Wordless Wednesday

Tan lines!

For the first time in 30+ years I got a tan with out having to deal with a major sunburn first!

Sorry about the scary runner toenails!

Hide and seek gone wrong

The power at Jons office has been out for the past two days. Jon has been working at his old office by the airport. The kids and I decided to take advantage and head up for a picnic lunch. While we were there:

Ben: Dad, you want to play hide and seek with me?

Jon: Ok

Ben: Ok, I'll go hide behind the tree and you come find me.

Jon: Ben you aren't supposed to tell me where you're going to hide.

After explaining it to him, I helped Ben hide while Jon counted. Jon went searching, but couldn't find Ben anywhere. Ben decided to help him out by "whistling" for him like he whistles for Bailey when he wants her to come with him. We'll have to work on that one.Dad and Sam searching for Ben.

After our exciting game of hide and seek, Ben asked if he could 'drive." After a minute, I looked over and this is what I saw:

If you can make it full screen, that will help. If you can't tell what he's doing, he pulled the mirror down and is fixing his hair!

Tattoo

I've been waiting to get my Sam tattoo for quite a while. I finally headed up to Voodoo Monkey with my mom and got it done. Prasti recommended Eric and he was phenominal! I gave him a general idea of what I wanted and he ran with it. The only problem is it makes Bens plane tattoo look a little sad. I'm going to have to go back and see if he can add a little flare to that one.

I treated myself and I actually got 2 tattoos tonight. The second one is my dads signature. I know he's with me, but now I have a physical reminder.

Last sale

Debbie and I had our second and final adoption/yard sale on Saturday. It was slower then the first sale, but we took advantage of the slow times to have some fun! Check out the details on our other blog.

Nice shoes!

Crushers

Last week Jon and Ben went to go see a Lake Erie Crushers baseball game with some people from church. Ben always has a good time with dad, but it sounds like he spent a large chunk of time with Miss Stacey. He even pushed Reid out of the way and took over Staceys lap. Its a good thing Ben is so cute! After the game, the kids got to run the bases (which Ben loved). They had a great time and since the stadium has lawn seats, I think that will be perfect for Sam too.

In other "crushing" news, I had a bit of a run in with a pole on Saturday. I consider myself a (lucky) good driver. I've only had one speeding ticket (when I was 16) and I've only been in one accident which consisted of me going into a ditch in bad weather. After 4+ years of living in our house, I misjudged a turn into our driveway and hit the light pole at the end of it. At least I did it to the van and not to my leased Jeep. Its not the most attractive thing to look at and I'm sure its going to make me sick every time I see it, at least for a while, but the car still works and no one was hurt. I guess thats all we can ask for. Check out my handy work:

Happy fathers day

Happy fathers day to my hubby. Thank you for working so hard to take care of all of us and for always showing us how much you love us. You are an amazing husband/father. I couldn't ask for more. We love you.

New approach

I love Ben with all my heart, but sometimes he has a bit of a stubborn/ridiculous/crazy side (all of which he gets from Jon)! Ben and Sam have been in the same room for over a month and it is still NOT going well. We decided to separate them for nap time because Sam wasn't sleeping. Ben now takes "naps" in our room. He still doesn't sleep most of the time, but at least he gets some down time and Sam gets some sleep.

Bed time is still a disaster. As soon as we leave the room, Sam throws his binky on the floor. Ben feels obligated to get it (even though we've told him its a game for Sam and to just leave it on the floor) so Ben gets out of bed and picks it up for him. After about the 20th time, Ben starts screaming at Sam about everything. EVERY NIGHT (seriously, every night over and over again) we hear, "Sam, don't throw the binky. Sam, stop talking. Sam, lay down. Sam, stop it. Sam, don't do it......." and on and on until Ben has a total melt down EVERY NIGHT! We were hoping they just needed some extra time to adjust, but its actually got worse, not better. Last night we decided to put Sam down first. We read a Bible story to Ben and spent some time talking about it and then let him watch a cartoon. Luckily, Sam had fallen asleep by the time the cartoon was over. We slipped Ben into his bed and he got to go to sleep in peace. It was wonderful.

