Parents and Projects

My parents and my little sister came to visit this weekend, and we just had the best time EVER! It was way too short of a visit, but we got a lot accomplished. We knocked two projects off my to do list. The first is the bathroom cabinet that fell off the wall in our apartment in Boston and broke. It's been sitting around looking all sad and pathetic for over a year now, and finally I'd had enough. I took that busted up ol' cabinet and took the doors off cleaned it up and my Mom made a cute little curtain to cover the contents. Voila a super cute shabby chic bathroom cabinet! (Casey informed me people don't like to see a toilet seat up. Sorry)


And if that isn't cute enough I've saved the best for last. I forgot to take a before shot, but just imagine an old scruffy office chair with a small hole in the very unattractive blue canvas cover. With a little walmart fabric, a staple gun and the magic ingredient WONDER UNDER we were able to create this masterpiece. It's beautiful and makes my heart flutter whenever I see it. If only my desk were in a more public area (instead of hidden away in my bedroom)...

I'm so thankful for parents that are willing to pitch in and help me out with my projects, it sure has brightened my day!

Lets dig through the vault...

and find all the silly, weird, or just random pictures of my kids I didn't post before due to oddness. Any one of these pictures would have been totally out of place in any other blog, but when you lump them together they make a rather attractive grouping (don't you agree?).

Note about Bennett- This kid has a fashion sense so unique he could put Punky Brewster to shame. Most days he can be found wearing a t-shirt (sometimes inside out as in the above picture), shorts, that brown adult sized fishing vest (also pictured above. From what I can gather he likes the freedom the pockets afford), and a pair of cowboy boots that are at least 2 sizes too big. He just clomps around like it's the most normal thing ever and acts totally surprised when strangers question his clothing. We get lots of stares clomping around Wal-Martt. He also has learned the trick to accessorizing. Some of his favorites are a Gilligan style fishing hat, a duck quacker necklace (from the Boston duck tour), a name tag holder necklace, his animal backpack, and of course goggles.
Another cute Bennett story- He loves folding up little pieces of paper and shoving them into his backpack, or vest pockets, or just carrying them around in a fat little stack. Any paper he finds becomes a little treasured note once he folds it up. He'll collect junk mail, receipts, discarded pictures, unattended bills, I even found a check he had pilfered from my check book. It's pretty cute, but I'm super nervous he'll get ahold of something real important and we wont find it!

This picture isn't funny, it's actually very sweet. Usually when the kids get home from school they do their homework and then have a little reading time. I LOVE reading time. Even the little boys grab a book and sit quietly and flip through the pages (I know, it's amazing). Miles is crazy about books. He really loves board books like Curious George and Baby Einstein (yeah, he's a baby duh. Why didn't I think of this sooner? He's my 4th).

Oh, and this last picture is a bonus creepy Halloween picture of me. Sometimes I look through the blog and fear if I died today my kids would be scouring the pages of cyberspace looking for pictures of me and there would be very few to be found, so I'm letting go of my pride and posting picture I've taken of myself in photo booth. Don't judge me.

A Late Glimpse At Our Labor Day

Too much fun crammed into too few days. That's how I would describe our Labor day vacation. We started things off with a real bang when Casey and Steven were playing catch outside. Steven tossed the ball to Casey who thinking it prudent to stand in front of the cars missed the ball and the ball went right through our van window. Luckily it was our own car, and luckily Stevo is a nice guy and paid for half the repair. We did get to drive around for a few days with cardboard taped over the missing window (I wish I would have gotten a picture of that).

We all went over to the school and played one day. It was pretty fun because the guys played ball, the kids played crazy, and the women folk sat and chatted. We were pretty lucky to have nice weather the whole time. We got to swim one of the days, but then it cooled down and we were able to enjoy the great outdoors sans water. I tried to get a picture of each of the kids while we were at the park. Some of them turned out better than others, I think Hanny's and Addie's were best...


So I had this great idea for a picture of my parents and my sisters on the springy animals, but my mom wouldn't do it, so I had to have Miles fill in. Oh well, Hannah looks nice, and my Dad isn't fooling anyone (we all know he's not really sitting on that thing).


The weather cooled off enough to get some use out of the fire pit. It was so fun. Who doesn't love making s'mores and trying to avoiding the smoke. My good friend Elaine and her family recently moved to Louisville, so we got the special treat of having them come spend the day.



The kids always have such a great time at Nana and Grampy's house. Miles got to help Grampy and Casey fix the tree house (he thought that was pretty awesome). Casey took Ender in the pool for the first time. We made homemade ice cream (I can't get enough). Porter, Maya, and Bennett loved picking treats from Nana's store (a fun new tradition). Nana and Grampy took the kids to a movie which everyone loved (Cars 2).



The adults had a great time also. There was lots of throwing ball among the men in the family, an some corn hole. We all played a few rounds of Vampire (a big group game). The girls snuck away for a trip to the fabric store where we stocked up on fabric to make a few skirts (we ran out of time and didn't actually get the skirts made, but that'll just give us an excuse to get together again soon).


