Love Summer Weekends!

We had a busy and fun weekend enjoying the gorgeous weather! Saturday Cory & Bryce hit the driving range, then we had a picnic at the park with friends that night. Sunday we played outside and got the blow-up pool out! Here's Jenna showing how she plans to be quite the softball player in a few years!! :)

A couple neighbors came over to enjoy the pool with Bryce & Jenna. The kids had a lot of fun with this today and we had it out for a good 4 hours!

This picture makes me laugh b/c I think Bryce had just sprayed his sister with the hose! CAUGHT in action!! :)

Miss pooh looking cute in her tank-ini!! :) Hope you all enjoyed the weekend as well!

Last Day of School!

Last week was Bryce's last day of preschool (till next year). It's so hard to believe my little man has already completed a year of school! It seems like just last week that we sent him for his first day! Here's Bryce & his buddy Sam - all smiles on their last day!

Here are all the kids waving to their parents! How cute!

They performed 3 songs for us. Here are a couple I thought I would share with you!! :)

Bryce just got his certificate for being a Super Star Student!!!

Bryce & his buddy congratulating each other on their first year of school!

Bryce & his 2 teachers. They were so wonderful and made such a positive impact on him! We are thankful for all of their work throughout the year and everything they have helped him with!

After school we went to a park and played on the equipment and ran the bases at the baseball field. Bryce had a fun last day and said he was "sad" it was his last day! Ahhhh! Little does he know he has a good 13 years left!! :)

Time for Shorts!!

What a gorgeous day!! The kids & I decided to go on a walk and to the park after we got home. We always walk around the block first to see if anyone is outside that might want to go to the park with us!! Here they are getting ready.

We only got about 1 house away and.... UH OH... Bryce's training wheel broke!!

He's been asking me when we can take the training wheels off... Guess this was a sign it's time! So we will be working on riding without training wheels the next few weeks! I told Cory we might as well just go over to the lot by the urgent care center to practice and learn.... that way we are "right there" when we need to get more stitches!! :)

After that we played some baseball and got the bubbles out! Bryce loves trying to catch the bubbles with his wand. Jenna.... she just likes dipping her wand in and shaking it around to make a mess!! ha!

It's so fun to start dressing the kids in their new Summer clothes! Especially Jenna - they make SUCH cute girls clothes! Bryce... he still fits in his dang 18 month shorts! Can you believe that!? He's going to be 4 in 3 weeks and he's wearing 18 month shorts! Unreal! He also has some 24 month and 2T, but that pair he has on now is 18 months and this is the THIRD Summer he's worn them! I guess we got our money's worth on those!

I had fun playing with Photoshop last night. If you don't already know this about me, I LOVE PICTURES! I love taking them, looking at them, editing them... I love it all! My kids definitely know! They constantly have the camera following them around!! :)

Such handsome blue eyes!!

Time for Bed! (Check out her adorable PJ's!) Mommy too! I didn't get this post finished last night b/c I ended up with a horrible migraine and I was trying to "tough it out", but couldn't fight it anymore and went to bed early. I didn't even get to finish watching American Idol. I do know that Kris won though. Adam was by far my favorite and has been since the start. But it's ok, I also liked Kris and I know Adam has a huge career in front of him even without the win. He's amazing!

Weekend Golf and Fun!

We had a great weekend visiting friends & family! Cory and I played golf with my sister Sonya & brother-in-law Danny in a tournament my cousin & his wife put on every year. It's a fundraiser for MS and this is his 5th year of organizing it.

It was very windy and cold, but still a GREAT day! We had tons of fun!

Dad was there too with a few friends! I think they had a good time too!

I saw on my cousin's facebook page that they raised $19,561 at the event!!!!!! WOW! That's amazing!! I'm very proud of you guys Andy & Renee!!

Cory & Danny being a bit goofy!! :)

Later that night we headed to the bar to meet up with friends! My sister-in-law did her karaoke rendition of Salt-N-Pepper Shoop!! She was great as usual!! :)

I can't remember what song Darcy & Stacy were singing here, but I'm sure it was great!! You Go Girls!! :)

Now, you can't miss this video! Catch Blake & Chad singing Ice Ice Baby! Love it!

Some of the girls! I had a great time catching up with you guys!! Can't wait to do it again!

And I will leave you tonight with this "dance-off" from Dan-Dan Revolution and ???? Don't ask.... just enjoy it!! :)

Jump, Jump!

Miss Pooh was being QUITE the character tonight and was laughing at herself as she was jumping on the couch! Her jumping is so cute, so I took a couple pictures and a short video!

Sorry this blog is so short... not much to say tonight! Have a great day!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Moms, Grandmothers and someday-will-be-Moms! I hope you all had a wonderful day and got to enjoy the little things that make being a Mom so special!

Man, you would think we were making her sit on the Easter Bunny's lap again!! She just wasn't in the mood to get pictures taken, and we never got around to trying again, so here it is... Mother's Day 2009!! haha! :)

Daddy, Bryce & Jenna got me some beautiful red roses (my fav)! Bryce & Daddy went out this morning to pick them out! I love them! Here's Jenna's true personality shining through.... heehee!

We walked over to the park this afternoon! The kids enjoyed swinging and playing!

We played outside pretty much all day! A typical weekend here! We LOVE the nice weather!

I hope you all had a GREAT weekend!!

Shepherd's Stove Top Pie

I love the Kraft magazine & emails. I tried a recipe from an email they recently sent out last night and it turned out pretty yummy, so I thought I would share! :) Enjoy!

Shepherd's STOVE TOP Pie

1 pkg. (6 oz.) STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix for Chicken
1 lb. lean ground beef (could use ground turkey if you wanted)
1/2 cup KRAFT Honey Barbecue Sauce (I used tomato sauce b/c that is what I had - and liked it this way)
2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
1-1/2 cups KRAFT Shredded Cheddar Cheese

HEAT oven to 425ºF. Prepare stuffing mix as directed on package.
MEANWHILE, brown meat; drain. Stir in barbecue sauce; spoon into greased 2-qt. casserole. Top with vegetables, cheese and stuffing.
BAKE 15 min. or until heated through.

(Mine took about 30 min to heat through, but I think I had 2 lbs hamburger b/c I just used a whole package from my freezer. This turned out good - the whole family liked it and it was even good reheated today!)

Sigh....

Wow, I can't believe it's been a week since my last post! Things have been busy and I've been tired and worn down with a bad cold. We had a good weekend... the weather was gorgeous and the kids had fun enjoying it! Jenna went to the doctor on Saturday... she has a bad cold and I was worried about her cough. The dr. said it wasn't in her lungs, so that is good! She did have ANOTHER ear infection though. That's the 3rd since Easter and tubes. This time they put her on Zithromax... hopefully this will kick it!

Cory went to the Cubs game on Monday night and caught a foul ball! How exciting! He gave it to Bryce when he got home. As you can imagine, Bryce is VERY pumped about it. Here he is showing it off!


I thought it would be fun to "change things up" a bit and brought this table into the living room so that the kids could sit and color and play games....


Well we had a "bit of an issue" tonight with the kiddos and markers....




The funny thing is, that I had a feeling when I put the table there that I was almost encouraging coloring on the walls. Then I thought... naah, they won't do that. I guess I shouldn't have questioned my gut feelings!! :)

Luckily for all of us, they were washable and came right off with a wet cloth (THANK YOU CRAYOLA!)

Hopefully my energy will come back and I will get the camera back out to keep you all updated on our lives!!