Sweet boys

A few pictures from the day.

Merry Christmas

I got a new camera for Christmas, so here is our re-entry to the blog world....maybe :)

 This one cracks me up!

I'm still learning, and practicing taking pictures without the auto setting. These were all taken with the pets and children setting. The boys were running around, and I think they turned out pretty well.

We're back!

We have had a lot of crazy stuff going on in the past few weeks. I won't bore you with all of that. The good thing is that we are back now.

Today I took the boys to Yogurt Mountain after school. They really enjoyed it.






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Perfect Summer Morning

 This is our last week of summer before Nathaniel goes back to school. We have decided to make the best of it even if that does mean sitting out in the heat. This little $15 pool has been one of our favorite activities. Doesn't get much better than boys and their buckets!

 I thought they might play well, and I would get some reading done in my book. They were desiring my attention more so I didn't get much read. I did want to say that I am loving this book and learning so much. I recommend it to everyone!

 They love to put their trucks in the pool too!

 Nathaniel is getting so close to being able to climb up this tree. Of course, Ethan has to copy everything he does. Not sure exactly what I will do when he does get up there. Most likely freak out and pray that he comes down. Ha! Parts of me are excited about it though. I remember loving to climb trees when I was young, and I want my boys to have sweet memories like that too. 

 He kept saying that he was a monkey. Silly boy!

They ended the morning by picking "berries" off the bush. No worries, I watched very closely to make sure Ethan didn't eat any. :-)

Once they finally came inside we read some books and played with play doh. I also worked with getting Nathaniel to learn his first memory verse...Genesis 1:1. We worked on it during lunch. He wasn't showing much enthusiasm, but I just kept repeating it to him. We didn't think about it again until dinner when I started telling Stefan about our work. Nathaniel surprised me by reciting the whole thing! Talk about a proud mommy!!! We really had a great day!

Last week

We had tons of fun last week. Sadly, I was in a blog funk and did not feel like uploading the pictures. Here is a quick post so I can at least be caught up.

We went to the splash park with our church friends. The boys had so much fun, and we stayed for three hours in the heat! 

 Group picture with all the kids except Ethan. I am so thankful that the boys have such great friends to grow up. 

 Here was Ethan while they took the group picture. He is still a little attached to mommy. 

On Thursday we went to the lake and spent the day with Jim and Becky. Love them!!

 They love swimming.

 Especially Nathaniel. 

 These two were best buds.

This cracks me up. What better way to end the day than with electronics. I think they were playing angry birds. Ha!

So thankful for great friends in our lives!

I love blogs!

Really, I love reading other people's blogs. I don't think I will ever be a good blogger, but I sure do learn a lot from other people. My favorite blogs...tutorial blogs! Probably 95% of the the things I make I found on a blog just by searching for tutorials! Love all the information out there. Today I found a blog with some amazing tutorials. I was searching for a hooded towel tutorial and stumbled upon this blog. I don't know much about her, but wow she has so many things that I want to try.

Also, I think I may have a new found love for quilting. It just looks fun! Sure, I have not tried one yet. I know it's going to be time consuming, but I can't wait to get one together. Found this great blog to tell me exactly how to do it.

I have been sewing some fun things in the past few weeks. I'll try get some pictures up soon. :) Hope you all enjoy some new found creativity.

random

I'm sitting here wondering how people have time to regularly post on their blogs. I have things to post about, but the time is just lacking for me right now. Anyways, we had a really fun week. I'll get around to telling about it soon, just may be a little dated before I get around to it. :)

Boys will be boys!

We got brave and ventured out in the heat the other day. We have been to this playground several times, but this was the first time the boys noticed this little dirt area. This mama does NOT like dirty little boys, but I just couldn't take them away from so much fun. 

Nathaniel found it first.

It wasn't long before Ethan joined. Sean was smart enough to stay out of it. I don't think his mom would have handled it so nicely. :)

We decided that since they were so dirty, might as well go to Sean's house swim. Here they are jumping on a wet trampoline.

And then Ethan found some mud!

 But they sure did have a good time! Here they are all cleaned up, and enjoying the ipad mounted on Sean's bed. Isn't he the luckiest that his dad would put it there. ha!

I'm happy to say that all three boys took great naps after all this fun.

Mashed potato soup

 This was dinner last night...mashed potato soup. Yep, we were feeling pretty thrifty because this was made with Sunday's leftover mashed potatoes. It was really good, and super easy to make! 

Find the recipe here.

