Camera Mishaps

I really have issues lately when it comes to my camera. It seems like whenever I go to a major event I either forget the camera or my batteries die. When Jimmy had his Thanksgiving program at preschool I forgot the camera. Right after the program I realized that I didn't forget it at all it was just at the bottom of my bag. I could have kicked myself for being so stupid. But did I learn my lesson after that? No way!! When Jimmy had his preschool graduation the batteries in my camera died just as he was about to walk out. That's not the end of it. A few days ago we took Jimmy and Ben to the Cleveland Indians baseball game and guess what happened. I took my camera out to take pictures and the stupid batteries were dead AGAIN!!! I never learn!!

Anyway, the game was fun, kind of. We had great seats. We were like 8 rows up on the third base line. Unfortunately I only spent about 20 minutes in my seat. After about 10 minutes into the game Grady Sizemore hit a home run and, naturally, the stadium got really loud after that. Well, that made Ben freak out and get scared so he started crying and wanted to go home. Luckily there is a kids play area so we took him there to play and he seemed to like it. Jim watched the next few innings with Jimmy who was having fun until we were walking out to his car and he realized that he lost his hat. He left it at the play area and by that time Jim and I were so frazzled that we were not about to go back to find it so that kind of made Jimmy sad but he got over it pretty fast.

The Indians won - at least I think they won. I spent most of the time watching Ben ride on the toy cars. But at least we got out of the house and attempted to do something fun with the boys. That's what counts - right!

Fun Rainy Day Projects

Well we are up and blogging again - FINALLY!! We ran into a few problems with our computer when our hard drive completely crashed during a thunderstorm a couple weeks ago. We had to take it in to get repaired but luckily they were able to recover most of the data and save the hard drive.

We have had a lot of rainy days lately so the kids have been going a little stir crazy. So one day when it was raining I knew I needed to do something to channel the energy so we made silly slime, aka goop. It is really easy to make. All you need is water, elmers glue, food coloring and a little bit of borax. For the recipe click here. The boys seriously played with the stuff for about an hour and a half. And the best part is you can store it in the fridge for the next rainy day. It actually stays good for quite a while.

Later that day Jimmy was once again, bored out of his mind so he decided that he wanted to make a cage for his stuffed teddy bear. So we found a box in the garage to paint and decorate. Then we made the door with yarn to look like the bars. It was fun. I was just proud of myself for not sticking them in front of the TV all day.

Treasures from Jerusalem

Jim's parents are in Jerusalem for the rest of the summer and they sent us some fun treasures for the kids. Here are some pix of the boys with their T-shirts from Jerusalem and Egypt. It was really hard to try to get a good picture of them all smiling and holding still. Ben likes to say "cheese" and scrunch his nose and squint his eyes for every picture that we take of him lately so these are as good as we could get.

They also sent us a sling and stone from the Valley of Elah (the place where David slew Goliath). For family home evening we told them the story of David and Goliath and had a fun time practicing with the sling. We used marshmallows of course instead of real stones. The boys had fun with it and Jim had fun trying to get them to hit me with marshmallows. Jim was pretty good with the sling. He was trying really hard to get me but I was too quick for him. Better luck next time Jim :)

Potty Breakthrough

For those of you who get a little uncomfortable with potty stories (like my dad) stop reading here and try your best to ignore the pictures below- ha, ha made ya look! For those of you who know and understand the ups and down of potty training and want to hear some happy news keep reading. Some day in the future Ben is going to be really annoyed at me for making this post, but I just have to share the happy news. Ben pooped on the potty! So far he has done it twice. Both times he did it about an hour after we put him down to bed. I think that the only reason why he did it is because he wanted an excuse to get out of bed. He is not a child who goes to bed easily. He will think of every excuse in the book to stay up. I don't care though, if it means that he is going to poop in the potty instead of his diaper that is okay with me. It means that we are on our way to having another child become diaper free! Now we just have to work on him actually doing it during the day.

First Day of Swimming Lessons

Finally the day has arrived for swimming lessons to start. The boys were so excited. Ben is doing the parent child class with Jim and Jimmy is in his own class. Luke and I went and sat on the side wishing we could get in the water because it was like 90 degrees outside. Jimmy’s teacher told the kids to pretend they had magnets on their back so they would stick to the side of the pool and not wander. Jimmy started wandering a little and the teacher asked him where his magnet went and he said that it got broken. He thought he was pretty funny but I don’t think she did. I guess we need to work on following directions and listening to the teacher.

Happy Birthday Jim!

We have now entered birthday season in our household. Everyone in our family has a summer birthday starting with Jim. He had his 30th birthday yesterday. He may not be too happy about me posting this because I think that turning 30 has been a little bit traumatic for him. But at least he can always say that he is younger than me. Yes, I am willing to admit that if it makes him feel better. Even if Jim wasn't too excited about his birthday, the kids were. Any excuse to have cake and ice cream will make them happy. We didn't get to have much of a party becuase as soon as Jim got home from work we had to eat and then we had to go to the church to help out with the youth activity. The young women's presidency asked us to speak to the young women about temple marriage. It was fun. Hopefully the young women enjoyed it too.

The kids and I made a special card for Jim listing 30 things that we love about him. It is pretty of hard to see but you get the idea. Jim, you're the best ! We love you and hope you had a good birthday!

the surgeries just keep coming

Luke had his seventh surgery this week. Everything went well. Before we went in I thought for sure that the hemangioma had slowed down it's growth but I was wrong. The doctor showed me pictures afterward and the thing was HUGE! His recovery has been kind of hard this week. On Saturday, I had to take him back into the ER because he was having difficulty breathing. They gave him a breathing treatment and a shot of steroid in his leg (thank goodness that they didn't give him and IV because last time they tried they poked him 7 times and never found a vein - it was torture!). After the treatment and the shot he was doing much better and has been doing good ever since. We will be going back in 5 weeks for another surgery. He is such a trooper.