What a way to end the month...

Boy am I'm glad to be done with October.

Joshua had a cough for most of the month - I thought it was just a cold, but it turns out it was the flu. Probably H1N1, but thankfully a very minor case. Despite my best efforts, Logan caught it too, so he got to take a trip to the doctor's office because of his age. Thanks to the flu, our trick-or-treating lasted less than half an hour because neither one of the boys was too excited about it. Rick and I got shafted on the candy this year, lol! Josh went back to school on Tuesday, and Logan (who started showing symptoms on Sunday), appears to be on the upswing. Finally. I had a sore throat on Tuesday night, but it never got any worse than that, so fingers crossed, our house is becoming less of a quarantine and we can again re-join the rest of the world...

On a better note, Josh started swim lessons on Tuesday and LOVES them! He wanted Rick to take him, so we were chatting on AIM and Rick was giving me a play by play, lol. This Saturday is Josh's big Cub Scout Fall Hike, so he and daddy are super excited about that. It's a good chance for Josh to do some really cool stuff and they can't wait.

Logan has been quite a handful, being sick. He's VERY clingy and wants to play endless games of Uno and Go Fish. I love him to pieces, but I have my limit when it comes to card games, lol. Luckily he's pretty good during the day, and it's only in the evenings that he gets really bad, which makes it more bearable. I think he's starting to come out of it - he's been pretty self-sufficient today.

I got some really cool news yesterday!! My sister and my nephew are coming up for Thanksgiving! They haven't been back to Michigan in a year and a half, and we haven't seen them since our vacation in February. Josh and Logan can't wait to see Solomon!!! They're going to spend time with my mom in Indianapolis first, and then come up here for my dad's family Thanksgiving the Sunday after.

Oh, and I'm hosting Thanksgiving for my mom and my siblings the weekend before! It's been a while since I cooked for that many people, but I'm looking forward to it.

Before I go, here are some pictures from the end of October:

Merlin and the Boy Wonder:



I have new hair!!! I was ready for something different, so I made a big change. I LOVE it and I'm really happy with it :)

Before:


After:


Looking forward to November and the rest of holiday season! I LOVE this time of year - it's so family centered. I'm even looking forward to snow (for now), because I want to have a sledding party for Logan's birthday! It's not until December 22, but I'm pretty sure that we'll have measurable snow by then, living right on the lakeshore!

October update!

Yikes - it's been a while! I finally dumped the pictures on my camera so I thought I'd do a quick re-cap of the month thus far.

In case you forgot, the kids were invited to ride in a fire truck at the Fire Prevention Parade this year!

Waiting to load up:


Getting ready to head out:




We also had a wedding this month. Congrats to Kyle and Alx! Here are some pics from the wedding down south:

Waiting very patiently...






Mom and Bob on the dance floor:


My aunt Debbie and uncle Ken celebrating:


Uncle Ken, Aunt Debbie, my cousin Bekah, and mom hiding in the background:


We spent this last weekend with family. We had a Halloween Party with Rick's family on Saturday afternoon, and then Saturday night, we were with my dad and my family for Pumpkin Carving and our annual Chili Cook-Off. I, of course, didn't have my camera, so I don't have pics of the boys in their costumes, but I'll make up for that on Saturday.

Promise!

Super Yum!!!

I skipped lunch and dinner today. It got a little crazy - the kids were invited to ride in a fire truck for the Fire Prevention parade, so they had Goldfish soup and toast, and I ran around trying to locate hats and stuff because it was chilly and rainy. Afterwards, Rick's cousin and his family came over and we hung out and let the kids play until they were tired out. At about 10pm I realized I was STARVING!! Luckily, Kraft foods had an email in my inbox and it contained a recipe for Loaded Baked Potato Soup. I had to modify it a bit because I didn't have everything on hand, but it was ready in less than half an hour (even though I cooked it on the stove and it boiled over...)!!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I'm a big soup person, and I just might eat the whole pot myself tonight!!! I added a can of Cream of Chicken soup because I read that it was kind of thin without it. I skipped the green onions, bacon, and sour cream because I was lazy and hungry, lol, so it's more of a cheesy potato soup, but it's totally to die for!!! Here's the link:

http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/loaded-baked-potato-soup-94649.aspx?cm_mmc=eml-_-rbe-_-dnr_ideas_from_pntry-_-mjr_mag

Super Yum!! I'm a fan!

Fall Fest, 2009

This weekend was the White Lake Area Fall Fest. It used to be called Oktoberfest, but apparently people were getting confused because it was actually in September (go figure... they must not know about Oktoberfest in Germany....). Anyhow, my mom came up for the day because Rick had to work, so we decided to check it out.

It was fun! Not too big, but really cool. There were some produce wagons with things like apples, green peppers, peaches, and plums. A local farm was there selling flowers, wreaths, squash, pumpkins and funny looking gourds and there was a HUGE selection of giant mum pots!!!

They also had a cider mill there (YUM!), and elephant ears!! We went through the Arts and Crafts stands and came across some really unique stuff... my mom bought me a birdhouse made out of a giant gourd, LOL!! I'll have to take a picture of that one!

