We're Still Alive

This summer has been just craaaazy!! Technically we're in St Louis this summer but actually we've been in Branson, Peoria, Lynchburg (Virginia!), Peachtree City, Augusta, etc. You get the point... we've been traveling! It's been lots and lots of fun! But my blog has definitely suffered as a result of the craziness. This pic is just to whet your appetite for the jillions more that I have to post. Howie just celebrated his big old 3rd birthday a couple weeks ago!! Right now I need to go to bed because kids are merciless in the morning... they don't care when you went to bed. That's why coffee is sooooooo my BFF. Anyway, all that to say, more pics are soon to appear. For now, take a peek at some oldies but goodies below.

Strawberry Picking, and Eating (Obviously)

Back at the end of May we went to pick strawberries at Eckert's, and it was a blast. We ended up picking 17 pounds (most of which went into the freezer for later)!! Howie loved running around and pulling the strawberries off the plants, and Justice was truly in paradise... strawberries are one of his favorites and there he was, completely surrounded on all sides. Believe me, he enjoyed himself. The pics say it all. You will be shocked to know that his clothes actually came clean. That's the power of Shout gel, people. (How funny is his shirt? One of our dear friends from Augusta sent that to him. HA!)

Serious Mom Moment

I dashed to Target all by myself this morning (woohoo!!) to grab a couple things, one of which was a CD player... I'm not totally sold on the ipod dock, which we've had since we got married. There's something I still like about having the actual CD. Anyway, I digress. We've wanted to get a CD player for the boys' room for a long time, so today was the day. I got back in the car after finding having great success in Target and started driving home. The only approved radio stations in the car are NPR (90.7 for all you locals) and occasionally ESPN (101.1) if something interesting is happening in sports or of course if it's football season. I feel like I'm constantly reminding Josh that NPR is really the only approved station, lest he radio surf and settle on some elevator music or something. But when I left Target it was 10:44, the last part of the 2nd half of the Diane Rehm show. I love Diane Rehm, but I usually only love her from 9:00-10:00. (This is an aside... I tell time by what show is on NPR. Neil Conan? Oh, it must be between 1 and 3. The last part of Morning Edition? Oh, it's almost 9. Gotta love having that adult voice talking to me throughout the day.) Anyway, as I was saying, Diane usually talks about some book in the second hour that I'm not interested in, usually fiction. All that by way of setup for this story. Yeesh. So I was driving and since there was nothing that I wanted to hear on the only truly approved radio station, I let whatever was in the CD player play. Turns out it was Cookie Monster singing "C Is For Cookie." Somewhere in my subconscious I just sang along with Cookie Monster. Only after the song finished did I realize there were definitely no kids in the car and I guess I just listened to that song for me. But not only did I listen... I liked it. Sigh.

It Was An Easy Decision... Team Jacob (p.s.- if you are a hardcore Twilight fan you won't like this post)

Josh and I decided to have a movie night during our long stay in Peoria and found ourselves at a Redbox station. After weeding out some truly terrible looking movies, we were down to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and New Moon. (Some of you may say that New Moon also belongs in the terrible-looking movie category, but bear with me.) I know that Benjamin Button is good, but it wasn't the mood we were going for... we needed something lighter, and fluffier. So for some reason we went for New Moon, although we hadn't seen the first Twilight movie. Somehow I knew it was about a love triangle between a girl, a vampire, and a werewolf... come on, seriously? I guess we were in the mood for some teenage sap, so we brought it home. Now I have to say, (again, please tune out, Twilight lovers... this is only my opinion) this movie was worse than I thought possible. Granted, Josh and I didn't totally know what was going on since we hadn't seen the first one, but the screenplay seemed like it was written by a third grader- I honestly laughed at so many lines!! Bella was the most insipid, hesitating, annoying character EVER.

Nonetheless, Josh and I decided it was only fitting to take a side, so we are firmly members of Team Jacob. He was way nicer, way more shredded, way funnier... this one is a no-brainer, Bella. Don't waste your time on someone who wants desperately to suck your blood.

So, you may think that since I thought New Moon was so silly that was the end of Twilight for us, right? Wrong. You may freely call me a hypocrite now, but we had to know what had happened in the first Twilight. So the next day Josh charged me to go to Blockbuster and rent Twilight. I scoured the shelves for it and triumphantly brought it home. This movie was maybe a shred better, but this one also had so many silly lines that prompted many unintended laughs. I won't get started on the many plausibility holes (granted, the target audience is like 14 year old girls who aren't thinking about it quite so hard), but I just have to bring up this point: remember at the end when Bella gets bitten on the wrist by that bad vampire? She gets a huge bite mark on her wrist? WHY DO HER PARENTS NOT SEE THAT??? She has a big scar that Jacob comments on in New Moon, so how is that not visible to her parents, who would then realize that Edward is a vampire and would put a stop to this silly relationship??

Any Twilight fans out there who have read this post and would like to weigh in and tell me what I'm missing, please do. That's my 2 cents.

Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day celebration, thanks to my fabulous husband!! Started out with some Chinese takeout Saturday night since I was seriously delaying cooking dinner... I think there was something somewhat funky on the menu that I wasn't sure would turn out good and I guess I didn't want to put in the time and have it turn out to be disgusting. So anyway he saved me the effort by going out to get Chinese food, which was phenomenal. I am so into Chinese. Then Sunday Josh and Howie cooked me some breakfast, we went to church for a wonderful service, and then after church made the hike to Ted Drewe's for concretes!!! YUM!!! Call me a bad mom, but even Justice ate some ice cream. He already eats like he's 12 anyway, so I said what the heck. It was soooooo yummy. Any of you St Louis-ans who haven't gone yet, please do yourself the favor of going asap. After that we came home so the boys could rest and Josh and I just relaxed and enjoyed the sunshine. Topped it all off with a wonderful evening service and the Celebrity Apprentice!! I can't think of a much better way to spend Mother's Day.

My Products of Craft Night [With LOTS of help!]

Here are my first two sewing projects, photographed on the ugly background of my kitchen counter!! We've been having Craft Night every Monday night and I'm really enjoying learning how to sew from some of the other ladies who actually know how. My first project was the bib with the bird on it the front and pear on the back. My seams are pretty crappy so don't zoom in. But the girls reminded me that soon they would be covered in who knows what falling out of Baby J's mouth, which was an excellent point. It's been fun!! Hopefully my sewing will keep getting better!!

This Was Not So Long Ago