I Labored on Labor Day

I did changed the linens on the boys' beds, did 3 loads of laundry & made bread. Twice. I had a little guy helping me the first time & we forgot to put yeast in the bread, so I had to make it again. In a bread machine that is starting to die. I have to stay and watch it for the first couple of minutes to make sure it doesn't start overheating. If it does, I have to unplug it, wait a few minutes & then try again. So I've been researching bread machines on the internet. The only thing I use mine for is to mix dough, so it doesn't have to be fancy, but it does need to work well, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Since today was a holiday, the boys didn't have school today. Nevertheless, Nathaniel was up about 6:30 am & David was up shortly after. We had about 20 minutes of cuddle time in my bed & then we headed downstairs. You know, I just realized the boys never ate breakfast. David was busy playing with his Transformers (he got some new ones on Saturday) and Nathaniel was playing with his Thomas trains while they sort of watched a Ben 10: Alien Force marathon on Cartoon Network. The day was pleasantly without much conflict even though Nathaniel only napped on the couch about an hour.

The worst thing that happened today was Nathaniel's total meltdown. We found a new show on PBS Kids this morning (before Ben 10) called Dinosaur Train. It looks cute and Nathaniel LOVED it. So this afternoon after his power nap, he starts asking to watch Dinosaur Train again. Of course its not on until tomorrow morning after they leave for school. That's all he wanted to do was watch Dinosaur Train. He threw himself down on the floor, kicking & wailing like it was the end of the world. I finally thought to look at the pbskids.org website to see if they had anything on it. Sure enough they had 2 little shows that make up an episode, so he watched those and was a happy boy after that. I didn't hear another word about Dinosaur Train the rest of the night.

Oh, did I mention that the boys went to bed at 7:30 pm? Yep. 7:30! I only had to yell at Nathaniel 1 time to go to sleep. Yippee for me! So I've spent the last hour picking up the remnants of the toys in the living room in preparation to vacuum tomorrow morning while the boys are both at school. Now its my turn to go to bed.

Home Again & Bows & Arrows & Soccer

We home again. Finally. Well, I really shouldn't say finally, as we've been home since about 12:30 this afternoon. However, I feel like I've done nothing but be gone for the weekend for 3 out of the last 4 weeks. Oh, wait. I have. :)

Within 20 minutes of us getting home, Richard & David left to go to a bow shop in a little town about 30 miles away so Richard could pick up the new bow he bought on Friday. And to let David shoot a youth bow to see how he liked it. David liked it so much that Richard bought it for him. Its a left-handed bow, since David is a lefty, and David is very, very proud of it.

Richard & David spent a good part of the afternoon shooting their respective bows, while I went and picked the dogs up from the kennel, fixed dinner & cleaned the kitchen up after dinner. We just got the kids into bed about 15 minutes ago (Nathaniel took a long nap so I wasn't in a hurry to put him in bed), and now Richard is packing to leave on a trip for work. David is devastated that Richard is leaving although it'll only be for a few days. The one bright spot is that we're signing up David to play soccer this fall. Practices start next Thursday, and games will be on Saturday mornings. I'll have to get some pictures of the practices & games. He's really excited.

Busy Day

We had a busy day today. We went to the park, went to an ice cream shop, Target and went swimming for a while in the afternoon. Richard and I went to see G.I. Joe. It was pretty good for a movie based on action figures & a cartoon. Left it wide open for a sequel, of course.

Its late and I'm tired. Have a great Sunday!

Not again!

I did it again. I forgot to post last night. We drove up to Richard's sister's place in the Twin Cities, and we didn't get there until after 8:00 pm, then we had a late dinner and a really late (9:00 pm) swim in the chilly indoor pool before sending the kids to bed about 10:00. They slept until about 7:00 this morning, and have been playing with cousin Conner's Transformers ever since.

Richard's sister is taking their dad to the airport to fly back to Idaho today. After that we're going to go do some stuff around town. Richard and I have a date night planned tonight, I think we're going to go to a movie and dinner.

