Seriously......

Now explain to me how this could be comfortable................

Bedtime Stories

Running With The Bu....Um, Cows

Todd and his brother took Noah and Aiden fishing on Sunday out at their Uncle Gene's lake. He also happens to have a dairy farm and the cows are not shy at all!

Aiden is trying to race them....

This cow decided he wanted a turn with the fishing pole.


Aiden and the running of the cows. Here little cow.

Noah waiting patiently for a fish.

Uncle Scott and Aiden fishing with their poles.
Two hours later and this is all that they caught! He's pretty mean looking isn't he??

What is it with boys and the outdoors??

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2 more pictures from the weekend at Heartland Lodge that Todd took with our camera.

I thought this one of Aiden was cute.

Close up of the butterfly.

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Ok, so Noah loses a tooth this morning. I find out after school that he lost the tooth, like in *poof* it's gone. I tell him to show me where he left it. Now GET THIS......he left the tooth soaking in the bathroom sink so it would get clean.....and he didn't tell anyone. HELLO!!!! That sink was used at least 10 times while he was at school, did he think it would just float in the bottom and hang out there?? He told me he thought someone would see it. I told him that his tooth is the same color as the sink! Now he's worried that he won't get his dollar from the tooth fairy. Heck, I'm afraid the tooth fairy will forget!! I can't break the kids' heart.

Our Weekend..........

...........Through The Eyes Of Our 7 Year Old. This past weekend we visited Heartland Lodge again. Just Todd and I went last year and it was the most gorgeous place to visit. Here is last years' post on it. We really wanted to bring the boys this year because we knew how much they would enjoy it all. Not as many Multisport Club members were able to make it this year but we still had a lot of fun. Noah took a ton of pictures so I'm letting him highlight the trip this time. I had no desire to touch anything electronic this weekend and it was so freeing. I enjoyed the outdoors with my family, read my book, ate great food, and slept in the comfiest bed. Here are just a few of the things that caught Noah's eye this weekend.

A deer antler chandelier.............

Thermometer.....unfortunately it wasn't as warm as I would have liked it to be!

A family picture taken on our hayride. We met another family from Quincy there that is related to the family of Drew and Noahs' friend. The boys had fun playing with their daughter Abbie.

A little blurry but this give you an idea of the amazing view from our hay ride!

There were plenty of deer and elk to photograph along the ride.
Gorgeous Sunset~

I wish Noah's flash had gone off. This is the kitty that lives at the lodge and he was so beautiful and sweet. If you weren't paying him enough attention, he'd throw himself belly up at your feet. Noah was head over heels for him. I was half tempted to stow him away in our van and bring him home.

We enjoyed the hummingbirds eating out of the bird feeder.

This is the butterfly Todd caught for Noah and let him release it back outdoors again.

We rode bikes, hiked through the creek, took a hay ride, had a bonfire and made s'mores, all of the kiddos played tag and soccer in the dark by the light of the moon and the bonfire. We all slept in, imagine that!!! And we ate good, played games, and just relaxed all weekend. The boys agreed it was one of their favorite weekends. We're really hoping to bring the rest of our family there sometime.

Like Mother, Like Son

I've been giving Drew grief because he comes home with new scrapes and bruises everyday. His legs actually look good in the picture compared to how they looked the week before.....and you should see his elbow from the spill he took from his skateboard. I can't give him anymore grief. If you look at my knees, I got a couple of owies myself. Mine aren't from playing rough or being daring, I'm just a plain clutz. I was sitting on my computer chair and when I went to get up and walk away, my heel got caught in my pajama pants and my body slammed to the floor. I haven't had rug burns like that in years. Ow! I've also decided from this picture, that knees are really ugly body parts!

Mother's Day Weekend

Mother's Day weekend was jam packed with activity. We took tons of pictures so I tried to narrow it down a bit.......hope you can stay with me till the end! :)

Saturday morning my whole family traveled to Charleston, IL to see my youngest brother, Nathan, graduate from Eastern IL University. It was neat to be able to see for the first (and last!) time his house and the campus. The campus there is really beautiful.