The kids favorite thing (besides pizza and elephant ears!), was the hayride. Double JJ Ranch volunteered a tractor and hay wagon to take the kids on a short little hayride. The boys LOVED it! They wanted to go again!!







After the hayride, they got donuts and apple cider, and even posed for one more "brother picture" for me!!!

Budding Photographer...

So, I went to unload pictures from the memory card of the digital camera... imagine my surprise when I discovered there were almost 100 pictures on there!! I was thinking "hmmmm, I don't remember taking that many pictures." As I was looking through them, it occurred to me that Joshua had gotten ahold of the camera, lol.

There were pictures of Riley, Logan sleeping, the basement stairs, Rick on the phone, a scrape on his knee, a full dishwasher, the ceiling, the floor, tons of unsuspecting people (none of whom were even looking in the general vicinity of the camera, lol), and some random self portraits, that he took of himself, while sitting on the toilet.

Oh Lord, lol......







I can't wait to bring those up when he brings his first girlfriend home :)

For the Record...

I was done with my workout by 8:45am today! I was pretty proud of myself! It helped that Rick had to get up early and he wasn't laying in bed sleeping when I was up and about, but regardless, I got it done and out of the way early.

We'll see if that works again tomorrow :)

Oh, one more thing. "My Horizontal Life" by Chelsea Handler is H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S!!!!!

Ok, I'm off to finish re-finishing (lol) the console table my mom got me at a garage sale. I'm trying to make the scratches on top disappear...

Been Feeling Kinda Lazy....

Man, I feel like I've been fighting off a cold for a while now. I have a hard time sleeping, but I'm always tired, and I've been getting some pretty interesting headaches lately. The changing seasons are wreaking havoc on my sinuses, so I'm sure that's it, but seriously! I'm ready to start feeling good again!

It's taking some adjusting getting used to the whole "school year" routine again. I'm up with Joshua every morning to get him ready for school, but the minute he gets on the bus, I just want to go back to bed! Maybe I need to start working out in the mornings - get my energy up right away... I'm going to TRY that tomorrow, but honestly, I don't have much willpower, so I'll probably come up with some kind of excuse.

Sigh.

However, I start an aerobic class on the 30th, so maybe that will help get me back in the groove.

We've been busy working out in the yard lately. Fun stuff like yanking out bushes and removing stone so we can fix our fence. The house next to us is in foreclosure, so this weekend we went out there and thinned out the treeline between our property and theirs. Their yard was SO overgrown that it was making our yard look bad too! That just won't fly, lol. So, armed with a chainsaw, we spent the weekend clearing out trees that were on our property and stocking up on firewood, lol. It's not done yet, but it looks a ton better.

Joshua got signed up for Boy Scouts tonight. He read the paper they sent home from school about it and is CONVINCED that he's going to ride his bike through the mountains, learn to shoot a bow and arrow and cook smores over a campfire, thanks to the pictures that were on the paper, lol. He and Rick are BOTH super geeked about him being a "Wolf Cub"!! Rick maybe even more than Josh, lol! The first big "Pack Meeting" is on Monday, so we'll all be going to that as a family. I was a girl scout for quite a few years, so this is pretty fun for me too :)

Other than that, not a whole lot of excitement in our neck of the woods, but I'll take it! I like when things are quiet!

Oh, I forgot to add... on Sunday, my family had a Golf Scramble, and I DID NOT SUCK, even though it was only my second time ever going "real golfing", LOL! It was fun, and I'm looking forward to next year! It's the time of year when I get to see my family a lot... Pumpkin Carving, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, all really close together! I'm super family-oriented, so it's nice for me to see them a lot this time of year!

Have a great week... I'm off to listen to "My Horizontal Life" by Chelsea Handler. It looked really funny and I could do with some funny tonight! Thank you, book on CD from the library and MP3 player!

Adios Summer, Hola School Year!

Another summer vacation is gone. Wow, was it FUN being home with the kids! We were able to do SO much more stuff than we could when I was working. Plus, Rick ended up working just about 7 days a week, every single week, so it was good that the kids were still able to enjoy summer with mom!!

Time to get back into the "Back To School Groove"... Joshua is now in second grade! He was a little apprehensive this morning, but when we left him at his table in Mrs. Morningstar's class, he was fine. Logan, however, is going to have to get used to entertaining himself, without the help of his big brother. When we got home from dropping Josh off to school, Logan started to cry. He so desperately wants to go to school too, poor guy! I'm sure in a couple of days, he'll be fine, and enjoying not having anyone to bother him :)

Here are some pics from this morning:

His breakfast choice was a bagel with peanut butter and a big bowl of blueberries :)


Getting ready to go:


Showing off his new backpack:


I'll try to get some more pics when he gets off the bus this afternoon!!

Ludington State Park

Rick has been working crazy hours this summer - usually 7 days a week. We haven't been able to do much this summer as a family, which was bumming both of us out. Things are starting to slow down for him so he's been able to have a few days off that weren't because of rain. Yesterday, we decided to take the kids hiking at Ludington State Park.

When we told the kids yesterday morning, they were SO excited! I packed up a cooler for us, tracked down the bug spray, and we were on our way by about 11:30am.





