Darker hair

 Me with darker hair, from box number 300.

 Enjoying a popsicle....notice his fly away baby boy hair....I cut it off this weekend.

 Crazy hail!  It lasted a LONG time too!

 It did a number on my little green house.

 And kept doing it for almost 1/2 hour!

 My battered garden.

Everyone with fresh haircuts.

Organizing!

Here is my drawer of large utensils.  A bit of a mess, wouldn't you say?  I was tired of it.  Especially since the mess would get magnified every time I wasn't the one putting things away from the dishwasher...if you catch my drift.  :)

 So I decided to do something about it.  First of all EVERYTHING had to come out!

 Then I cut some cardboard and created separators  (sorry the picture is so blurry...but you get the idea), and voila!  An organized drawer and it will do until I find wooden separators or something like it.

 This was the ONLY thing that wouldn't fit back it.  It will have to find a different home...I think on a nail on the wall. 

 Little Dude enjoying his box.  He's into writing notices and has discovered the joy of glue sticks.

 Sprout likes to copy his big brothers.

 No matter what they're doing.

 Sunday dinner.  Shake n bake, carrots, broccoli with a little bit of shredded cheese on top (which means Sprout doesn't get any) and rice.  YUM!

 My new hair cut.  Also going to have it coloured...but that can wait for another post.

Big E felt you couldn't really tell what the cut looked like in the previous picture and wanted to take a picture himself. 

Summer School

This summer I ran my own little summer school  One hour each morning for my two older guys and my neighbour's two who are about the same age.  Most of the time we do some paper and pencil work, a story and a game.  Today we did something different.  We made cupcakes!!

 We greased the pan.

 Frankly, they used enough grease that I was able to take a paper towel, take off some of the margarine and grease a whole other muffin tin!

 We licked off batter.

 Put them in the oven...

and waited!  When they came out we iced them with the left over icing from my brother's cake and sent some next door.  The cupcakes weren't exactly pretty considering the box I'd used called for 3 eggs...and I don't use eggs because of Sprout.  SO, they were a bit interesting looking...but yummy all the same!

Puddle Bubbles

It has been a wonderful summer so far and I can hardly believe that it's over in 2 1/2 weeks!!  My big goal this summer was to learn to keep my house tidy.  I know, you'd think I would have already mastered that but I seemed to only manage tidy for a week and then it would look like a tornado went through leaving disaster in its' wake.  I'm happy (SO happy ) to say that goal is going well and I'm excited as I continue to declutter and streamline our living space.  One step at a time in the right direction!  I've also begun training for becoming a foster parent.  It is a bit intense as they walk you through situations and have you examine your feelings, help you look back at your own upbringing and examine your current parenting.  Even if I never foster a single child, these classes have been very useful for me, but I am hoping we can welcome a little person sometime in October or November.  They are in such need for homes that once you are approved and licensed it doesn't take them long to call on you, or so the facilitator tells us. 

My brother and his girlfriend came to visit one evening and the boys were insistent on CAKE!  So, we made a cake and it was yummy.  It was even Sprout-safe, meaning it had no milk or eggs.  I was going to use icing sugar to create fluffy clouds, but ended up using all of it for the icing.  SO...smooshed mini marshmallows did the trick!

 A while ago I wanted to do something creative...but something that wouldn't take forever.  I bought a $2 salamander wooden cut-out at the local Dollarama, painted and waterproofed him and voila!  He watches over my tomatoes in the backyard.

 Munchkin had had a long day and crashed on a chair...

  and just about fell off at one point!

 It was raining cats and dogs and when I looked at my sidewalk I was surprised to see BUBBLES!  I was worried for a little bit, until I remembered that the boys had had liquid soap out days earlier and this was likely the result!

 A moment to brag.  This is my lawn from my front door.

And this is my neighbour's lawn.  Notice a difference??  No?  All right, I'll tell you.  I have GRASS!  I've been tenacious about it and I'm nearly ready to confirm a 100% success.  :)

A little bit about today....Little Dude had a talk in Primary and did SO well.  He enunciated clearly and spoke loud enough to be heard.  Munchkin decided to bear his testimony.  While we were sitting down he asked, "Why do I have to go up there?  (To the pulpit.)"  I told him, "You don't have to go up there, no one has to go up there.  You only go up there if you want to.  Do you want to go up there?? 
"Yes."
"What would you say if you were up there?"  Munchkin isn't usually at a loss for words, but I wanted to make sure that if he was going up that he knew what to say and also that he wasn't just going to inform the ward that he wanted to buy metal tracks for his metal trains.
"Ah...sing a song."
"Ok.  What song would you sing?"
"The Holy Ghost Song."  Which is the 1st article of faith put to music.  I figured that worked as a testimony and told him that if he wanted to go up and sing that, he could.  He immediately moved to head up to the stand and I told him he had to wait until the person there finished their testimony.  Then we went up, and he sang!  I thought for sure he would see that big crowd in front of him and decide that he wasn't interested, but he went ahead and did it.

Little Dude and Big E worked on a little Thomas movie.  Here's the link!
Little Dude's Thomas movie

Munchkin did one too...
Munchkin's train video

Boys at the Park

Sam on the slide - Check it out!