busy day

Spent most of the day getting the place ready for Kevin and company. They will be here tomorrow. Should be a fun day. I haven't met his last three kids and the last time I saw Keith, he was a baby. Sure has been awhile. Anywho... house is clean and food is ready for the eating. Here's hoping we can keep most of the bugs off of us tomorrow.

Off to relax... it's been a busy one.

happy bit

My faboo hubby brought these home for me yesterday. He thought I could use them and he didn't even know about the 14 pairs of underwear that Alex had gone through! What a keeper!! They were actually 3 bouquets that are simply lovely together. I love him.

And here is a happy picture that we sent to my mom today. Thought she could use it and she loved it. The kids were so proud of coloring in the sign themselves. Nice work.

Hit Walmart today to start getting ready for my brother and his family's visit on Saturday. Picked up some stuff so hopefully the bugs will leave us alone while we are enjoying each others company. Now I can wait for the coming rain storm. At least the weather people keep telling me there is going to be a storm with the cold front coming through. Hard to believe it with the sun shining out there. But it is still very humid. ick. Looking forward to opening the house back up again.

Til that time... I am going to sit at my scrap table and see how many pictures I can get out of these boxes and onto pages. I did a couple of pages yesterday and totally loved it. I have missed scrapping. I do believe I need to make more time for it. Which means... less Facebook for me. Yes I will do it. I am turning the chair the other direction and ignoring the happy glow of the computer. Then again... maybe I'll pop in a movie to 'watch'. Is that Edward calling to me??? LOL

tuesday

It is a lovely one out there. A bit on the hot side if you are weeding a couple of flower beds but the breeze is wonderful for just sitting and relaxing. I did manage to get the back beds cleaned up with the offensive crab grass being tossed into the woods. Hoping it thrives in there and doesn't come back to my flower beds!

I managed to avoid seeing our friendly neighborhood snake too! That was my biggest fear was to accidentally grab him when grabbing at the weeds. Don't need that. But I did have the 'pleasure' of disposing of a dead mouse that had wanted to leave this world and hang around my garage. Pretty gross. If it wasn't for the flies that were all over it (gag) I may have left it for DH to deal with. But I really really didn't want it to become a major fly party or site of fly eggs (double gag) so I sucked it up didn't look too much at what I was doing and got rid of the mouse into the woods. blech

The kids played outside for a bit but since they are not at all into the relaxing outside, they got hotter than me and left me out there by myself for the last bit of weeding. oh yeah... and I had to clean up all the toys that they had insisted I get out for them. Gotta love kids! But I cannot complain as they are playing nicely together right now and I don't have a headache from them. woohoo.

Off to put away the clothes from their vacation at Nana and Papa's and the new clothes we got for them this weekend. Then I shall find myself hanging at my desk with my back to the computer and will be scrapping. Yes I will!!

a few pictures to share

The morning of my yard sale, this is the sight I came across looking out my door. It was so beautiful out there. Too bad the rest of the day did not go so well for my yard sale. :(

Here is my collection of goodies that I attempted to sell. It was so darn hot everyone went to the beaches and were not out looking for yard sales. Bummer. I'm gonna try once more on a cooler weekend and after that it will get packed up and donated. It must leave the premises!!

My kiddos hanging in Nana's pool. Aren't they sweet? Sure they look innocent enough, but trust me, they are testing my patience daily. I don't want to rush summer by but man... this mom's tired and I didn't even have them for a few weeks!! LOL I will keep looking at this sweet picture and remember that every once in awhile they actually do love each other and will play nicely.

While I was in Syracuse picking up the two above mentioned kiddos, I had a chance to get into Skaneateles to get pictures of MIL's first store the Pomodoro. She has made it quite the stop when you go to the town. She will be missed there and with us. DH is going to use this picture for a project he is doing. Glad I was able to help out.

The drive home on Friday was an adventure to say the least. Started with a major downpour while I was loading the car up. Thank goodness my dad helped me or I would have needed to change clothes it was coming down so hard! We drove through that for awhile before it let up and then stopped. We kept ahead of it for most of the day and then drove out of it into New Hampshire. So nice. DH got home late Friday... okay more like Saturday morning. Poor thing had a bunch of delays getting out of St Louis. Glad he is home and we are all under the same roof again.

Yesterday we spent most of the day shopping for the kiddos. Somehow both of them needed new clothes. Usually we can get away with just one getting the majority of clothes but both of them had grown enough that it was a large purchase time. I do believe that the Children's Place in Kittery, Maine made their day yesterday thanks in part to us! We left with two large bags FULL of clothes. Then we went to Justice and got a few more shirts for Kira. DH went to Adidas store and got some new work shoes for a very good price. We hit Old Navy back in New Hampshire (since it's really silly to pay tax on things in Maine that we can get without tax in New Hampster) We got the kids some shirts and Kira another pair of shoes. Sparkle pink sneaks. They are lovely. We ate lunch at Bugaboo Steak House and it was good! You would think we were done... but oh no we were not. We went to the grocery store to pick up some steaks and roasts. Love sales!! Now our freezer is getting a little fuller. We've been depleting the stock this summer.

