playing together

Sam and Ben having started playing together! Normally Ben just likes to watch Sam play and will sometimes crawl over and see what he is doing. But then Sam normally gets mad that Ben is in his way and playing with what he is playing with. For the past couple days, after dinner Sam asks if him and Ben can play "Halloween." I have not really figured out what he is doing or why it is called Halloween, but I know his imagination is hard at work. Sam moves the cushions all over on the couch and does various things with them or pretends the couch is various different things. He helps Ben get on the couch as well , which Ben just LOVES to be able to do. And they play together for about 20-30 minutes while I clean up dinner. I love being able to get dinner cleaned up without little feet under me. And of course I love the fact that they are starting to play together and that Sam actually wants to play with Ben! Hopefully this is the start of a great brotherly bond! Couple pics.

starting the fall fun stuff!

Today we went to the annual Barn Daze at Friendship Park. This is the third year we have went. The first year it was freezing cold and the kids really couldn't do anything. Last year and this year it was pretty warm and perfect blue skies. Sam had a great time, he LOVES the huge inflatable slides and tunnels and bounce thing. He did those over and over again, until his face was beat red and we had to force him to sit down and drink some water! Sam also loved the hay maze and ran around in there for almost 30 minutes (it only take about 2 minutes to make it through the maze!). There was not much for Ben to do, but we did let him out of the stroller and crawl around a little bit where we could (this is one of those times where I wish he was walking, it would have been a little bit more fun for him then). Sam and Daddy had a snow cone at the end and Sam just loved that. Both kids were exhausted by the time we left and took a nice nap in the car on the way home. Some more pics here!

hanging out with the animals

I had today off, since Ed and Lynda are still in Indiana for a family reunion. And I figured since most kids are back to school today that the zoo would be a great place to visit. Sam has not been there at all this year and he just loves the zoo. It was going to be on the warm side, so we got there early in hopes that we would see more of the animals. Becky also came and brought Julia and Joey. Sam just loved having Joey there to run around with! We saw a lot of animals and I think that the kids had a great time! Sam's favorite were the penguins, I even got him a new stuffed animal penguin before we left. I think Joey's favorite was the snakes and Aunt Becky got him a pretend one too! Even Ben got to get out of the stroller at the end and crawl around outside of the butterfly house and check out the salt water fish tank. Of course pictures here!

first day of school

Today is Jake's first day of middle school in the sixth grade. I can't believe he is out of the elementary school and growing up so fast! I can't wait to hear how his first day went!

Today is also Andy's first day starting the nursing program at OCC. He is a full time college student now and he is determined to keep his 4.0 GPA in this program.

Tomorrow is Sam's first day at a new pre-school. And he seems very excited about it!

I hope that everyone first days go great!!!

happy labor day!

We had a nice relaxing morning on this labor day. Jake went back to his mom's around noon. He has at his dad's since last Sunday and Sam and him have just had so much fun together. Andy needed some quiet time to prepare for his first day back to college tomorrow for the fall semester. Sam, Ben and I went to my parent's for a casual dinner. Becky brought Joey and Julie with her and Sam had a ton of fun playing with them in the pool. Doesn't feel like it should be the end of the summer already, but school starts tomorrow so I guess it is. But I fall is my favroite time of the year, so I am looking forward to that! Some pictures from the day here...

fire man sam

Sam got to visit the local fire station today! He is so into fire engines lately.
Check it all out at his blog!

new look and photo books

So, I got bored... well not really bored, just didn't want to be doing what I should be doing! Anyways, I changed the look of the blog around (I didn't realize how many options there were out there or how time consuming this was going to be!). But I think this looks a little cleaner and nicer, and so it's pretty much done. I might make some minor changes as I post more, but that is just normal for me.

And I have discovered online photo books. I knew they were out there, but never really looked into them very much until someone brought one that they made into work. I was hooked! I made my first album from a recent trip to Mackinac Island and can't wait for it's arrival in the mail. I have also started several other books. What I love most about these is that I can ditch all that scrap booking stuff... the paper, scissors, stickers, templates, cutters, page protectors, and more. Best of all I can make a book while in bed watching a movie! I made a small sidebar for these photo books so everyone can view them online.

So enjoy the new blog and let me know what you think!

happy birthday becky!

Today is Becky's 31st birthday! Sam, Ben and I meet up with her and my parents for dinner. We had a nice quiet dinner and she opened her gifts. Hope you had a great birthday Becky!
Here are some pictures.

yummy ice cream

My parents took Becky and I to Cook's Farm Dairy at LOT when we were younger and I have some great childhood memories eating ice cream here. I just loved the Mint Chocolate Chip (and still do!). I love that this place is still around and I can now take my own kids there. It had been a few years since Jacob has been there and within the first lick of ice cream (mint chocolate chip of course) he remembered how good it is! This was Sam and Ben's first visit. Sam got cotton candy blue ice cream and he was in heaven! Since Ben is still too young for ice cream (and they don't have frozen yogurt) he just had a couple lick of Daddy's. But he got one lick and was eyeing Daddy for another one! He loved it too. (we kinda paid for it later when he got a little sick, thank goodness we only gave him a little bit!) My niece went with us and she said it was awesome ice cream too! We only live about 10 minutes from there, so I hope the kids will have as many memories from there as I do when they get older! Lot of messy ice cream faces pictures here!

brothers for sure!

While on the ferry to Mackinac this past Friday I took a picture of Sam with the wind blowing right in his face. When I loaded the pictures onto the computer I was looking at it more and I remembered that I had a similar picture of Jacob when he was about 4 or 5 years old. I dug out the picture (it was not digital, so this meant digging through some boxes and finding the right photo album - thank goodness for the Internet now and being able to find pictures with just the click of a mouse!). The pictures are exactly the same! There is no doubt that they are brothers for sure!