This is a picture of the whole family outside of the building where he had a lot of his classes for his major (finance).

After the tour, we headed to a nearby park for all the kiddos to burn off some energy.

Doesn't it look like Noah is hanging on for dear life??

I'm not sure what Drew is doing but I'm sure it involves him climbing off of the slide and slithering he way down the pole. That's a no-no Drewbie!

Aiden has no problem climbing anything, anywhere. It makes me a nervous mama!

This is a picture of my brother Matt, brother Nate, and me in front of Nate's house before the graduation ceremony.I'm so proud of you Nathan! My baby bro is all grown up.

On Sunday, Mother's Day, we started our way home and stopped in Springfield on the way to do some shopping and eat an awesome lunch at Chili's! Mmmm, was it good!

We snapped my annual mother's day pics in the hotel parking lot before we headed out of town. You gotta take 'em where you can get them!

Me and Drew
Me and Noah

Me and Aiden

When we got home, Todd's parents and brother came over for dinner and I got my awesome gifts from my boys. They made me a little teary so please humor me all these pictures. I need to have these in my "scrapbook" to look back on in the future when they don't think I'm quite so cool.

Noah made me 4 different things. This one I love with his handprint and he came up with something for each letter in MOTHER. M-makes me feel special. O-often makes me laugh. T-the best mom ever. H-helps me when I need it. E-excellent person. R-reads books to me. I love my mom more than anyone.

They also made these awesome silouhettes. I had been wanting to make these of my boys to hang in my hallway. How cute is he?

Aiden made me this adorable mom wall hanging and the flower that opens up to say I love mom. I have it hanging on the door in the kitchen.

Drew typed up this letter for me in computer class. It especially touched me because he rarely shares his feelings for me anymore. I know he loves me even though he doesn't say it much.

"Dear Mom, Thanks for taking care of me when I'm sick. Thanks for cooking, helping with homework, and giving me clothes. And last but not least, thank you for letting me go to St Dominic's. Love Drew"

He also gave me this beautiful flower.............................

which I'm going to put in this gorgeous flower pot made for me by my Godson, Ty.He used his fingers to make the petals. Quite the artist, that Godson of mine! Today I also received a Mother's Day card from my Goddaughter Kira that had a voice recording in it from her. I was so excited to hear her sweet little voice. She lives up in Plainfield IL so I don't get to see her too often.

Good news.....are basement is getting cleaned up tomorrow! They start at 1:00. I'm glad to get this process moving along and get it back to being a nice place to hang out. I didn't realize just how much space we had down there until we were confined to the main floor!! It has looked like a tornado has gone through it.

Spring Soccer

We're in the middle of spring soccer and the boys are having a ball. Aiden is playing soccer for his first time ever. The best part??? He's on the same team as his cousins' Blake and Ty and his Uncle Matt is the coach. How fun! I haven't gotten pics of the boys in their uniforms yet, hope to this week. But Todd, Drew and I played with the camera and got some decent action shots. It's still killing me not being able to crop my pics. Good news is, I think our downstairs computer survived the flood....the hard drive and cords were on the wet carpet. Todd got it all hooked back up so I can start using it again. Yippee!

Anyway, Aiden LOVES playing goalie and I have to say, he does a good job of it. He gets almost every ball that comes his way. Here he is throwing it back out into the field. Don't you love those little goals??

I'm not sure what he's doing here. That's him in the blue right next to the ball but he doesn't seem to be going for it. Hmmm. When he's not playing goalie, he runs around the field a lot, picks dandelions, plucks fistfulls of grass, and occasionally goes after the soccer ball. It's all a learning process I tell myself.Here's my nephew Blake going after the ball. Look at that fierce determination on his face! Love it!

This is kind of blurry, but once again, Blake is going after that ball. You can tell he's 5 compared to some of the 3 year olds. He's got this game figured out!!

