Quote of the Day

We had a birthday party for Cody's mom a couple weeks ago. Tyson was sitting at the bar talking to Cody's dad, Dave, because Dave is really the only person who will listen to Tyson ramble. Hilary overheard their conversation and through some giggling attempted to tell me. It apparently went as so,
Dave, "so, what have you been up to?"
Tyson, "well, we have a basement in our downstairs."

It may not sound that funny, but earlier in the day we were all cleaning and I told the boys to take something to the basement. They looked at each other puzzled and I heard Tyson say, "Tweva, where is our basement?" Trevor asked me, "Do we have a basement?" It occurred to me that we apparently don't call the "basement" a basement, we refer to it as "downstairs". Usually we refer to it by saying, "GO DOWNSTAIRS!!" Which is then followed by a few minutes of peace and quiet:)

A couple days later Trevor went to his Grandma Connie's and asked her, "Grandma, do you have a basement or attic?" Grandma said, "no." Trevor responded, "Then where do you keep all your old junk?" You now know what's in our basement (downstairs).

Another Great Trip to the Fair

The beginning of August is always a time our family looks forward to. Being the farm enthusiasts they are, the boys like going to see the animals as much as going on the rides. Trevor has been talking about being in 4-H since he could talk. His favorite exhibit used to be the dairy cows, but he's moved on to the bulls. He also likes the pigs. Cody and his family used to show pigs, so I think they hold a special place for all of them. Me, I'm a fan of the sheep. Sweet, soft little sheep. People tell me sheep are a lot of work though. This is bothersome because I have a feeling the parents end up taking care of these parents more than the kids. I guess we'll find out in two years when Trevor is old enough to participate. Here are a few pics from our trip!

What Goes Bump in the Night

I'm a little boggled about what happened last night - actually it was this morning.

Around 4:00 am our fire alarms went off. The alarms are electric and apparently when one is triggered they are all triggered. Side note - in an event of a fire Trevor, Tyson and I will wake up, flee the home and survive a terrible death. Cody will sleep through the entire thing. Wow.

Anyway, I get up and run into the living room and see nothing. No smoke, not fire, nothing. Except, Trevor was hitting his alarm saying, "how do I turn this off, it won't go off!" He just got the alarm the day before from his grandma. He had requested it.

After explaining to Trevor that it wasn't his alarm it was the fire alarms I began to hear a distance siren. I go to the window and I can hear the sirens going off in Amherst and I can see the faint resemblence of smoke in the air. But, I also have a nose like a bloodhound and I smell nothing. The alarms finally stop and I go back to bed. Not even five minutes later they're going off again. This time the "log" wakes up in a panic. He's tall enough to turn the alarms off, thank goodness. I fill him in on the last ten minutes and after doing a sweep of the house we go back to bed. Weird...just boggles my mind.

Incident number two: last night a perfectly delicious lemon cookie was left on the counter for me to enjoy at my choosing and this morning it had disappeared. After asking both children and gauging their responses I decided to dig a little deeper with Tyson because he had on his "guilty face". He finally cracked and admitted to eating the cookie during one of his late night benders. The confession was followed with a series of, "I'm sorry mommy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry mommy!" Tyson is a late night roamer and a late night snacker! I can only imagine the pounds of sugar that were caked on his teeth all night from that cookie. It wasn't a regular cookie, but a double lemon, frosted cookie from Eileen's. Sugar attack!

Breathe it All In

This morning was a "just breathe" moment. Most mornings I'm in a rush - getting myself out of bed and ready (spending about 30 minutes hitting snooze), nuking something that resembles a homeade breakfast and herding the boys (a lot like herding cats) to the car.

So, this morning I wanted to step back and just breathe. I wanted to take in the moments and enjoy the morning with Trevor before he left for his first day of 2nd grade. Trevor had laid out his clothes the night before and went to bed an hour early, but I was still weary about how much of a struggle it would be to awaken him. Luckily, after a few seconds of pretending like he was asleep he jumped right out of bed and asked for a waffle. Ty was a little harder to get around, but he's a night roamer, so know knows what time he crashed!!

The boys and I spent time talking about the morning, having seconds of juice and even chatted with grandpa before he took Trev to school. This morning was a great milestone and with both of my boys becoming more independent and mature I'm realizing I'm able to step back, breathe and enjoy the moments!

Summer 2011 - In Pictures

This summer has gone fast, they always do, but it's been so much fun! Here are some pictures to recap the summer.

Cody and I went to the Gary Allan concert and stumbled into some great friends/family.

Hilary and I saw Eric Church open for Miranda Lambert last year and he was amazing. We decided to make the trip to Hastings to see him again. It was a fun night! OH CAROLINA!

A lot of the summer was spent swimming. The boys love swimming in Cody's parent's pool. Tyson was terrified at the beginning of the summer, but he soon graduated to swimming with this nemo floaty and he'll now swim with just his life jacket.

This is Bob. We found him under our picnic table. He lives at Grandma Ginny's house.

The boys went to the high school rodeo finals with their grandparents. They make the most handsome cowboys, but I'm a little bias.

Another great summer in the bag! School starts tomorrow. I'll be sure to make a new post.

Why Are We Never Happy?

Summer is coming to an end and I can feel fall in the air. There's a crispness that is so refreshing. I love having our windows open and feeling the chill in the air at night. Fall is my favorite season and here in Nebraska it doesn't last long. The changing of the seasons reminded me of these videos. I'm sure we wanted summer to come so badly during this time of year, we're never happy! These videos are pretty cute.

Satisfying a Need

In the month of February I began to feel very restless. The sun had not appeared in months, I was done decorating and organizing the house and there was a part of me itching for an outlet to channel my boredom. I spent a month looking for a new hobby. Keep in mind, my only hobbies are once a month GNO, reality tv (yes, tv is a hobby, just like when people respond that their hobbies are camping or reading books) and reading an occasional page turner.

So, my quest for a hobby began. I spent an afternoon walking around Hobby Lobby (only appropriate, thus the name) and stumbled into the very intimidating scrapbooking isle(s). It's a completely different world in those isles. I think you need a membership card, a cricket and a lifetime supply of cardstock to even enter the area. I'm fortunate enough to have a mom who has entered the world of scrapbooking and had been putting together books for my boys for a few years. I kept telling myself, "no need to scrapbook. My mom will have them all done by the time the boys go to college." So, I think I bought one thing, glue or something (which you don't even use to scrapbook) and took a trip to P-town. After 10 or 15 minutes of my mom unloading her scrapbooking equipment, we got started. I made two pages and enjoyed the process very much. My mom asked if I needed a few things to take home and I said no, that I would just come to her house when I wanted to scrapbook.

Well, a few months later I started to get the itch to organize my photos and the creative twitch started flickering again. I took another trip to Hobby Lobby, but this time I swiped my membership card and went right in (I had made two scrapbook pages at this point, pro). I picked up the basics and have been creating a few pages here and there. Trevor loves to help cut and Tyson loves to pick up the stacks of photos and spread them out all over the floor. He's also fond of bending them, stepping on them or ripping them. What a sweetheart:)

I've found that the process is really filling a void in me. Marketing is a creative job, but marketing at an accounting firm isn't as creative as you may think:) I love reminiscing through the memories and mentally taking myself to that moment. Visitors have enjoyed going through the books and finding themselves also.

So, for now, the unsettling, restless boredom has subsided. I'm always open to new hobby ideas though! February will roll around before we know it!