2014 Blue Jeans Week 22

A fun week--we had a birthday, enjoyed Memorial day, had fun with new legos, tennis camp, and just life in general.  Here is a look at our week. . .

Happy Birthday Mr J!!!  My baby is getting so big!

It is tradition to visit the old cemetery in town on Memorial day.  They have a special Civil War memorial we like to visit.

Ben and Miss E help Mr J with his new Lego set he got for his birthday.  Lots of fun!

The kids were super excited to get a new art kit from their aunt and uncle.  Mr J got right to work on a new masterpiece.

Mr J and I got his 3rd grade school scrapbook done today.  I try to get those done at the beginning of the summer when everyone can still remember what happened during the school year.

Miss E had tennis camp this week.  This is her cute coach.

Saturday night the girls had a group over to play volleyball and enjoy a bonfire with s'mores.  It was the perfect night for it.  They sure had fun.  Mr J was their referee :)

Thanks for visiting!  Hope you have a good week!

Linking up with The Mom Creative

2014 Blue Jeans Week 21

First full week of summer, and we enjoyed it!  Did some shopping in the city, Mr J took a cooking class, last track meet for Miss A, and a birthday party.  It was a good week!  Take a look. . .

A perfect picture of summer--playing in a tree

Went to the big city to get some shopping done.  Everyone happy in the car--for a minute :)

A perfect summer's afternoon--reading in his tent

Mr J took a cooking class this week.  He had a lot of fun.  He made some breakfast casserole muffins which he said were "delectable!"

One of Miss O's summer projects--a scrapbook of her Bible study group from this year.

Last Track meet of the season for Miss A.  She ran her personal best and did great.  I think she is glad to be done for the year!

Miss A and her amazing track coach who is retiring after this season.  He was my coach and has been around for a long time.  He is amazing and will be greatly, greatly missed!

Mr J had his friend birthday party Saturday.  Miss O and Miss E helped decorate the cupcakes for it.  I was pretty impressed with what they did!

Mr J and some of his friends went roller staking for his birthday party.  They had fun :)

Thanks for visiting!  Hope you have a great week!

Blue Jeans Week 21

Our first official full week of summer!!!  It has been a special one.  We had a birthday and some wonderful visitors for my son's upcoming baptism into our church next weekend!  Here is a look at our week. . .

Miss E with her new (to her) trombone for middle school band next year.  She has all summer to practice :)

Our first summer project--making hangers.  This was also a family history project as these hangers were made originally by my great-grandma Nana.  So, we talked about and read about my kids' great-great-grandma Nana as we made them.

Another summer project--how big of a block tower can you make?  Miss O won and then the fan hit it right after this picture and great was the fall there of :)

Miss O reading to Mr J before bed.  She does the voices so well in his favorite picture book The Little Red Pen by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel.

Our special guests are here!!!  Grandpa and Grandma arrived today for Mr J's birthday and upcoming baptism in our church this weekend!  We are soooo excited to have them here.  Mr J and Grandma look at some photo albums together.

Grandpa is always so good to help with projects while he is here.  Ben took some time off and they worked on some house projects that needed to be done.  Miss O was their helper.

My baby boy had a birthday!  He requested a chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake (oh my, such a boy taking after his mother) and we made this one here.  Yum!!  What a special boy he is!  We sure love you Mr J!

Thanks for visiting!  I hope you have a great week!  Come back often---I post

Mondays--our pictures from the week

Wednesdays--yummy recipes

Friday--whatever--crafts, thoughts, etc

I am linking up with Kleinworth Co and The Mom Creative.

Blue Jeans Week 19

What a week, what a week, summer is finally here. . .

Sunday:  Got my pots in the back planted.  Love those wave petunias!

Monday:  Mr J got this book from the library and has LOVED it!  He laughs and laughs, and I laugh too because it is pretty funny.  I have read it at least 3 times daily to him, and then he reads it to himself too.  It is  The Little Red Pen by Janet Stevens.

Tuesday:  Let it begin. . . Mr J started piano lessons today. I start my kids right after they finish kindergarten, and I have told them they may quit when they are 18 :)  His teacher is the same one I had in high school.  I now have 4 taking lessons, and am wondering when we will get all the practicing in???

Wednesday:  Mr J's birthday!  Miss A made him his cake, which wasn't a cake, it was an Oreo cheesecake that he requested.  Yummy!  Smart boy!

Thursday:  My youngest sister and her hubby were in town, and it is tradition that Aunt Tessa always does the girls' nails when she comes, so we had Tessa's nail salon today.  So fun!

