Mostly Wordless Wednesday

Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm leaning toward amphitheater. Lol

Summer Bucket List 2016 - Backyard Reno!

Today, phase 1 of our backyard started!

Over the course of 7.5 hours, all the old concrete and bricks were taken out and carted away.  A trench was dug for the base of our new garden wall, and the ground went through the first round of leveling and re-grading. It was exciting stuff, I tell you!

Tomorrow, with phase 2,  the workers will be back to finish the leveling and lay the forms for the concrete (phase 3). By the end of the week, we should have a WHOLE NEW BACKYARD! Woohoo!

Conversations With 8 Year Olds

Him: "Mom, what is today?"

Me: "It's the 25th. Why?"

Him: "That means there is only 5 more days of July...and then it will be August...and then we have to go back to school! Why? Oh why? Why do we have to go back to school?"

Me: "You still have almost four weeks left! It's not like you have to go to school tomorrow."

Him; "Why does the school hate us?"

lol. Do you think this kid is dramatic enough?

Little Helper

Jason couldn't wait to help his dad work on his basketball hoop. He even did pretty well mastering a ratchet wrench by the time he was through!

Cute Big Boy Saturday: Summer Bucket List 2016 - Plant a Garden

We spent much of today getting the backyard ready for demo, which of course included having to dig up and move our gardens. Our artichokes, tomatoes, the rose bush, and the milkweed plants have been temporarily potted and moved. 

We made the executive decision to pull up the carrots and not replant them. They did much better this year than they did last, too, so we were a bit bummed. But the boys made the best of things and ate what we grew anyway!

Jack was a huge fan and had no problem eating his carrots dirty or not! lol!

Friday Five

We'll start demo on our backyard project on Monday. By the time we're through, we'll have a whole new patio area, RV parking lot, and garden planter. This is no small job, either, as they'll be pouring something like 1600 feet of concrete and laying 44 feet of garden planter wall, but this is something we've been wanting to do pretty much since the day we moved in.

We (I!) can't wait!

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Any guesses what this is?



If you said stands full of people watching the circus show, you'd be correct. lol. Jack likes to set this little scene up and then perform for all of his fans. It's hilarious!

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Jason took the loom for a whirl this week...



He thinks it's pretty cool, but he was a bit frustrated by its slow pace. lol.

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Shawn's new toy of choice is cars. Specifically, Jason's cars. (You can imagine how that is going over. lol) He likes to put Lego mini-figures into the cars. drive them all around the house, and then leave them in random places. We find cars and minifigures everywhere.

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Look at this kid. His face always shows when he's up to no good!

Summer Bucket List - Chuck E Cheese

Today, Jack got to do his Summer Bucket List activity, go to Chuck E Cheese. We didn't tell the boys where we were going before we headed out, so they were all surprised when we pulled into the parking lot. Jack's face lit up!

"We're at Chuck E Cheese!"

Jack had an absolute blast; I swear he didn't stop moving the entire time we were there. It was pretty cute to see his excitement. :)

His favorite thing by far was the stage. He LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the stage and continued to go back to it periodically the entire time we were there. 

Did I mention he LOVED it? Lol.


The big boys had a good time, too!

Shawn has an uncanny way of winning LOADs of tickets on these things.
He won jackpot after jackpot on this thing. I don't know how he does it!

Jason said this game was his favorite!

Shawn roamed around Chuck E Cheese like he owned the place. 

Jason hit a jackpot, too!

This was Jack about 5 seconds after we got into the car to head home. He was out like a light!

We had lots of fun!