Another “meant to post it, but someone is hogging all the pictures on his camera” post! These are from the 2nd day Brian had his new camera (which rocks by the way, but mostly because Brian is actually really good at taking pictures…like seriously!) The neighborhood kids were all in costumes riding around the driveway. Bri was testing “movement” shots. I just think they are awesome…such a “day in the life” around here!

Not sure what Aiden was that day…maybe a super-hero-race-car-driver-wearing-fireman-rain-boots guy…or something.

Action shot!

I think the white marks on his face mean “spy”, but who knows…kid paints his face for some different reason every day!

I’m including this picture because it is Brady’s “go to” outfit: easy, sporty, pull up shorts (easy because no buttons or anything for potty emergencies…although he highly, and against my will, prefers to drop his pants by the very bushes he’s standing by in this pic and just let it all out) plus his “happy bu-tar” shirt…which is “happy guitar”. He loves it cause it’s red.

Look at AJ in the background! Hysterical! Especially because Brian asked Logan to stand still for a shot and AJ got back there on purpose and then yelled “I was in the background!!”

Have been meaning to post this for a while. I saw a short clip on Food Network (Brian’s favorite channel when nothing else is on) featuring some guy who makes crazy pancake masterpieces. From what I could tell, it was all about putting the pancake picture together in pieces so that some parts cook longer and have a different color than other parts. We have been using a squirt bottle to “draw” pancake pictures for a while. I decided to take this (brief) new-found knowledge and put it to the test. Here are some pics from my second attempt at pancake art. The boys like to sit up on the counter and critique my work! Logan requested a camera because we recently purchased a new one, Aiden asked for the fish and I did their ages in circles. I had the finished images for these, but Brian now controls the camera and I have no idea where they are…but you get the idea :)

I found our computer screen like this last Tuesday. At first I thought it was some funky window that wouldn't close. That was until I ran my fingers over the surface and watched as the image changed. Somehow there was a giant crack in the screen. I have some toys in the office right now including a bin of cars. I had seen the boys tossing / rolling the cars OUT the door into the kitchen, but I suspect one might have been thrown or bounced off the floor in the office. After several sessions if intense interrogation on the part of myself and then by daddy, we have determined that they all really and truly don't know what happened or who did it....reminds me of the 1/2 dining room curtain incident (hmmmmm). Anyway, it's hard to type and sort through pictures when I have to minimize all open windows and then drag them to the upper left-hand corner of the screen. I am typing this entry on my phone. Brian got a new monitor last night and then skipped town for work ;) I'll be hooking it up later and getting on to my back log of topics: Aiden's birthday party, the 4th of July and camping last weekend. I've got my work cut out for me!

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So…Brian has this awesome new camera…and he’s got some really beautiful shots on it from this past weekend (Aiden’s 5th birthday party Saturday, all our 4th of July events yesterday)! I mean, he had his face behind that thing for a good portion of the weekend. I think he took over 700 pictures (ya!) We were reviewing them on his ipad last night. I have a few posts that I want to do and, obviously, use these great shots…but he’s hogging them! He took the card and his ipad today and left me with nothing but the camera on my iphone (sob sob). I’ll have to post about our super fun weekend later, but I did snap a quick pic of Aiden’s early and awesome birthday gift: a bearded dragon…named Drago. Drago is also a Bakugan (another Aiden favorite). In face, Aiden went as Drago the Bakugan for Halloween last year. So far we haven’t been able to do much with our little pet. We were instructed to put him in his new home and leave him be for 48 hours. We did get to see him eat a bunch of crickets yesterday after he came home and he’s moving around a little today. Two things I can tell you about our new pet: 1. he sleeps like the dead 2. Brian and I are like new parents all over again. We stood there in the boys’ room last night before we went to sleep staring into the tank to see if Drago was breathing. We were all worried! The first thing Brian did this morning was to go see how he was doing.

Here is Drago basking on his “warm” rock. Better pictures with a better camera coming…sometime!