Today... not much planned. Thank goodness. I think we all need a lazy kind of day. We will get the hall put back together from our painting last Sunday. It looks nice and I can't wait to see it with all the stuff back. Time to feed the rug rats, they are getting restless.

garage/ yard sale

oh the joys of getting ready for one of these great summer events. (do you hear the sarcasm there?) I did manage to get a lot of the stuff down into the garage this afternoon but still have a bunch more to move. Hoping that most of it finds a new home as I could really use the space in my garage for things I use and not just things we have outgrown. sigh...

summer reading

Kira has been doing well with her summer reading while she is at Nana and Papa's. She is totally enjoying her Calvin and Hobbes books as well as the Garfields she has brought. I also know she loves to read to Alex at night before bed. And he enjoys the fun voices she uses for the characters. So happy I am raising a reader (and Alex loves his book time as well) as I was not that into reading when I was younger. I know it does help her and will continue to strive for her to read everyday- especially during the summer.

Her school has sent home a chart that is much easier to track her progress than previous years. This one just has the minutes read each day instead of having to keep track of the books and then have her draw a picture of what happened in each book. Although I will miss her drawings of Pigeon and other fun characters. I think they may actually get more participation in the program due to this change. We are also doing the reading challenge for our bank (TD Bank) The kids read 10 books and get $10 deposited into their savings accounts. Love that. And then Barnes and Noble has their reading program. Eight books gets Kira a free book! I think it rocks that these businesses are as into keeping the reading going as I am.

I also got her a set of multiplication flash cards so we can work on her speed with her times tables or is that number facts?? Not used to this new math concept yet but I do know that she needs to know these facts at a much quicker pace than she already does. It will help her when she has the challenge of division this coming school year. So we will be flashing her once she is back home! LOL

Happy reading everyone!!

catch up

Time to get some pictures posted from our trip back to Syracuse. While we were in town, we had Kira's family birthday party. So much fun to see family and friends. We got to meet Grayson who is simply adorable. Hope to see him soon before he graduates college!! LOL Anywho... here's Kira opening one of her favorite presents of the day (pretty much all of them were her favorites!) These Littlest Pet Shops were from her brother. Guess he's not so bad after all!

We had a jungle/ Tinkerbell themed party for her. Wegmans just didn't cooperate and have a jungle themed cake so we went with the favorite Tinkerbell and put the jungle candles on it! It was nummy too!

The kids got to play in Nana's pool while I was there so I got some pictures. They wouldn't cooperate and pose together so had to go for separate shots. Silly kids of mine! Such a lovely smile on her!

And my handsome little dude. Not sure what he was watching so intently, but he was really into it!

Spent part of the day cleaning up the kids rooms. Had to empty Alex's closet out of all the yard sale stuff I have been putting in it over the year. Then I had to tackle Kira's room. oh my what a pack rat! Cleaned things out and found her closet for her. I know she has been missing it. Made some room in her bookshelves and managed to get most of them into Alex's so he'll have some new reading material. Now I am waiting for the storm to pass so that I can hop in the shower. Hubby says he'll take me to see Eclipse tonight. Yes my hubby is so dreamy! Edward... here I come! LOL

mil has passed- cancer sucks

She went on the 4th of July at around 8:45pm. She held on longer than anyone expected which made it hard on everyone to watch her suffer so much. She was in pain but we tried to reduce it with the morphine pump. It was hard to see FIL suffer too. He is lost without her but we are hoping that he will be the strong man we know and continue to survive.

The kids don't really understand everything that happened but haven't asked too many questions. We are trying not to give them too much information that may confuse them more. They ask things as they think of them and we answer as best as we can.

We had a celebration of Karen's life before we left town. It was her wish not to have a funeral or calling hours. Which I think was good as it would have been even harder on FIL. The celebration was nice. Lots of her friends came to say their good byes and give support. Even my mom's best friend was there. She had met Karen last year. She was there to support me and I really appreciated it a lot.

We did have Kira's 9th birthday party on the July 3rd. It was a fun time and a good distraction. I got to meet my friends new baby Grayson. Such a happy baby. And Kira's friends Elaina and Arlea were there which really made Kira's day. I think she was afraid she wouldn't see them anymore since Mrs Lykudis died and her house is for sale. (she was my parents neighbor since they moved into the house and they are her granddaughters that Kira plays with)

Now the kids are hanging with my parents for a couple of weeks. Lots of things to do around the house without the helpers here. Much easier. As for right now... I need to get that laundry folded and put away. It ain't doing it by itself!