I think we are going to put them to bed separately at least until Sam gets rid of the binky or Ben can tune Sam out at night. I don't know how things will work out of we put Ben to bed before Sam is asleep, but I'm hoping we are on the right track to a more peaceful bed time routine.

Friends and family

Yesterday morning was spent with some friends.

Ella might have some competition!

Last night we had dinner with family. My brother and future sister in law are in town to work on wedding plans. It is always great to see them.

Bike ride

Ben has been enjoying riding his bike, but Sam is getting a little jealous. Last time we were out we gave Sam his shot. He was more along for the ride than going for a ride. Either way, he had fun.

Picnic

Every year Cross Point Church has a picnic in the park each month in the summer. They are always a lot of fun and we always eat way too much. This month we had a Mexican theme. You can't have a Mexican themed picnic (or any sort of Calaway outing) with out a pinata.

I don't know if Sam completely understood the concept, but he was having fun.

It rained for about 5 minutes. It was just long enough to get rid of the bugs that invade Lakewood every summer. I don't know what they are called. Everyone seems to have a different name for them, but what ever they are called, they are everywhere and they are annoying! Layla was nice enough to share her umbrella.

Sam and dad playing frisbee.

We are already looking forward to next month.

Daniel fast

Jon started the Daniel fast yesterday. For 10 days he is eating mainly fruits and vegetables. He can have some other foods like salad (no dressing), potatoes (dry) or certain kinds of pasta. Its very strict though. No sugar, caffeine, anything that comes from an animal, processed or bleached grains. Check here for all the restrictions. I am doing it with him for dinner as my way of supporting him. Dinner last night was ....interesting. We had salad, brown rice and vegetables. It wasn't bad, but it was in no way satisfying. By 9pm, I was starving. I don't know how Jon did it all day.

The boys and I headed to West Side Market today and got a ton of fruit and some veggies for Jon. We made a HUGE fruit salad. Hopefully this will spice tonights dinner up a little bit. After we add in apples and bananas, we'll have about 12 different fruits in there. It looks delicious. Too bad we can't add some ice cream, chocolate and whipped cream on there!

I'm so proud of you baby. You're doing great.

Another year

Yesterday was my birthday. As you know, I'm not a big fan of my birthday, but not celebrating in some way isn't really an option. So we celebrated, but kept it low key. The kids and I went to the mall and had a long lunch with Jon. Last night Jon cooked me my requested birthday dinner--breakfast pizza. He made my night by adjusting my age just a bit with the candles. After dinner we headed to Crocker Park for ice cream. It was great spending time with my boys and reading a bunch of birthday wishes on Facebook. Thanks everyone for remembering.

Yard sale

I co hosted a yard sale over the weekend. It was so much more work than I expected, but it was so worth it in the end. Check out my other blog for more details on the sale.

The Letter E

April was the Month of E. Since Jon was on vacation the last week of April, we decided to carry it into May. Here is what we came up with:
With all the running Emily and I did together, Ben became very attached to her. He was very excited to pose for a picture with her.

Bens cousin Emma and his friend Ella also start with E. We can't forget Elmo (who Ben was infatuated with for at least a year), Ernie and Elmer Fudd.

We celebrated Easter and colored Easter Eggs. Ben loves coloring Eggs and looks forward to it every year.

Bagels for breakfast with friends has become a weekly tradition. Where else would we go but Einsteins?

Ben mastered Elevator buttons a long time ago and has recently become a master Escalator rider.

We found some pictures of Elephants and learned some facts about them:

Elephants are the largest land animal and Elephant babies take 22months to grow in their moms belly!

We looked at the number Eleven (11) and realized that if you turn it on its side, it makes an Equals (=) sign.

We looked at some places on the map like El Salvador, Ethiopia and Egypt. We learned that we live by lake Erie and we live on planet Earth.

We revisited a Bible verse Ben learned a while ago. Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

We talked about E things around the house like Erasers, Earrings, Eyes, E mail and our Elf movie.

We talked about the difference between Easy and hard and Empty and full.

Finally we learned that Ecouter means listen in French. We're struggling with that in English. Maybe saying it in 2 languages will help him learn to listen!

Even though we spent 2 months on E, we didn't seem to cover as much as I would have liked. The list for F is twice as long as E so we're going to go get started.