New School Clothes from Grandma B

Their new shoes and clothes make them super fast. 

Check these guys out:

Thanks for spoiling us, Grandma!

Intense Summer Fun

This summer, as a cure for idleness and boredom, Ben got us into a really cool project. His goal was to make and deliver 30 treats, to 30 friends, in 30 days.

That equates to a LOT of time in the kitchen, a LOT of time chasing people down, and a LOT of crap food around my house (my expanded waistline will prove that last point).

But we had a LOT of fun doing this too! Our kids got to see--firsthand--how fun it is to make other people happy with a gift and/or visit, and they learned a thing or two about food preparation as well.

Would I recommend this project for your family? Definitely! Especially if I'm on your list of receivers. ;)

Will we be doing this again? Yes! But I'm going to require the full year to recover, so don't even look for us until next summer!

Perspective

A Boy's Rite of Passage

The other day we were getting ready to go swimming, so I asked my guys to go get changed into their suits. Within a few moments, however, Smarty surprised me by running out to me, buck naked, and hollered, "Look how strong I'm getting, Mom!!!" Then he curled his fists up to his chest, squatted down, scrunched up his face, and growled like a pirate! And as quickly as he came, he was gone, so I promptly laughed my head off!

Although millions of boys have surely done this same thing, I'm certain that mine was the very cutest, ever. If it wasn't so wildly inappropriate, I would have filmed a repeat performance. If you're dying for a visual, however, it reminded me of this:

Cheap Fun

Sweety recently had a birthday and received the following presents. I'm pretty sure they didn't cost the giver a whole lot, but the combination was gold. The boys spent several days enjoying them, imensly. I'm thinking the Whoppers weren't terribly clean by the time they were eaten, but oh well! No one died!

Thanks for all the fun, present givers!

Sweety Turns Five!

Thanks, Amy, for letting me shamelessly steal photos off you and immediately re-post them here. You make my life easy. (Click here to see her original post)

On his birthday we celebrated with family.

He LOVED the work gloves from Grandpa B. He didn't take them off until bedtime!

Smarty's doing his best to look tough here. ;)

A few days later, we hosted a party for all of Sweety's friends. I couldn't figure out what activity to do, at Sweety's party, that wouldn't turn into a dirty mess in our backyard. Finally Ben suggested that we just embrace the mud that is our yard, so we did. We had a BLAST!

 Ben is brilliant at cake decor. Sweety loved the trucks.

After presents and cake, we gave everyone a bucket, started the hose, and turned them loose on our dirt pile out back. We had mud holes, a slip 'n slide, a splash pool, and after a while, Ben turned a hose on our slide for good measure. It seems like there was something for everyone, and I think we all had a fantastic time!

Boys and Their Toys

Ben's customized soda can smasher cracks me up.

Way to recycle, baby. This makes all that money spent on shelving completely worth it, right?

My little movers

In case you can't tell, Sweety is driving the green truck and towing Smarty on his broken-down motorcycle, followed by his broken-down F-16.

Smarty just wasn't having good luck with vehicles that day. Good thing Sweety was there to save the day!

Clever boys.