about 45 miles to Danville to the big Super Wal-Mart. (That’s pretty sad that going to Wal-Mart is such an exciting thing…) It was sooo nice though to actually have somewhat of a selection in the grocery store. We spent way too much money on groceries, but we’re stocked up for awhile now. I just might have to make a monthly trip there. The prices are so much better and the selection was so refreshing. Of course I would much rather have a Safeway or Albertson’s but that just isn’t available so Wal-Mart it is….

Here is the cutest picture of Dane on Sunday morning as we were getting ready for church.

I finally got outside and took some pictures today. Now if you would ask me (the non country girl..) I would tell you that our soybeans do not look good… It just wasn’t making sense to me since it has been raining like crazy… A couple weeks ago they were dark green and now look at them.. In my mind, they shouldn’t be turning yellow and brown – especially with all the rain.

However, we have recently been informed that this is what they are supposed to do. Unfortunately, the price on soybeans is very low right now…
For those of you who have never seen one (including myself until this summer…) Here is a close-up.

MMMM, don’t they look delicious? I actually tried one the other day – right out of the pod – when they were still green. It tasted similar to a raw pea actually. Matt thought I was crazy, but I wanted to know what they tasted like. LOL

Here is our big pumpkin

And then we have three that look like this:

I’m sure they will grow by Halloween, but most likely not as big as the other one. We planted the giant pumpkin seeds, so who knows how big that one will end up. All I can say is I am really glad that I don’t have to pay $8-$15 a pumpkin this year! $1.27 packet of seeds and we’re set! I’m hoping to have a much larger garden next year. I’ll have to study up this winter.

Last but not least, here are the kitties. They will be 5 weeks old tomorrow and they are so cute running all over the place. They are learning to play and eat solid food.

These two just tipped over their water bowl. I just gave them their own bowl of water yesterday and it was hilarious to watch them stick their whole face in and be completely surprised.

This is the one we are for sure giving away. (I’m going to try to convince them she needs a sibling to keep her company) She kind of ended up being the runt, but she is sure cute!

There are still six of them. They were kind of hard to photograph since they are so active now. We named two of them – one cry baby and one hisser. (for obvious reasons…) They all are fairly friendly so far which is good. I’m not surprised since mama is so friendly.

Well, I have a bit more work to do and them I’m off to bed.
C-

The kittens have made their escape from their nest. They are four weeks old now! They haven’t ventured out of the shop, but they are exploring for sure. It is so funny to watch them try to run and pounce. They usually trip. I’ll have to take some more pictures. They are so cute now that their eyes are open, but they don’t stay still for long. I was going to take pictures today, but I kept forgetting to bring my camera out there. They are starting to eat solid food as well. I think about half of them have tried it and the other half aren’t quite ready.

It was a beautiful day out – finally sun and the temperature was just perfect. It wasn’t super hot, but that didn’t stop the boys from playing in the water and having a great time. (sorry no pictures of that either…) Matt installed his fog lights for his car that he bought months ago. Dane didn’t take a nap today. YIKES! I didn’t realize it was already 3:45 when I looked at the clock and I decided it was too late to lay him down. He did pretty good. We even drove to Dairy Queen after dinner and I thought for sure he would fall asleep but he didn’t. He sure didn’t protest when I put him to bed tonight though. We spent the evening hashing through our budget since it was the month end.

We were informed by Ryan’s teacher that he is hanging out with the main trouble maker in the class…. (a 2nd grader) He has always gravitated to the type, so we’ll see how that pans out. He did the same in preschool. His papers have been improving and his progress report on Thursday was good, so I’m not too worried yet. We did have a long discussion about choosing the right friends and making the right choices though. Having Ryan home this weekend has reinforced the fact that he is our high maintenance child. Every moment of the day he is wanting us to entertain him. However I did hear him the other day doing some pretend play like Christian does all the time. I was so surprised!

Laundry…. I have been doing it all day as well. The mountain is gradually shrinking. Thank goodness for a nice big laundry room for the mountain to reside. I thought my boys got dirty at home, but my oh my school brings in a complete new realm to the laundry. Ryan’s clothes are just plain filthy…. Mud, grass stains, markers, food – you name it. I think he’s at the age where he will be wearing out clothes before he outgrows them. Thank goodness for OxyClean Spray! I go through about a bottle of that a week.

Dane is finally going through a growth spirt. I noticed this week that a couple pairs of his pants are finally getting too short. He might be wearing 2T by the time he is two afterall! His rash is almost completely gone – his medicine seems to be working well. YEA! He is starting to work on his top two year molars now. The bottom ones came in a couple weeks ago. I can’t believe he is almost two! Less than amonth!

So anyone who knows me well, knows that I hate spiders. I have seen a lot of brown ones lately, so I did some research and found out that Brown Recluse spiders are popular here. EEK! The webs I was seeing look like their type of web so I made Matt spray like crazy both in and outside. I’m not done being paranoid, but the spray did help our inside cricket population a bit. Although, I can still hear them throughout the house and I am getting really tired of finding them in the washing machine…Yuck! At least they don’t bite, they are scared of us, but they sure are ugly!

Oh, my free soup came today! (see previous post) We had some for dinner. I must say it was VERY Good and I plan to order more. The potato one was like the Bear Creek kind we used to buy at Costco (at least I think that was the brand…) It was a bit spicy for my taste (which isn’t saying much…) but it was good. I also made Chicken Noodle, and I think that is going to become a stable at our house. It has the Noodles like what come in Lipton Noodle Sides – but this is soup. It was PACKED with noodles. Generally at our house we fish out all the noodles and then have a pot of broth leftover. Well, this time, I fished out enough noodles for everyone and still had lots left in the pan! It also didn’t leave you with that “thirsty for the rest of the night” problem because it was so salty. It was packed with flavor but not so salty that you feel like you had your salt intake for a week in one serving. (Like many canned soups I’ve had). Generally Christian and I are the soup fans in the house, but everybody gobbled it up. Christian had seconds, Dane even tipped his bowl up and slurped the last drop. I made some biscuits to go along with it and we were full! I love that it comes in little packets too – less space in the pantry then those cans take, and each packet is equal to 2+ cans of soup. If you haven’t ordered your free sample yet you can do so here: www.dinewithoutwhine.com/soup (There is a small shipping charge, but it is worth it!)

Well, I’m ready for bed. Somehow I always manage to stay up too late.
C-