Bad boo boo

We did have a little accident while visiting the dinosaurs. They had a dinosaur names the photosaurs which is the big T-Rex that you can see from the freeway. It is a huge T-Rex that you can touch and sit on and obviously get your picture taken with with. While Thomas and Sup were playing around the tail poor Sup tripped. He fell right in the concrete and hit it pretty hard. It was an instant bump/bruise on his head along with some scraps around his eye, ear and hand.

 He was a brave boy and cried a little bit but was too excited to see the other dinosaurs. But he did have a "really bad boo boo".

Excited?

For those who know Thomas he really loves to see and do anything that involves dinosaurs. It is no surprise that his favorite dinosaur is the great T-Rex. He is starting to recognize all the different dinosaurs, and is excitement is usually shared with Sup as well.

Dinosaur Park

Near Mammoth there is a dinosaur park. Eric and the boys were here last year but this was my first visit. Even though the were stationary dinosaurs, they were life size. The boys could hardly wait to get in and see, of course Thomas was looking for T-Rex.

 This was a pretty popular attraction with my boys. They could climb in through the back and be in the T-Rex mouth. We were here for a bit taking turns.

 Even though Thomas didn't see T-Rex at the very beginning he still enjoyed looking at all the dinosaurs. I was pretty amazed at how many he could identify and give the correct names.

 Thomas likes to take it upon himself and become our little tour guide. He told us all about the dinosaurs and what they were. And when he couldn't he would have me read the little description each on had.

With our "tour guide" he was always ahead of us and if we weren't there in a few seconds you missed out on your "information" and it was time to move on to the next one. 

Little getaway

Eric has been itching to go on a little vacation. He was not able to go to Utah with us and so the last time he really went somewhere was back in February. So After he got home Friday we decided to take the kids to a "fancy hotel" with a pool and go see some fun things as a very small family getaway. We thought it would be fun to just stay one night in Bowling Green, KY and then take the kids up to Mammoth Cave and the little dinosaur park they have not far from the cave,

 We do not go to hotels very often so the kids think any hotel is fancy. Granted I wouldn't call La Quinta fancy but the boys thought it was and it had a pool so they were pretty happy campers. We didn't get there until about 8pm but the boys fell asleep on the drive so they were well rested. Eric and I thought Chinese would be good for dinner so while the boys went to the pool I got dinner. After having their fill of the pool we came up and ate and settled into bed.

In the morning we wanted to sleep in and relax and have a fun day. Since we were not very far from home we could take the time we wanted, go to the places we wanted and not have to worry about being home too late. For breakfast we drove over to the Waffle House so we would have a full belly before our day started. We all ordered waffles ( how can you not when you go to a Waffle House) Thomas and I just had plain ones while Eric and Sup had chocolate chips on theirs. We quickly found out the Sup is just like Daddy in the semi-sweet department. They both much prefer milk chocolate chips, so needless to say Sup was not to fond of his waffle. This resulted in a chewed up/half digested choco. chip waffle on the table, yes lots of fun. Lucky for me I only had to clean up Sups waffle and Daddy was able to eat his and keep it down, with the help of sugar of course :) 

No girls allowed

Eric has been working on "his" space in the basement. So he has been setting up a the space for a work bench and a place for his many tools. This has apparently become "the man space". Which just fine with me :) As I was sitting in the other room I heard Thomas say, " this room is just for boys, no stinky girls". So when I tried to see what that was about I had to stop right at the edge room and was informed that no girls were allowed here even if they weren't stinky.

Now the question is for me is what to do to enjoy my "girl time" :)

Daddy's day help

While Thomas and I were out running errands Eric and Sup to do some work downstairs. We wanted to put up a removable wall around the furnace and the hot water heater. This way we do not have to worry about the boys being around it and we can still get to it if we need to.

 Sup was getting ready to hammer some 2X4's together. So he got his little hammer and his safety glasses and was ready to get to work!

 Apparently the glasses didn't last very long and found that he could still be productive without them.