Friday:  Miss A took a gardening class this week from this sweet man.  Such a nice guy, and she learned so much.  She came home and told us all the things we are doing wrong in our garden :) so maybe with her expertise we will bring in a great harvest this year!

Saturday:  I took the kids to a local greenhouse and gave them $2 each to buy any plant they wanted.  Miss E got hers all planted and ready to go.  Love gardening season!

Hope you all had a great week!

 

My Baby's Birthday

My baby turned 6 years old this week.

Where did those 6 years go?  He was just born yesterday!

And his dad was/is so proud of his boy.  He finally got a boy!  When he was born at our small town hospital even the nurses cried they were all so happy we got a boy (we didn't know what we were having).

So fast forward 6 years and my baby started piano lessons this week with the same piano teacher I had in high school.

And my baby got a spark making scooter for his big day, but you know the thing he wanted most for his birthday????

White bread.  Ha!  So his sweet oldest sister got him a loaf for his special day.  Must be some push-back to the whole whole wheat/whole grain thing he has been eating for the last 6 years.  The kid is so funny, all throughout the day he asks me for "white bread toasted with butter please."  That loaf isn't going to be lasting very long with all the toast he has been eating.

And that same sweet oldest sister made him his birthday cake, but this 6-year-old didn't want a regular cake.  Nope.  He wanted a cheesecake, and an oreo cheesecake at that.  Smart kid.  Takes after his mother :)  We sure love you Mr J!!

Trip review--Washington DC day 3

This day started out really early! We had 7:30 a.m. tickets to see the White House, and you were suppose to be there 30 minutes early. Then add about 20 more minutes to find a parking place and the 30 minutes it took us to get down to the city---made for an early morning. They were super strict about security in DC, and the White House was no exception--ID's checked several times, scans, etc. You were only allowed your keys, cell phone and wallet to enter the WH--nothing else. If you brought anything else you were not allowed to enter because they had no storage space for anything. Because of this fact, we didn't have a camera--no pictures allowed inside, and so we had to leave the White House, go back to our car, get the camera so we could take a picture outside of it. No, we are not cell phone people, so we didn't have a camera on our phone. For the tour you came out the front door, and it was fun to turn around and look up at the 2nd floor and one of the windows had butterfly window clings on it. I wonder whose room that was? Just kind of fun to see on the front windows of the White House with kids' window clings on them. Today was Mr J's birthday, and we had to submit SS #'s, birthdays, place of birth, etc 3 months earlier to get the WH tickets, so they had Mr J's birthday on the papers, so the guards told him Happy Birthday. He thought that was cool.

In front of the White House. It was a short tour, but it was neat to see inside of it. I couldn't believe how ornate the curtains where :) The window clings were on the window above and to the left of the front door.

The Washington Monument. No, we didn't go up it. My fear of heights kept me grounded, but I told Ben he could take whatever kids wanted to go, but they weren't too interested, so we just walked around the outside of it. That was good for me.

One of our very favorite things was going to the National Archives building and seeing the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence. My kids are big National Treasure movie fans, so they loved seeing those.

We really enjoyed the Art Gallery's sculpture garden. We had lunch there. The huge fountain was a highlight.

Visited the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History today. Kids loved the Hope diamond, the dinosaurs, and the animals

When we were eating lunch at the sculpture garden we had this crazed squirrel that kept trying to eat our food. He was not shy at all. He was ready to crawl on Ben's lap to get a cookie. Notice Ben is the only one in the picture because the rest of us were too scared to sit down because the squirrel would come right up and try to take a bite out of your sandwich.

At the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum one of the girls favorite things was Amelia Earhart's plane. The red one behind them. You couldn't get any closer to it than this because they were remodeling back there, but at least you could see it. Miss O really loved seeing the original Wright brothers' plane, too.

In front on Apollo 11. Way cool! :)

At the Museum of Natural History they had a special butterfly house exhibit with live butterflies everywhere. It was Mr J's favorite thing.

Out on the mall in front of the Capital.

The Old Post Office with statue of Benjamin Franklin. Being a humanities major, I am into architecture. This building was really fun to look at.

Mr J was wiped out a the end of this day--this was about 3 p.m. We were waiting at the parking garage for them to bring us our car. Not a cheap place to park. At the parking meters you got 7 1/2 minutes for every quarter if you could find a place. Big city traffic is not a favorite. I am very glad I am a small town girl.

Back at Aunt DeAnne's we celebrated a birthday!!! He had a lot of fun! He is very excited that we are home and he can have his first "friend party" this weekend! Thomas the Train is the theme. Surprised? Didn't think so.