My nephew Ty getting some advice from Coach Dad.

Here's Noah (green shirt) going after the ball at his game. I'm really seeing him get more aggressive on the field this year and he does a great job of playing his position.

There's Noah on the far right heading towards the ball.

I'm sure more soccer pictures will be coming!

We have a busy weekend planned. We're headed to Charleston IL tomorrow for the weekend to see my youngest brother graduate from college. We're looking forward to getting away and I'm excited to see my brother get ready to head into the next phase of his life. We'll have the laptop with us for the boys to watch DVD's so hopefully I can get a wireless connection somewhere!!

Have a great weekend.

A Package For Me!

Mr Mailman walked up to my house yesterday with a package. I looked at the return address and knew right away it was from Amy!! I won a giveaway on her Chic Book Chick blog and boy did she spoil me, it totally made my day. I won these awesome books and I can't wait to read them...but which one do I do first??? (what?? a Nora Roberts book I haven't read yet?? How did that happen?) I just finished P.S. I Love You and if you haven't read it, it's an absolute MUST. I really want to rent the movie now.

She also sent me all of this crafty goodness!! This girl is talented...you can see a lot of her craftiness on her other blog, Caffinated Cropper.

(I'm sorry the lighting is so bad, it's overcast and I still don't have access to my basement computer where my beloved photo editing software is.) I got this awesome notebook and pen (she knows I love my owls!), the coolest bookmark ever!, and these gorgeous notecards. Thank you, thank you Amy!! You definitely perked up my week!

Weekend

How's that for a title?? I'm so creative sometimes.

After all bad and the ugly that happened last week, I felt like posting some of the good from my weekend.

Saturday morning we had perfectly beautiful weather for the annual Dogwood Parade. The boys of course were ready to scoop up all the candy and other goodies that were thrown their way. Here the boys are waving their flags with cousin Hunter. (Drew is the one in back that looks like the unibomber.) After the parade we all headed back to my mom and dad's for pizza.

This might have been about the time that Blake and Noah were discussing whether this older gentleman's beard was real or not. He overheard them and said it wasn't . Just a little embarrassing. :)

I snapped this cute picture sunday night of Noah and Grayson. Seriously could those two be any cuter together when they are sleeping?? Everybody needs a furry buddy.

Sunday I had my Mary Kay Open House to celebrate 5 years as a consultant. Drew, my sweet Drew, wanted to help me with it again. He was so excited for some reason. Not only did he help me clean the house and set all of my stuff up, he showered and got dressed in his suit so he could answer the door for me and pass out drinks and cookies. How lucky am I?? I tried to pay him for all of his hard work and he refused. My sale was a huge success and to thank Todd and the boys for their help and support, I took them to Applebees for supper to celebrate. (ok, seriously, am I really only about a head taller than him?? I'm 5'8" and wearing short heels)

I was cracking up because Drew started posing with the products.

The sun has been shining for a few days now and order is being restored, slowly but surely. The insurance adjuster came today.....that was a little nervewracking. After she took pictures and looked around we came upstairs for an "interview". She pulled out her little voice recorder and started asking me questions. I was a little nervous. Servicemaster came this morning for about the 100th time and we are down to 30% humidity and it's close to dry. They will be back tomorrow to start cleaning and disinfecting. It's an almost sure thing that we will have to replace the padding. Those who know my basement, I ask you this......where in the world are we supposed to move all of our crap...... I mean furniture, toys, and stuff, in order to remove the padding, put new padding in and then, get this, stretch out our carpet??? I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it. If you could have seen the panic attack I had wednesday night when Drew got sick and then this with the basement....well, it wasn't pretty. But I'm sure I'll post more on the basement at a later date. I'm going to go bury my head in the sand and think happy thoughts.......like tonight Aiden, Blake, and Ty have a soccer game and team pictures and they are so stinkin' cute out there on the field. Then I get to come home and watch what I hope to be one of the best weeks of American Idol yet!!