He was a good little helper for Daddy and was quite proud of his hard work :) Unlike Thomas though I don't think he "charged" Daddy for his help. So this is one day helper we just may keep around ;)

Bowling

This afternoon we thought it would be a fun to take the boys bowling. For part of the reading summer program they each earned a free game of bowling. The afternoon was perfect because there was just one other person bowling.

 The boys were so excited to try it out. After they got there special bowling shoes on and picked out their ball they were read to go. We had a little problem with the lane at the very beginning but after that we were having some fun.

 With the boys being so young we had the bumpers put up so there were no gutter balls. They also gave us this little bowling ball slide, so the boys could push the ball down on the "slide". This way they didn't have to worry about throwing the ball down the lane. It worked out really nice for the boys. They were probably the most excited/fascinated with watching the balls come back from the lane.

 It took them a few frames to figure out that if you don't knock them all down the first time you had a second chance.

 They would both stand and watch and will their ball to hit all the pins.

Amazing the boys did really well. As you can see Eric and I do not really bowl, mostly because I am not suppose to. So this was the first time that Eric and I have bowled as well since we have been together. With the help of the bumper and the "slide" Sup was our winner! 

Makin' lemonade

I have been making these lemonades for Eric for about three years now. We bought a bunch of flavored syrups that we add to them to make them different flavors (e.g. strawberry lemonade). They make a nice little treat and sometimes a motivator for Eric ;) Thomas wanted to learn and help me make them.

He slid his chair and started with juicing the lemon. He did a really nice job getting all the juice out of the lemon. I added the water but he stirred the sugar and syrup.

Although Eric appreciated the effort Thomas put into making the lemonade I am not sure how often he will make them. It seems that Thomas charges a fee for making the lemonades. If he makes it he is allowed to have some of it and Daddy doesn't get all of it. Therefore Daddy only gets about a half of glass and Thomas gets other half. 

Yummy in my tummy (and everywhere else)

So tonight's Sunday treats were cupcakes. Sundays I tend to watch or at least have Food Network on. Well today they had a show on called Cupcake Wars so it got me in the mood to try making my own cupcakes from scratch. I have been doing this a lot lately (making things from scratch that is) and it has been working out pretty good. So today I decided to tackle the cupcake. I thought I would go pretty basic since it was a first but still make it a little fancy :) So I went with a chocolate cupcake with cream inside, it was a big hit.

 As with any type of dessert batter, especially anything that contains chocolate, anything that is left in the bowl often gets licked up. Now just to make a clear point, this is only done when I am all done with the batter so there are no fingers or licks as it is being used.

 As you can see Sup is very much enjoying this part of the taste test. I know this might be odd that I'm an RD and I let my kids do this. But one I always use fresh eggs which is the major safety point, and he always gets more on him then in him.

 After the cupcakes were baked it was on to making the cream filling. This made the cupcakes pretty amazing, and Sup was all over this filling. He was more content with just the filling...who needs a cupcake??

Of course it was made with marshmallow cream so he was a bit of a sticking mess. If I was thinking I should have just taken his shirt off, but it was nothing a good soaking/spray-in-wash couldn't take care of. He was a pretty happy boy :) There is a pretty big smile underneath all the cream ;)

No pic today

Sup wanted his picture take so and he had a cute little smile so I thought it could be a cute little picture. Well of course I didn't have my camera on me right at the moment so when I got it he changed his mind. So instead he grabbed his tush (we have a long history with these microbead pillows and the boys called them "tush" which they are pretty attached to). Any how he then wanted to play a game of you can't find me and each time I got the camera up this is want I got... so no cute little pic of sup today, just him with his tush over the cute little face. So now he is all excited to see "tush on the puter!" (the computer)

Watching the rain

When we were outside this morning it started to sprinkle. The boys decided they wanted to stay outside and watch the rain under our big maple tree. They though it was pretty neat that they could sit and not get "all wet". It didn't rain hard or very long so all the tree did a nice job keeping them dry.