First of all, a note on my recent blogging hiatus. A couple weekends ago, we bought a new computer (which is great!) However, the cords that came with the new machine were too short (boo). Brian kinda-of, sort-of rigged it up for me, but neglected to explain that I could switch between the new and old machines using switches on the side of the monitor (aka: giant TV he’s got hooked up to be the monitor). Anyway…after it took like 3 days to transfer files, I still was afraid to touch it until he got home and gave me the run down (traveling for work…what’s new). Speaking of traveling, I don’t think I posted about Brian’s Hong Kong trip. That was several weeks ago as well. Maybe I’ll grab some pics from his ipad and post them here later.

So…then Nana came for a visit and we’ve just been enjoying the summer. However…I feel like a bad bad mommy for not posting on Aiden’s greatest summer accomplishment: riding a bike without training wheels. He’s been at it for over a month now, but it took a while to master because he can’t actually reach the ground when he’s on the seat. Therefore, he had to learn how to lean the bike a little to one side, put a foot on a peddle and push off the ground while simultaneously straightening up on to the seat. Also, the only way he knew how to stop was to almost fall off the thing. However…he is now a PRO!

These are pictures from this morning (and let me just clarify that I had to use two keyboards and two different "computers" to get this all posted because these bike pics are from Brian's fancy new camera and only the new computer actually reads the photo cards....)

For some reason, we didn’t take many pictures of Nana’s visit (6/16 – 6/19), but it was a GREAT weekend. She got to see Logan’s baseball practice, all the boys at swim lessons and then spoiled them rotten with a trip to the toy aisle at Target. They got LOTS of great stuff for playing outside this summer! We had TGIF that Friday night, sat out by a fire for a while after, went to Prairie Fest the next day and just hung around on Sunday until she (sniff sniff) had to leave us.

I did take some pictures at Prairie Fest though:

Here, Nana leads a string of kids over to the rides

I took Brady on the little kid rides while Nana and Daddy went with the big boys. Here are Brady and Matt on the “trucks”

…and Brady on a motorcycle

There were a lot more rides this year…or at least our kids could go on more exciting ones and I didn’t even know they were there last year…one or the other. This is: Mackenzie, Logan and Ella on the hang-gliding ride.

At one point, Aiden had a few tickets left and needed one more ride. I convinced him that the swings were right up his alley. I was rewarded with a big smile every time he went around and his signature “this is cool” thumbs-up sign.

I haven’t been posting much lately because I’ve been pretty busy with some other projects: cleaning out upstairs closets, posting toys, cloths etc. on our local BooKoo website (and selling some – score!), getting ready for Nana to visit, working on Aiden’s birthday invite and trying to entertain 3 kids ALL day long :) It’s been so rainy lately that we haven’t made it to the pool, but the boys ride bikes, draw on the driveway with chalk and play with their friends whenever humanely possible. I usually have between 5 and 11 kids in or around my house in the afternoons. Happiness for the boys so happiness for mommy!

Aiden and Logan started tee-ball this week. Aiden’s first practice was Monday, both of the older boys had practice today. I tried to take pictures, but they were from far away so I’ll do better ones once the boys get their team uniforms (aka: tee shirts) and start games. Brady, however, was a bit cold today and asked for our standard “blanket burrito” while we sat on the sidelines of Logan’s practice. Aiden was on a different field at the same time, so I left my burrito, with my iphone for entertainment, and walked back and forth several times. Also, yesterday, Brady found my camera and said, “take my picture” while he made lots of silly faces (note: the pictures look especially funny because he only had his “pajama downs” on and no shirt)

Soooo…here are some funny pics of Brady:

burrito baby:

and then this whole scene: “mommy take me doin’ a funny face…and again…and again…now let me see them on your camera!” At the time, I was typing on the computer so he climbed up beside me and sat on the desk for his self-imposed photo-shoot.

