Yay, Our New Pool!!

Okay, it's not a very big pool, but for the kids, it sure is a fun one! All summer, I have put off getting a little pool for the kids (my procrastination got the best of me) and now regret that I did not get one sooner. By the looks of the pictures and videos, this pool could have saved me hours of boredom (on the kids' part) and entertaining (on my part). I guess, next year, I will definitely have to re-use this pool or get a bigger one, if needed! :)


Ava played, while Grant was in charge of the hose!

"Try to get me Grant"!!!


A little video of the kids enjoying their pool!

Busy Weekend Part ll

Apparently, the inner tubes are more fun on the grass then in the water :)

Ava decided that it would be more fun to put the stickers on her legs instead of the book it came with!

Say Cheeeeeeeese!!

Here are a few more pics of our busy weekend!

Busy Weekend

Grant just went down the slide at the hotel pool and was ready to go again!

The "Scary Clown" need I say more!

It's amazing what a little cotton candy will do for a kid!

Does anyone have a wet wipe??

The kiddos enjoying the Skyfari at the zoo!

Christy and Lindsey enjoying it as well!

Jungle Fun!

The two A's enjoying the Desert Dome

I posted the wrong picture, and couldn't delete this one, so for all of you who like monkeys, ENJOY!!!

My sister and her family came up this weekend for a little get away before the kids started school. We did lots of swimming, at the hotel and water park and spent Saturday at the zoo. I never thought that on Saturday, I would have to face one of my biggest fears, no not snakes or heights, but CLOWNS! We went out for lunch before the zoo, and when we walked into the restaurant, it was full of you guessed it, clowns :) I didn't know if I was actually in an eating joint or if the circus had taken over Omaha. Needless to say, the kiddos were very excited to see the clowns, and Grant seemed to like them, until they started singing, and then the tears started to pour. Unfortunately for me, I didn't need to hear them sing for my tears to start pouring :) So like any good mom, I gave him a great big hug and then a giant wad of cotton candy on a stick to make him feel better! At the zoo, we got to finally ride the Skyfari and after spending a few hours with the clowns, my fear of heights magically went away.

Another Year Older

On Friday, I celebrated my B-day. I had thought about skipping this year, but decided to skip it next year instead :) (Don't want this to be a mysterious Benjamin Button case, where Matt gets older, while I stay younger!) Matt and I went out for lunch and dinner and my sister and her family came up to help me celebrate. It was a very busy, but fun weekend. I got almost everything that I wanted, except for that secluded trip to a tropical beach, (hint, hint) maybe next year!

Our Little Climber

Grant has officially mastered climbing (on everything)! Now, it's really hard to let him out of our sites. He's a pretty strong and smart little guy, he's figured out how to move things around so that he can climb anything, and the scary part is that he's not afraid of heights, so dancing on a chair or the table is only scary for mommy! :) Here's a video of the little stinker caught climbing the chair!

JD's First Day of School (8-19-2009)

Notice how "white" his shirt is, let's hope it stays that way for at least a couple of weeks :)

JD is officially a sixth grader!! Hard to believe how fast they grow. Of course, going back to school was exciting only because he got to see his friends. His attitude towards having lots more homework matched the weather today, kind of gloomy, but I'm hoping that having a class full of his closest friends will change all of that! :)

Last Day of Summer (for JD anyways)

Grant didn't realize that the bucket was about to come down, and let's just say, he didn't go near this thing the rest of the day, oh if I only had a picture of his face after he got soaked, "Priceless"

We took the kiddos to Mahoney today, to celebrate JD's last day of summer, before school started. The kids, like usual, had a blast and the weather was perfect. The best part is that a lot of the other schools had already started, so the place wasn't very crowded and JD got to go down the slides quite a bit without the hassle of a long line. It couldn't get any better, until Ava got her shoes stolen :) Long story short, I think the thieves were trying to take more than her shoes, but Matt caught them, so they hurried off with Ava's shoes instead. Lucky for us, I chased them down and got them back. The kicker is that the lady just happened to think that the shoes were her daughter's even though they were under our chair on top of our bag covered by a towel, and her kid was smaller than Grant, Hmmmm, hard to believe that story. :)

Oh My, How Our Garden has Grown!

These were just picked from the garden. Uncle Tim came over, and we made jalepeno poppers.

The Zucchini were so big, Ava could barely hold on to this one! Our out of control, garden behind her. I did make some yummy zucchini bread this morning :)

This year, we decided, or should I say, Matt and JD decided that we needed a garden. So I eventually gave them a little corner of the yard to plant it. (Ironically, I was the one against it, but ended up planting the garden, and am now using many of the veggies on a regular basis.) As you can see, out little garden is not so little anymore. We are on veggie overload, and I have so many cucumbers, I don't even know what to do with them. Then, this morning, our neighbor called and wanted to know if we needed any cucumbers, because she had too many! Too funny :) If you know anyone in the area who needs any veggies, let me know, we have plenty. Pretty soon, we will be on fruit overload too, our 3 huge apple trees are full of apples now, and in a few weeks, will be ready to pick!

Some of My Favorite Pictures

~Baby Ava (Rora)~

~Baby Grant (Bach) (Sorry JD, I would have put your pic in here, but they didn't have digital cameras back then, not that you're old or anything:)~


~Day at the Farm~

~Last Day at the Lake~

~The "Tele-Tubbies" are back~

~This is what happens when the kids are very quiet for a few minutes :) This one is double the trouble, Grant made the mess, while Ava cheered him on!~

~This is what happens when you try to make your kids eat dinner!~

Busy Day

Ava enjoying the "Nail Polish" counter.

The two boys "sticking" together. Aunt Kelli and Ava trying on Make-up.

Ava got a butterfly balloon, while JD got a monkey.

We had a very busy Friday. Aunt Amanda's new shop opened (Sephora at JC Penny's in Lincoln) and of course, we were there to buy lots of fun stuff and help her celebrate her grand opening. The store looked amazing, thanks to all of Amanda's hard work, but it was a bit overwhelming, trying to decide what to buy! (I would have bought everything, if I could) If you like make-up, bath stuff or anything girly, than this is a good store for you. Ava had a blast looking at all the fun stuff in the store, but she was most impressed with the nail polish, since she loves having her nails painted on a regular basis! The boys were even impressed, JD tried on almost all of the men's cologne, so he was a walking air freshener for the day, and Grant tried to grab every brightly colored object in the store, but lucky for us, he was strapped down in his stroller :) We got in a lot of shopping time and the kids got to see Aunt Amanda, Aunt Kelli, Aunt Alyce and Grandma again! And what trip to the mall isn't complete without stopping at the chocolate shop for dessert! Ava and I were supposed to share a chocolate peanut butter bar, but after taking one bite, she decided to run away with it and by the time I caught up to her, she had shoved the entire thing in her mouth, what a "sweet-tooth." To complete the day, we went down to the Sarpy County Fair and watched the rodeo and JD even got to ride the "mechanical bull."

Prince Charming

Grant loved playing with the froggy, but than again, he loves playing with anything that moves!


We went down to Guide Rock with Grandma and Grandpa over the weekend to do a little fishing, or in our case, a lot! The crappie (I hope I spelled that right) were big and biting like crazy. (JD caught about 30 by himself, and Matt was catching them with just a hook:) Gramps and I got the fun job of filleting them! Grant and Ava just watched like usual, and tried to play with the fish as we lifted them out of the water. We did catch Mr. Prince Charming for Ava, and by the look on her face, I don't think that she was too impressed, but she puckered up anyways.






"He doesn't look like a prince to me!" "Mr. (not so) Prince Charming"