Even after the sprinkle they just stayed sitting under the tree together enjoying each others company. 

Grumpy

So Sup is well into his "terrible two" phase of life. It seems to come in waves and really can be set off by any ol' thing. Of course it doesn't matter where we are, and it is always lots of fun at church....and always seems to happen when I am there by myself. With this he has developed his very grumpy/angry/leave me alone face. It can have different degrees of grumpy/anger/leave me alone, but it looks something like this...

fun times. 

Shot day

Well this afternoon we made it to our appointment for Thomas' last shot for preschool. He hasn't had to have one since he was two so I was a little nervous to take him because this time I knew what was going to happen. Although he wasn't happy to go with the promise of ice cream after the shot made it a little more tolerable.

 He was a very brave boy, he sat on my lap covered his eyes jerked a little bit when the nurse put the shot in and then it was over. The nurse we had was really great telling him everything she was going to do and let him and Sup pick a sticker when he was done. I was really impressed with no crying and even saying thank you for him sticker.

 As promised a trip to the ice cream store...aka Dairy Queen. I let Thomas pick out any ice cream treat he wanted and he came away with a vanilla ice cream in a waffle cone. It was great with the little holder and the bigger cone so it didn't drip all over him.  

 Of course Sup was his strong supporter so he was treated as well with a mini Reese Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard. It was a perfect size for him, and was happy he was able to tag along :)

When we made it home his leg was sore so I gave him some medicine and thought we should just relax for the rest of the afternoon. Our TV/movie watching is very limited during the day but I decided to make an exception for today. As I mentioned earlier Thomas an Sup are becoming big Star Wars fan so his movie of choice...Star Wars. He is still making his way through all the episodes but today he chose Episode 5. 

Yard work

It was a very pleasant day yesterday so when Eric got home we did a little bit of clean up around the yard. The boys love to help Daddy so when we decided to trim some of our tree branches they were more then willing to lend a hand. This was part of the lazy tree we cut down earlier on in the year. The stomp is still there so we had a few sprouts popping out of the ground that the boys trimmed down for us.

After they trimmed the little tree, we moved on to our big maple and Eric trimmed some of the branches while the boys hauled away the branches. They did such a good job we hope they will continue to be enthusiastic about helping :)

Slippery when wet

So this was me Saturday afternoon, and a sign would have been helpful. Saturday afternoon I decided to bake some cookies. It was all going really well up until I took the first batch out of the oven.

 While I was mixing the batter the boys were playing and it was still a little warm, so they were drinking lots of water. They have their own little cabinet were they can get their own cups/plates/bowls. They really like to get their own water from the refrigerator...they both can reach the dispenser on the refrigerator door. It seems on Saturday they thought it would be fun to spill the water all over the kitchen floor, mostly in front of the table and frig. This makes for a pretty slippery surface on a linoleum floor, and since it was water I didn't realize it was wet.

As I got the first batch of cookies out of the oven I had my cooling rack set up on the table. I grabbed one of my oven mitts that is not very thick (so if your holding a hot sheet of cookies from a 375 degree oven your hand gets hot pretty quick), and was hurrying to the table because my hand was starting to burn. This is when I hit the nice puddle of water my precious boys put out a few mins earlier. Since I was in the house I was barefoot as well, this led to a pretty hard fall. As soon as my left foot hit the water I wiped out and my backside hit the floor and my head whipped backward and hit the floor as well. I must admit I was a little dazed at first and the boys came in from the family room wondering what had happened. As I laid there in the puddle of water I thought wow that really hurt, but what happened to the cookies? I not sure how because it all happened so fast the tray was sitting half on the table so my hand must have shot out and let go of them. Since I was pretty close to the table it just must of been where they happened to land. So at least I didn't get burned from the hot pan of cookies, one positive note. 