OH! and last but not least, I found this on my camera tonight while removing the funny Brady pics. I wandered into the playroom a couple weekends ago and found Logan serenading Brady with a little song. I apologize for all my snickering. It occurs to me that my kids don’t like to wear shirts much. Ok…didn’t JUST occur to me…kind of a fact I guess. sigh. LOVE this though!

Last Thursday was Logan’s final day of being an official kindergartener. Not sure if he’s technically a 1st grader or just in limbo. Let’s say limbo for now cause mommy’s still not quite ready. Last Tuesday, the kindergarteners at our school had a little “final get together” on their playground. There was an area for bubble blowing, one for popsicle eating, one for chalk drawing and then just playing on the playground. We missed the chalk because the event was called early due to rain, but I got a few cute pics with my phone before we made a mad dash for home.

Meanwhile, we finally got some actual warm weather (ok…HOT weather…as in the 90ies, but I can’t complain because it’s been so stinkin’ back and forth…I’m just glad we’ve settled on a consistent temp and clothing requirement). Our subdivision pool opened on Monday. Sadly, Logan and Aiden both got sick the day before (as in puking – gross…it was going around). We decided to keep them home in the morning and hit the pool later in the afternoon if there were no more incidents. Fortunately they were like 100% fine, so we got our first swim of the summer in that afternoon. However, Daddy, being awesome and wanting them to have something fun even if they had to skip the pool, made them a super cool toy for the yard first (see pics)

And finally, ducks: There is a mama / daddy duck team that wanders around our neighborhood. I think they have their eggs in our friend’s bushes, but they waddle around every where. The daddy is particularly fond of sitting on our roof. Logan has named him Roofie (his choice, not mine). We tried to think of something clever for the mama (we saw her quacking at the daddy one day like she was mad, but couldn’t think of a funny name to represent her being bossy). I named her Toaster since she sits on the eggs to keep them warm. Roofie and Toaster came through the yard tonight. Brian let the boys toss them some bread. Gosh…wonder if they’ll be back tomorrow. haha

Memorial day: here is what daddy created. It’s a series of PVC pipes and attachments along with three clear tubes that the boys used to squirt each other. You can run too far though or the tubes come out and all the water pressure drops making the whole fun thing stop working. Brian sat at the patio table drilling holes in PVC caps to make different sprinklers. They also rearranged the configuration a few times. Overall – very cool and very easy to store so we can play with it all summer!

Tuesday, May 31st: During our trip to the pool on Memorial Day, we had to fight for water space with like the entire neighborhood. I let the boys hit the pool for a while on Tuesday morning and we were the only ones there – it was awesome!

I didn’t want to get in the water that day so I let Brady wear his vest. He’s a good swimmer, but not for very long distances and the big pool kind of intimidates him. He had a BLAST jumping and swimming around all over. Unfortunately, he then totally freaked when it came time for actual swim class on Friday. He did NOT want to go into the water without a vest…and he usually loves swim school. He did OK near the end and I have since let him wear the vest only if he swims with me and practices a little without it too.

Tuesday afternoon: Kindergarten good-bye party. There are over 300 kindergarteners at our school right now because we were the test site for the full-day program which officially goes into effect next year throughout the district. Logan was only in 1/2 day though. This is Logan and one of his best buddies Jack D. eating popsicles.

Despite having attempted a bargain with ANYONE around him who had a green popsicle, he ended up with purple (I reminded him how much he likes grape and he finally admitted that purple was good and ate it up). He was pretty proud of his super purple mouth.

Everyone donated bubbles and chalk for the event. This is in the field next to the playground. Logan managed to find a REALLY cool bubble thing that made every kid in the near vicinity come running to watch and ask if they could have a try. I was SUPER proud because he shared and let everyone have a go…he let this cute little girl have the first try though. smart man!

And finally, this evenings entertainment: feeding Roofie and Toaster. They were super close to the porch before I got my camera (of course). Who needs to visit a pond when you have your very own neighborhood ducks wandering by!