We took the scenic route north through Pentwater so Rick could get his mopeds out so he could rent them over the phone if anyone called (that's what he does when he's not at the store). We drove around Bass Lake (SO PRETTY!), and decided to take the kids to the lookout at Consumers Energy. Just south of Ludington, there's a huge water reservoir where they make electricity. It's like 400 ft deep or something crazy like that. You can walk up the hill and look out at the reservoir and also Lake Michigan. My camera batteries died halfway up the hill, so I didn't get pictures at the top, but I did get some on the way up.













After that, we drove up to Ludington State Park - one of my favorite places to go hiking. We used to go there when I was little and I've been wanting to take the boys for the longest time. It was gorgeous. Warmer than we thought it was going to be though, but that was ok. I wanted to look for a geocache out by the lighthouse, so we decided on the Lighthouse Trail.









When we got about halfway on the trail, I remembered that the last part of that trail, across the sand, is particularly wicked. It was hot and walking in the sand was really hard on all of us, but Joshua did it himself, and Logan tried REALLY hard to make it before Rick had to put him up on his shoulders. Eventually we made it to the Big Sable Lighthouse. It was SO pretty - I should have taken a picture, but I was just so glad to be done walking for a while that I didn't even think about it, lol.

You can climb to the top of the Big Sable Lighthouse for $2.00 for adults and $1.00 for kids, so we decided that would be really fun. After a 5 minute video on the history of the lighthouse, which was REALLY cool, and a demonstration from a volunteer about how light is magnified with a lamp, we climbed the 130 steps to the top of the tower.



It was GORGEOUS up top!!! I've never been to the top of a lighthouse before and was so impressed!! The kids LOVED it!





After we got to the bottom, Joshua and Logan wanted to play on a HUGE tree stump, which was another great photo opportunity.





We decided to take the Lighthouse Road back instead of walking through all that sand again. It was hot, but it was hardpacked, so we were good with that! Right as we were about to get to the Coast Guard Trail to take that back to the truck we saw this:



Unfortunately, it was getting late, so we weren't able to check out the shipwreck, but we're definitely going to see what it's all about next time we're out there. On the way back to the truck, Eagle Eye Joshua spotted some wildlife!!





There is actually a deer laying in the grass in the last one, but you can't see it in the picture. After we made it back to the truck, we went to Dairy Queen for some well deserved ice cream and then we had to boogie back into Whitehall for Joshua's open house at school. But, it was an awesome day and we had a great time together.

Happy Birthday Joshua!!

Joshua is 7!! Happy Birthday to my firstborn! I won't go into the whole "story of the day he was born", but I will say that my life changed for the better the day he came into it :)

He wanted bbq chicken this year, and we had about 30 people coming for his Family Party last night, so I've been buying chicken every time I go grocery shopping for about the last 6 weeks, lol! I fried up a bunch and then Rick was so kind as to grill up the rest with some bbq sauce. I made a bunch of potato salad (which ran out way too quickly), and we had some baked beans and pretzels. It was very picnicky and that was what I wanted. Joshua LOVED IT! We were able to have the party outside, even though it was chilly, and Rick had a bonfire going which was really nice. Kids played on the playset and had a blast! Here are some pictures:

Here he is with his Bumblebee cake:


Joshua got some great gifts, but his favorite from Aunt Cheryl and Nick. It was a CD, and in the picture, he's trying to figure out which one it is:


And this is when he realized it was TAYLOR SWIFT!!!!!!


He got TONS of money too:




Today we went to McDonalds for lunch and then to the movies. I had asked Joshua what he wanted to do - play putt putt, go to Craigs Cruisers, Chuck E Cheese, a movie at the theater - whatever he wanted! He chose a movie, so we went to see "Shorts". It was actually really cute! Even Logan sat through almost all of it!! It was only about the last 15 minutes that he started to get fidgety, but the theater was so empty, I just let him go sit wherever he wanted and he was fine.

Tonight we had a party with some of his friends. He doesn't start school until after Labor Day, so if we were to have a party with classmates, it would have to wait until midway through September, so this year, we decided to invites some friends of ours who have kids that Joshua plays with and call it good!! It was TONS of fun! Tacos and cupcakes!! It doesn't get better than that! The kids brought swim suits and played in the hot tub. More playset and another bonfire!!

Here is Rick helping the kids with the cupcakes:




Joshua's best friend, Nick, who came out from Coopersville:


Logan, Sydney and Morgan:


Morgan and Chase:


Cameron, Joshua and Andi:


Opening presents:


A hot tub full of kids!!!!


Joshua had SO MUCH FUN! Here he is with Nick - I think that was the highlight of his birthday, seeing Nick again! Amy, thank you SO MUCH for making the drive from Coopersville!!!


Here's Sydney, Joshua and Morgan - he is DEFINITELY his father's son - surrounded by the ladies :)


And some new friends were even made (Andi and Sydney):


Happy Birthday to you! You live in a zoo! You look like a monkey, and you smell like one tooooooooo!!!

WE LOVE YOU JOSH! Hope today was everything you hoped for and more!