After getting up a little sore and getting a little bit of a headache, the boys cleaned up their puddle. We had a little lesson on not dumping our water out on the floor, and that it is to drink and not to play with. And if we do spill we need to get it cleaned up so someone.... doesn't get hurt. I think/hoped they learned because they were pretty concerned about me. I was pretty sore and stiff on Sunday/today and probably for a few more days along with some developing bruises but other then that I'm doing pretty good! 

  

Together

This wasn't a very good picture because of the glare from the door, but they looked so cute sitting together. They really like this little couch they have and it not very often they let the other next to them. So I was happily surprised to see them sitting contently together playing with their little toys.

Sup is very much a copy cat and loves to do whatever Thomas is doing. Thomas will make up the up the story and Sup will just follow along. They still have their times where they fight with each other but they are more and more playing with each other, which for me makes my life a little less crazy...at least for the moment :) 

Back to the beach!

After we finished our lunch we packed up our things and changed into our swim stuff we headed over to the beach. We got our sand toys and some snacks/drinks for later, found a spot on the beach and were off to the water. The boys were so excited to be back to the beach and had a great time together.

 The boys have gotten a lot more comfortable with being in the water so they headed right in.The water was warm but it was still refreshing, and with the cooler air and a little bit of a breeze it was cool when you got out.  

 A little later the boys decided to dig a hole at the shore line, they did have a little help from Daddy. Then of course my job was to lay in the hole as they dug around me. 

 Then they would stand at the edge of the hole and jump in to splash me. This was their entertainment for quiet sometime, besides getting splashed in the face it was pretty relaxing.

We were at the beach for about 7 hours! We didn't get home til a little after 8PM. It was such a beautiful day and we were all having so much fun, that we decided why rush home? We had plenty of food and drinks so we had dinner on the beach as well, the boys had taken a nap on the way to the beach so we took advantage of time we had to share as a family.

Thomas insisted that he take his robe Gramma made for him so as we were getting ready to leave he was nice and warm. We have been watching a lot of Star Wars lately so then as he put it on he became a Jedi Knight, so that was an added benefit to the robe ;)

Picnic at the beach

So it seems that we have done a lot of picnics this summer. But we love to look for different places and we have lots of fun together and they are pretty inexpensive. We decided yesterday to go back to Patoka Lake. It was a perfect day for the beach! It has been pretty warm here these last few weeks but yesterday in was mid 80's and sunny. We got a little bit of a later start so we arrived at the Lake Eric and I were pretty hungry.

 We got a little bit of a later start so we arrived at the Lake Eric and I were pretty hungry. The kids were not at all interested in eating, they just wanted to go to the beach. But it was one o'clock and they didn't have anything since breakfast. But to get to the beach that had to eat some lunch and get sunblock on to the choices were pretty limited. So needless to say they decided they were hungry and ready to eat lunch.

Eric and I were a little more leisurely eating our lunch so they found ways to past the time while we ate. 

Peaceful moments

I must admit these are some of my favorite moments. Both of my boys can be very entertaining while they are awake and make me laugh and smile, but when I see them sleeping it warms my heart to watch them. Even though Thomas is getting older and has lost all of his baby features he still reminds me of that sweet little boy I brought home from the hospital.

Obviously this is not a very flattering pic of myself, but hey I did just give birth a day before, so let's focus on baby Thomas :)

The joy of "bugs"

It seems that each year around this time of year we have these bugs that shed their skins. It looks just like the bug and it sticks to the tree in our front year and all around it. The boys think this is the coolest thing and have spent the last week finding and collecting them.

 There are some that are on the ground but once they collected them they started seeing them on the tree "way up high!" Solution: find a big stick and knock 'em down, but you need to be careful that you don't break them.

 Amazingly I was watching this with them swinging the sticks thinking this is NOT going to end well. I was glad to be wrong on that point, and happy to report there was no problems. They were pretty successful with getting the "bugs" down and the ones that were broken were easily taken care of....brought to the sidewalk and stomped on.

 They called this there "bug family", and their home under the blue bucket. As you can see they collect quiet a bit over the past week.

There was a point where they thought lets just stomp on them all so yesterday this was what was left.