A Funny Thing Happened.....

while I was mowing the yard this evening. I looked over to the house and watched Nathaniel walk outside and start down the steps of the deck. I glanced away and when I looked back I see him standing on the bottom step, peeing into the yard. There was a nice arc to the stream and at that moment I wished I had my camera. It was so funny! And cute!

Stormy has been stealing ripe tomatoes off the plants. I caught her eating one this afternoon. Goofy dog! Now I know where the one almost ripe tomato went that was on one of our hanging plants. And I was going to pick it today! It was gone this morning when I went outside to get it.

Tomorrow ends the first week of school. Its been a busy week but fun for the most part.

Volunteers? Anyone?

The other day I took some pictures of the volunteer pumpkins that we have growing in our yard. Richard threw an old pumpkin we had from last fall over into the cow pasture sometime during the winter, and just a couple of weeks ago we noticed this huge mass of leaves and vines. Upon closer inspection we found a mini pumpkin patch. It started on the pasture side of the fence & ventured into our yard.....
We have 5 pumpkins in varying stages of growth. Well, 5 that we can see. There might be more on the other side of the fence. There's another one that is smaller than this one.

This one and the one in the picture below are the largest of the pumpkins we've seen. To me it seem pretty late in the season for them to just be developing, but its been a weird summer for gardens, so we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Obviously I don't have a lot to talk about since I'm showing you pictures of pumpkins. :)

We have 7 couples registered for Financial Peace University. I'm ordering the kits on Friday so we'll have them in time for a Sept 14th start date.

We're going up to the Twin Cities for the weekend, not including Monday. The boys are excited since we're staying with Richard's sister & her apt complex has an indoor pool.

The First Day

Did not start out well for me. I woke up about 3 am with a horrible migraine. It felt like someone was pounding spikes through my forehead & I was naueous as well. I took an Imatrex and after an hour took another one, which Richard went and got for me. I was finally able to fall asleep, and then Richard's alarm went off. Mine went off shortly after Richard's, but I stayed in bed until almost 6:00; my alarm was set for 5:30. I still had a migraine, but it was almost gone, so it wasn't horrible to get the kids up and ready for school. The nice thing is that I don't need to worry about breakfast, since Nathaniel eats breakfast at school instead of lunch, and new this year at David's school is a free lunch program, so the kids eat breakfast in their classroom. So with that, I think we can safely get them up at 6:00 instead of 5:30. Here are some shots of the big day.

This first one is my favorite. David sometimes says he doesn't like his brother, but this just proves how much he loves him!
I was hoping that they'd hold hands on the walk to the end of the driveway, but they didn't. But its still a cute picture.

Nathaniel insisted on putting David's hood up on his jacket before we walked out the door. It was cold this morning. Not more than 50 degrees. David wanted to wear shorts this morning, but I talked him out of it.

Here's another cute pose. The white square on Nathaniel's jacket is a name tag with his name & what school he goes to. The pre-k school sent it in the mail. Apparently they want them to get to the right place. :)

Here comes the short bus. The driver, Barb, seems really nice. She brings Nathaniel home as well. The red barn behind the bus is our landlord's barn. So we're really close to them. Shoot! Just remembered I need to take rent over!

Nathaniel had no qualms (great Scrabble word) about getting on the bus. In fact, he was so excited I didn't even get to hug & kiss him goodbye! I didn't realize it until after the bus was gone. (sniff, sniff) But I didn't cry like I thought I might.

And here's the 1st grader! Didn't get a hug or kiss from him, either.

I went back to bed after the kids got on the bus. I slept until about 9:45 am, and after cleaning up I went out to wait for Nathaniel to get home. He was done with school at 10:30, but didn't get home until 11:45! Its a first day of school thing. Making sure everyone is on the right bus & then getting everyone home. Barb the bus driver said that it'll most likely be closer to 11:00 to 11:15 when he's dropped off once she gets the route down.

When David got home from school he said that the day was too short! But he couldn't really remember what he did at school.