Bike Crash

It is so hard to keep up on any sort of a "Journal" sometimes, so I'm going to try and do better. Here is an update. My boys are getting bigger, and smarter. They both have upgraded bikes. Ien got a new bike for his birthday, and Damon has his training wheels taken off. Damon had a hard time riding with a helmet, but only the very next day, he found out the importance of wearing one. He crashed and burned big time...came in with blood dripping everywhere, and a huge lip. The next day, we cleaned him up, and got some pictures for memories. :-)

Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Brothers

So Damon helped me come up with the title for this posting. Him and his brother have had this extreme interest in Super Mario Galaxy lately. Playing it whenever they have the opportunity. I don't usually let Damon play it in the mornings until he has done all of his jobs, so he is eager to get them done quickly.

This morning, Damon spent the morning on one of the transitional areas where you can't die....just roaming around and flying...and falling, and bubbling, and floating back to land. LOL. Finally he tried the Sweet Sweet Galaxy, and wow, he's good for a 4-year old. He mad it through the first couple of challenges within a couple of tries. Much better than I could have done.

ALMOST laste for school - and a talkative 4-year old

This morning, we woke up late. You see, my husband has this inner alarm clock that almost always has him getting up after he has reached his 7-8 hours of sleep. I wish I had that!! But today, his alarm didn't go off. :-)

We had 15 minutes to get Ien to school. Thank goodness we live close or else we would have been in trouble. We actually got there late, but the teacher didn't come out and get the kids until a few minutes after the bell rang. *whew* But as of yet...Ien has not yet been late to school. I'm so proud!

After dropping Ien off at school, of course Damon and I went up and down the road. I ran, and he rode his bike. It is fun to race him down the hill...and kinda forces me to run fast, even though I am tired. He spent most of the morning with his friend Bode though, and when it was time to go to preschool...thus started his stream of talking. He first started out by telling Bode that he was going to preschool, followed by details about how he was dirty and had to change (it didn't matter that we were late leaving). So I very patiently took him inside while he described what he wanted to wear, and that his pants were dirty....which they were covered with water and sand. On the way to school, it was a mixture of "Where is Thumbkin" song and the ABC's. He also discussed how he wanted me to pick him up from school, and that he didn't want the string cheese I had cleverly put in his lunch.

He tried to give it to me, but I told him I would eat it when I went to pick him up. He told me to have a good day before we even got to his school. Talk about eager to go to Preschool. :-)

I didn't end up picking him up since Mike didn't have the meeting that was planned, but oh well.

Twins

I am LOVING taking pictures of these twins...they are just so dang precious, it makes me jelous! :-) But I love my boys either way.

Praying Mantis

So, every morning I have been running up and down the road...in a way to work out, and "race" my 4-year old on his bike. (Actually, I'm just trying to get him comfortable with a bike....sneaky sneaky)


Anyways...afterwards, I thought I would pull up some MASSIVE weeds we had taking over our front porch (I can't wait to get grass) and in one of them, I found little friend......


Meet Mr. Praying Mantis!







Here he is posing for a picture

Now cleaning up for the rest of the photo shoot. Silly praying mantis....you look totally fine!






























Damon and Bode were a little nervous around it.




This is about where the praying mantis got it's finger into Damon's ear...and he started to scream










































Oh...Bode got brave! Good job Bode. it won't hurt you.....he's our friend. He eats bugs...and spiders (I think)


Bode tried so hard to be brave....Damon thought it would be OK to give it another try...
















Here they are being friendly! See....Mr. Praying Mantis is nice!


























And this concludes our Praying Mantis adventure for the day. Yay for Praying Mantises.

Long Hot Weekend

We had a wedding on saturday....4 hours in the sun...wow. And then another photoshoot on Sunday. Yes, I know that we should use Sunday as a day of rest, but oh well.

Saturday Wedding - Way fun wedding. Had that place that makes ice cream by shooting that freezing smoky stuff...I don't know what it is called....it probably ends with '...oxide" or something. Anyways, that was fun, they had a photo booth, and a candy table. We got to take some candy home for the kids, who of course ate a ton of it...thus not being hungry for dinner. And trust me...we tried.



For Dinner on Saturday we went to Sushi, and Ien actually ate all of his food. Damon didn't even touch his. Mike and I compulsively ate the sushi until we were totally full. Then went to a movie with the boys. G-Force. WAY fun show! I thought they were hamsters in the previews, but they are GUINEA PIGS! The boys loved it.

On Sunday, we shot one of our all time favorite families that we have shot so many times before. But this time, they brought along their 4th child....and his name was Tiger. Yup...Tiger! Isn't that an awesome boy's name! They brought him over to our house afterwards, and they were practically the same size as the twins. But he had a LOT of hair. He looked more like a mini little gentleman than a baby. But SO cute.

Oh, and I can't forget. I stepped on a snail at that photo shoot! And it was this really easy "CRUNCH" that haunts me still. it was a big snail too!! And it was like stepping on an empty egg. You know that easy break crunch. EWWW!!! Stupid snails.

Wedding and Candy

We had a wedding to do today, that had lots of candy involved. The bride and groom were super sweet to let us take little boxes of candy home for the boys to eat. They loved it. :-) It included Skittles, Jelly Beans, Jolly Ranchers, Laffy Taffy...and probably more, but I forget. :-)