I took these myself....

My oldest...

 My oldest , who is 9, is rarely caught on camera much anymore. You know, because he's cool, and fast and comes up as a blur alot so ...I have to pick and choose battles as a mom. He's also the kid to pose the weirdest or funniest and then immediately have to see the pictures. He's also the one to make videos on his 3DS and laugh at himself for a long time. Today he caught a few rays of sun at grandmas house after he took a few laps around the house. Then he was exhausted and still..... so I was able to catch a picture.

His favorite color is purple. Has been for a long time. Insists things must be all purple. Unfortunately, thats not the way the world always works, but at 9, he insists it does. But he does have a pair of sneakers that are BRIGHT orange that he loves. I'm sure if we could have found purple, he'd have been in love. He wishes even his medicine would be purple. His picture above, I took him into urgent care for this cough he had, which they said was viral and gave him liquid steriods(which just should have been called liquid sugar!) and said he should be fine after that. But they made him wear a mask, which he thought was PERFECT photo time for him. He swore he could "smell his germs" inside his mask. Unfortunately, they don't make masks in purple either. And unfortunately, if you've ever wore a mask, you'd know they don't really smell the best...maybe that IS how germs smell?

greetings...from us in Wisconsin

  I was sitting here tonight trying to figure out exactly what to blog about, besides the drought, the lack of rain(ok last night we did get 1/2 inch, but thats nothing really ) and then I hear from the living room "Look I pulled my loose tooth out!". So we got a very excited picture of her second lost tooth. She keeps trying to get me to touch her tooth that fell out. Um, no thanks, THIS momma doesn't like teeth period.

 Our grass is brown. Like the color of this lettering. The picture above shows some green grass only because the first grass nearest the picture is my parents lawn. And they water. The brown grass in the middle is what everyone elses grass looks like when they don't water. And the REALLY green grass is the  other neighbors. Which is what our lawns usually look like . Only we're stuck in the drought. But I guess I should be glad we're not caught in the floods that others have.

And one of my crazy sons. Always looking not quite so normal when the camera comes out. What can I say? They're hams and they know it. We stopped swimming at grandmas today to have a popsicle break, and I asked them to say "cheese"...this was what I got. Go figure.

Happy 4th of July

Dear Mother nature...I understand its summer. I understand its July. However when watching fireworks, You should not be sweating like this little guy below. The fire department should not have to water down the surrounding areas prior to said fireworks "just incase"..since we're on a burn ban.  Since you know, you refuse to give us any rain.

Dear Mother nature.... Please send us rain. But you're a funny woman, because when you DO send us rain, it'll come down like cats and dogs and probably flood our whole aread. So I'm not just asking for any rain...I'm asking for nice slow , steady rain. Yes I"m picky. And we could use like 2 or 3 days of the rain mentioned above instead of this sweltering heat you've been placing us under.

See below? that's basically where our heat sits before we add in heat index...

just another weekend, we're having a heat wave!

Omg.
Someone let mother nature know we get her point. Its been hot as...well you know. Like heat indexes of over 100. I can deal with it for a few days, however long stretches are not going over well. Our A/C is working overtime baby! And not a drop of rain , consider us so lucky! We no longer have green lawns(except for my parents who water their grass), its nice and brown. And Prickly. And yucky.
So we've been rotating, Swimming at grandmas house..then air conditioning. Some days its just too hot to even venture outside. And some people in other states are receiving TOO MUCH rain. Can't mother nature balance us out a bit? huh?

In other news, Jax got his stitches out of his foot this past Friday. He was such a trooper and never even flinched. So now hes got butterfly type bandages over it and some cream to help heal it the rest of the way. But he can finally wear shoes now and swim. He had a long 10 day stretch without swimmnig and quick 5 minute showers/baths to get clean. Stitches are for winter! Not summer!

our mini vaca

Our mini vacation ended this past wednesday. We kinda ended it on a bumpy note. We had been staying at a waterpark/resort about an hour and a half from home. My youngest, Jax and I were on our way into our room to fetch our shoes from swimmnig to go decorate cookies. I opened the door towards me(the outside door) and heard a bloody scream. His poor little foot had gotten caught under the door and sliced a huge gaping wound into it. 
So off to the urgent care we went(after some first aid) and 5 stitches later we were done there. He did very well. Very little crying other than at first. Unfortunately there was no more swimming or getting wet for him but he did very well with this. 
Oddly enough when my oldest was 3, at the same resort, same time of year, he recieved 5 stitches as well. Boys are just toughies aren't they? 
More hair dye please...........

some summer fun

 We went to this thing in another town over where you can watch planes come and go, sit on tractors and see flight for life, which is the helicopter for trauma issues. We go every year and the kids really love it.

 (above) the three kids posing on the tractor together

 Jace trying out a tractor(above)

 (above) the boys sitting in a fire truck

 (above) Flight for Life

 (above) one of the many planes

 This is Bella at her 4 year old kindergarten picnic

(above) the boys at grandmas house swimming and being nerds..lol