Still Here

Nope, we haven't fallen off the face of the earth. We have been out of town for the past week. Stefan took a one week doctoral intensive at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the boys and I spent the week with family in South Carolina. It really was a great trip. The boys are great travelers. We will definitely be doing more trips in the future. I'll post photos when I find my camera. :-)

Friday, Friday

We haven't done a whole lot today. We spent the morning waiting for my piano to be delivered. So Exciting!! A little back story on the piano. SIL bought it for me while I was in college. I had to practice for hours and hours, and I loved it. We lived with her for a little while before moving to Memphis. The piano was moved into her house for what was supposed to be a couple of weeks, and turned into 4 years. So, after all this time she had it moved here to our house. She is beyond generous for doing this for us, and I am so thankful. Yes, God has really blessed me with wonderful in-laws!

This was Ethan last night. He loves to look at this book, and he is getting pretty good at pointing out the pictures I ask him about. He will sit in my lap and we go over them for awhile.

And this is Ethan's typical morning. This was Nathaniel's waffle. Ethan was up first and had already ate a whole bowl of oatmeal. Nathaniel tried to fight him off, but Ethan was persistent and won the waffles. He used to wait until Nathaniel was finished and steal the leftovers, but today he just stole them right away. Silly boy!(yes, I did make Nathaniel another plate:)

Watching Curious George together. They always make me laugh. Nathaniel was pretending that remote was a train, and acting out the movie with it. 

Playing on the piano right after it was delivered. This is a spot I made for it in our dining room. I was a little worried about how it might look there, but I think it looks great now! I am just so happy to have it here!

We typically go to Chik Fil A at least once a week for lunch. The boys like to play there, and it's just a nice place to be. I completely forgot that it was Cow Appreciation Day. I'm sad we weren't dressed up, but we still had a good time. Thanks to Cat and Reilly for going with us. Note: We always go to the CFA on Poplar across from Kirby Woods. Not only do they have the most young kid friendly play area, but it is also the cleanest. The owner actually came up to me once and talked about how much they clean it. He said his wife always wished for clean play areas for their kids when they were young, and he promised her that they would do that here. It just made me feel good, and you can really tell a difference between this one and others. 

Now the boys are napping, and I need to actually get some work done around the house. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Thursday Funday

Usually Thursdays are our big days for fun. I'm supposedly done with all the housecleaning for the week, and we are ready to get out! Well, this morning started off a little rough to say the least. Typically Nathaniel wakes up at some early time, but he will get in the recliner and sleep a little longer. I don't mind that at all. I have my alarm set for 5:30-6 in hopes of waking up before the boys and having a nice quiet time. Lord help us on the days that doesn't happen, and sadly this was one of them. I heard Nathaniel crying before 6. Assuming that the door accidentally got shut to their room(he and Ethan share), I ran up the stairs to get him out before he woke Ethan up. Well, the door was open, and he was just crying because he could not find growlers. By this time Ethan was awake, and I'm getting upset. I find growlers and send Nathaniel out of the room, and then find Ethan's paci and cover him back up. I think he went back to sleep, but Nathaniel kept crying. He wouldn't tell me what he wanted, and I wasn't the nicest mommy that early in the morning before my quiet time. I eventually got him to settle down and we went on with our morning. Looking back, it wasn't a horrible morning, but it sure did feel like it at the time. By the time we got breakfast and everything done I knew we had to get out of the house, so to the playground we went.

Here are some pictures of our morning which turned into a pretty fun day.

We met up with our good friends Sean and Andrea. I am so thankful for them because I would probably never be brave enough to get out otherwise. Ha. These three are going to be best friends!

 The only way Nathaniel will swing.

 Sweet brothers.

 Nathaniel loves this one. 

 Ethan loves to slide!

And he took it upon himself to dry off all the slides. Ha!

After some playtime we headed over to story time at the library. I used to take Ethan while Nathaniel was in school. He didn't always do great, and honestly story time stresses me out! I decided the boys might do ok today, and I thought Nathaniel would really enjoy it. He did, but I was stressed trying to keep them seated. Nathaniel was actually doing so great until another boy pulled out a train. There is just no controlling him when something like that happens. 

 A little reading time since we got there too early. 

My sweet boy.

 Love this!

And this!

We came home, had lunch, watched a little tv. Now Ethan is snoozing away, and Nathaniel is still awake even though he woke up so early this morning. Good times, good times.

I'm editing to say that we also had a great time at the park yesterday with some new friends. It was hot, but the boys had a great time, and they both napped. I just wasn't on my game enough to get pictures of it. Next time for sure!