It's always so fun to get together, and it always seems like there isn't enough time, but this time seemed even more so. I kept wishing we could have stayed just a few more days!

Chief Leather Lips

The other day we decided to do something fun as a family so we roamed around and finally decided to go to the zoo, but on the way to the zoo Casey spotted this really cool stone face statue, so we decided to investigate.



It turned out to be this really fun park area. There was a little creek and a play structure. We had a great time playing. Porter wanted to throw the football non-stop, and Maya checked out all the cool natural play areas, and Bennett and Miles had a blast playing on the playground.

This is when Casey tried to make up to Miles after scaring him to death by pretending to dunk him into the creek. Look at his poor scared face.

This is Bennett's proud face. He loves that he can slide down the fireman pole. He thinks he's pretty awesome.

Casey caught the kids a frog. He was a really cool frog with super long legs.

Ender stood guard over Bennett's satchel.

Maya the baby Jaguar

And this is the cool statue of Chief Leather Lips. What a fun place to stumble upon.

Raingutter Rigatta

Porter loves scouts so much. For their last activity they had the Raingutter Rigatta, and he had such a great time. His boat was LEGO themed and he painted it to look like little green, red, and blue LEGO blocks, and he put two LEGO men to man the sails. It was quite the masterpiece. We were a little rushed getting to the race, but we made it, although it was a bit of a rocky start because he had his mom (who thinks looks are everything and doesn't understand the importance of rutters) helping him. We got a bit of a late start on our boat, but he finished it and we got to the event on time, but when he put his boat in the water it tipped right over. He was embarrassed and cried a little, but Casey was there so he was able to run home and get the rutters and rework the boat in time for the actual races. Porters boat won the first two races and lost the third. He had a great time and told me "When Bennett and Miles do scouts make sure you put the rutters on their boats".

Trip to Lafayette (Landon's Birthday)

We made an impromptu visit to Lafayette to visit Sarah and her family before school started. It was pretty exciting. The school year was quickly approaching and Landon was having his 7th birthday party, so we decided to throw caution into the wind and make the 4 hour trip down. It was really great because we decided not to tell the kids we were going until the day we left, so we kept it quiet until Casey got home from work, then I said "We should go do something fun with dad today". Porter said "Lets go play a family game of football", and Bennett said "Lets go to Landon and Addie's house", then I said "BENNETT, THAT WOULD BE SO FUN, LETS DO IT!". I could tell he was afraid to get too excited then he said in a serious voice "Ok, but no joking". It was pretty funny, but now he thinks he can come up with all kinds of wild adventures and we'll actually do it.

The kids were totally happy to be together. My parents ,my sister Hanny ,our friend Tim, and Cincy came in from Louisville and got a hotel room so we could all go swimming (always a hit with this group). Then the big kids got to spend the night in the hotel with Nana and Grampy. Pretty cool. I think Miles drove Miss Cincy crazy, but he sure loved holding that little dog. All the kids think she is just the best!

The birthday party was so so cute. I'm so glad my sister is so flexible. I called her about three days before the party and said "Umm, we're thinking about coming down would that totally stress you?" and she was so enthusiastic about having us come I didn't feel a bit guilty for adding 5 extra party goers. She did a really great job with the party. Landon wanted a super hero themed party so when each kid got there they had to think of a super hero name and they got a custom designed super hero cape . Porters super hero name was Payton Manning (weird), Maya was Golden Girl (also weird), Bennett was Spider man (typical), and Miles was Tank (appropriate). Here are a few of their super hero poses...

Modeling her cape...

Flying through the air...

Climbing tall buildings (and obviously super hearing)...

Super crouching...

and lastly super mask adjusting.

It was just so great being with everyone. It's great to be with family!

Cake and presents. Landon was in heaven with all his loot.

Miles loved Sarah's trampoline. I think we need to get us one, oh wait, a trampoline would take up our entire yard...

Sarah did a really fun variation on the trusty ol' pinata. She had two villains (Dad and Steven-and you can see Casey in the background felt totally left out) steal all the candy. The super hero's had to chase the villains and hit them with their weapons (mini wiffel balls) and anytime a villain was hit he'd toss a handful of candy into the air and run off. It was so great, the kids loved it and, although we didn't get to enjoy the funny moments associated with blindfolded kids and pinata sticks, we got some awesome pictures of my dad looking menacing.

These kids were just eager to get the bad guys, they didn't care about the candy at all (yeah right).

It's raining goodies.

Who says all toddlers aren't built alike?

Casey and Stev-o had a great time tossing the football (non-stop). Look at that stud!

Ok, Sarah is going to KILL me for putting this next picture in here but just ignore Sarah's funny smile and check out my Dad and Hanny who were busting a move in the house. We were playing dance party music for the kids and they were all rocking out on the lawn, but Dad and Hanny opted for the air conditioned comfort of the house.

After the party the kids had a great time just being together, and I think this was our first get together where someone didn't puke! That's a pretty big deal. I sure miss living near Sarah and her family. She always has tons of fun ideas and is totally the life of the party, and her kids are so cute and polite and wonderful. We are blessed to have such great influences in our lives.


We can't wait for the next get together!