This and that

This week, much to Grant's delight, we went to his friend, Ethan's, house. Ethan's family recently got 6 chickens and built the best little chicken coop ever. It was just like Hen's house on Little Bear. I didn't get a picture of the coop but I did get Jack and Ethan and one of the chickens.


Jack seemed very comfortable with the chickens because Uncle Roger taught him all about pheasants, so to Jack, chickens and pheasants are one in the same.

I 'made' the boys go ride their bikes this week to run off some energy.










This one was taken right before Grant decided that he hated his scooter and chucked it across the grass:-(


Carrying his helmet???

We also went to our first 'hot dog night' at the pool last night. Jack has taken to dancing while swimming and diving. He draws quite a crowd and a lady from the newspaper took his picture last night for the paper!













And this is what Dylan and I and sometimes Jack have been doing today...all day minus a trip to the scouting store.


Dylan has to take a cubic foot of pipestone wood to camp next week. This is wood about a foot long no smaller than your pinky and no bigger than your thumb with no bark on it! So he soaked it for a few days.


And now we reach our hands in that lovely smelling water and pick out a few sticks and scrap off the bark. It is a lot of work. It's 4:30 and he has to finish filling this box.


I had to take a break, my back and hands are killing me. Dylan is doing pretty good, not complaining too much. Wish him luck!

Happy Monday

What a week

Below you will find a copy of an email I sent to my friend in response to her email
asking how my week was going.

Oh Jen the week I've had. Matt left early Monday morning and as I was packing the rest of us up I walked to the garage and noticed thousands of little seeds all over the carpets, wait those aren't seeds, those are MAGGOTS!!!!!!!! I couId not believe it! It was so gross. I sucked them up in the shop vac and emptied the garage and cleaned the garbage cans and washed and bleached and sprayed whatever chemical I could find and sucked up some more and dumped and gagged and yelled at the kids. Oh, and sweat! His parents came and we set off some bug bombs and left (I was so afraid they would be crawling nside when we got back.)

Onto Tecumseh...trying to chill out. We stayed at Deer Creek state park which is in the middle of nowhere, but it was very nice and we swam and ate dinner and went to see Tecumseh. About midway through the first half, some black clouds appeared, then sprinkles, then terrible thunder and lightening and then the rains, no, floods came. Everybody crammed under the shelter, the power went out and they cancelled the show. We made it back to the lodge after two hours of driving in rain and the worst fog. All we could do was laugh.

We got home Tuesday (no maggots, only a few dead ones) and saw a movie and after I fixed the kids dinner, my sinks and shower backed up, oh yes! I ran to buy draino which wouldn't even go down it just sat and practically made us pass out from the fumes. Plumber came out and snaked the drain Wednesday morning and all was well.

Matt has been gone one week this summer and that's when all the fun stuff happens :-(
He got home last night and of course nothing is crawling around or backed up or broken (except for the kitchen tv which I can't turn on).
I need a drink!

Oh one more thing, we have a party for one of Matt's friends tonight in Mansfield and the power is out in the whole area! I might burst into flames.

Hope to see you next week.

Lori (queen of bad luck)

This heat is good for one thing...

My garden.














And I learned today from a blog that you can shred your zucchini and freeze it! Now I won't waste any zucchini and we can have Dylan's favorite zucchini bread all winter.

Grant's last game (for this season)

Grant had his last game tonight, never mind the 102 degree heat, it's baseball time. Warning : this post contains lots of baseball pictures of a gorgeous young boy who just happens to belong to me :-)






















Excuse this ARM in the picture, she walked RIGHT in front of me. Grant decided to slide head first.











That smile says it all!

Need clean windows?

My windows, especially the French doors, have this film on them and I haven't been able to get rid of it. I have washed and washed and they look terrible, so yesterday I searched cyberspace and found a recipe for window wash. I mixed 2 cups of water and 1/4 cup white distilled vinegar and 1/2 teaspoon of dish soap. It worked like a charm. I found out that Windex and similar cleaners leave a waxy residue and you need the dish soap to cut through it. Now if my boys could just keep their greasy paws off of the glass...

The zoo and the case of the spilled milk...

This morning I loaded up the boys, some of whom were whining about their workbooks, and took them to a surprise place...the zoo. We had a very nice day there, the boys even listened when I had to run into the restroom while we were eating lunch and told them to sit still and not touch, look at or speak to one another until I returned (miracle). We took our time, all boys saw their favorites and we even took in two animal shows while we were there, who knew. I have been going to the zoo for 10 years and have never stopped to see one of those shows, it was great. One included the stars of a book called Frenemies. It was about a dog and cheetah who were raised together and now co-exist. Out walked this gorgeous cheetah on a leash, right there in front of us, it was exciting (never mind the horror scenes that were running through my head had that cheetah gotten off that leash). On the way out we checked out the amusement park and decided we wanted we try that some other time. The wrist bands are only $5 after 5:00, that is cheaper than a fair and there were no lines at any of the rides.

Onto the spilled milk. We were all playing outside this evening and Dylan disappeared for awhile. I yelled for him to come back out, it was too nice to be inside (you know the drill) and out he came, holding his shoe? I didn't ask (big mistake) and I went in for a drink and heard the tv on so I went to turn it off and I saw this spot on the carpet and noticed the white blanket had a spot on it too? I asked Dylan if he spilled his milk, chocolate milk, in the living room..."no, mom". Well why is there chocolate milk on the blanket and on the floor? "well I spilled a little drop on the blanket". Oh, what about the floor? "no, not on the floor". I hear the hose outside and notice Dylan spraying off his shoe. Did chocolate milk spill on your shoe when you spilled it on the floor? "Yea, a little". Did it get anywhere else? "no." I washed what I thought was the only spot off the blanket and hung it outside to dry and as I was hanging it up i saw many more big spots of chocolate milk on the blanket. Dylan, why didn't you just tell me you spilled the milk so I could clean it up? "I forgot". The case of the spilled milk is finally solved. Excuse me now, I have to scrub the carpet and do a load of laundry.

She's a survivor!

Guess who finished her 36th radiation treatment yesterday? My Mom! She is done and finished with flying colors!!! We are all so proud of her. To celebrate her awesome victory over this disease, Nicole and I and the kids decided to drive over and surprise her yesterday. We brought a big sign and lots of pink balloons and lunch. We really had a nice day just hanging out and enjoying family.















Congratulations Mom. You are an inspiration to all and we love you! 'Celebrate good times come on'!

Too difficult?

How hard is it to put a new roll of toilet paper on the roll? Really? I wonder if I never put a new one on if they would just keep using the torn scraps from the old one or tear paper off the brand new roll sitting on the counter, just waiting to be put on the roller? Just saying.

Buried alive...

Happy Fourth!

We had such a fun day yesterday so I thought I'd share:-) We met my moms side of the family at Delaware State Park for a picnic.


There were cousins, even a brand new baby cousin, Braxton, whom I got to hold and love on for a long time.





There was fishing and Grant caught his first two fish EVER!


And with the luxury of a faucet and drinking fountain right next to our picnicking area, the kids, some big, had a water fight.








Some sweet little ones just wanted to play in water but not get splashed,





Lots of catch


Wagon rides,


Climbing trees to retrieve balls...





Jack was about six feet from the top!!!





And there were lots of hugs going around. When we got home we did some sparklers and then the neighbors came over to watch the fireworks. FUN!





Hope you had a great day too.