Friday, June 27, 2008

Fun times...

We love spending time with Uncle Derek and Aunt Jen!

A game of checkers with Uncle Derek...

Mom, I don't know how I feel about this...he's winning!

Take that!

Ducks!

Nan, save me! They're after us!

Surfing in the pool



...and then tonight we are going to a Whitecaps game and tomorrow is kayaking (sans Jack, of course :) Have a great weekend everyone!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Great day :)

It's a wonderful day because...

1). My sister-in-law and brother-in-law arrive any moment now from Colorado! We are so excited to see and spend time with them over the next several days.

2.) The FedEx man brought my newly fixed camera back to me this morning!

3.) I made delicious strawberry pie today with the strawberries we picked on Monday...Yum!

4.) ...simply because every day is a beautiful day in some way or another :)

Let me just rave about Canon's customer service for a moment. When I called them several weeks ago about my camera instead of waiting on hold, they called ME back when they were available (which was only 15 min. later). Then the gentlemen I spoke with was incredibly kind and Canon paid for me to send my camera to them. The camera was fixed free of charge and now I have it to take lots of pictures with again! I'm happy :) So very soon I can start blogging again with photos! Because blogs with photos are much more interesting.

Jack and I spent yesterday running through the underground sprinkling in the yard we have 7 different zones which means a lot of sprinklers! As one zone would turn off and another on, we would just move to a new area. He would get all distraught when they went back in the ground and then laugh hysterically moments later when the next zone turned on! He had a riot! Then Aunt Nan came over and we went swimming later on which is always a blast. And there was also some play time with the sand and water table...which is just a water table for right now. So lots of water play yesterday!

In other Jack news...he's teething. Has been for a few weeks and the first molars are just peeking through on top. Then last week, I noticed the eye teeth (aka the "fang teeth") on top are also cutting through. And today...add two more to that list! He has two (first molar and eye tooth) coming through as well! SIX teeth at once?! Poor baby dude! After these 6, only 6 more baby teeth before he has a full mouth!

Rob and I plotted out a vegetable garden a few days ago...I know, terribly late in the season. But I'm hoping to pick up some pre-grown plants for this year at least. (Next year I would like to plant my own from seeds.) It's all roto-tilled (is that how you spell it?) now and the wood beams that frame it and fabric-type stuff (that you lay between the clay ground and the soil) are in as well. We just need a lot of soil and plants now...and hope that it works :)

And now a funny story for the day...

Rob called me this morning. He was laughing and said "Don't let Jack play with the PS3 remote." I was wondering why he would say this? In fact, Jack DID get a hold of it this morning pressing buttons (I told him "no" and took it away, not thinking it was that big of a deal as the tv and receiver were off and I assumed the PS3 was off as well.) Well...with the PS3 you have the capability of purchasing games online from your remote control. Apparently it was NOT turned off and at 8:34 this morning, Jack purchased (brace yourself!) $1700 worth of video games!!! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! Rob then told me he had already called Sony who was more than understanding and canceled the charges.
Whew!

Hope everyone has an excellent day!
(I'll put pictures in the next post!)

Monday, June 23, 2008

Announcing...

......................Drumroll please....................

THE WEBSITE IS FINISHED!!

www.MyAmalies.com

This is the website I mentioned a while back that I've been building. Amanda and I are so excited to launch this and we look forward to everyone's feedback!

Have a splendid day everyone! Jack and I are headed out strawberry picking this morning...

Friday, June 13, 2008

Lots of updates!

Hello, hello.

My friend Deb's wedding last weekend was beautiful. It was definitely an "eventful" weekend shall we call it, but like I said, the wedding and the bride were beautiful :) Here are a few pictures (from my friend Carrie's camera):

A group of my friends from high school. I haven't seen a couple of them in years and it was wonderful to reminisce!Makeup time! Although it looks like I'm beating her with the foundation brush...I promise I was being kind.
Carrie and me. Love this girl! (And I was very happy with our dresses too...which for the first of 7 times being a bridesmaid now I think I actually WILL wear it again!)
And with the beautiful bride, Deb :) Congratulations, again!

Now let's see if I can quickly recap the events that made the weekend "eventful" for an entertaining read...

We arrived in to town just in time to throw Jack in the tub (as a result from a VERY messy diaper that soiled the car seat even!) with about 15 min. to spare before heading to the church for the rehearsal. Little did we know, it didn't start for another 1/2 hr so we rushed for nothing! During the rehearsal the power went out and there were tornado warnings and horrible wind and hail outside. On the way to the rehearsal dinner, we had to pull over in fear of trees landing on our car! (Yes, it was THAT windy. Trees were down everywhere!) We made it the 2.5 miles to the rehearsal dinner and Rob began vomiting. Needless to say, we left early. We arrived back to our friends' house to be informed that their air conditioner ran out of freon and we'd be in for a long 95 degree night! (But wait, it gets better.) Jack decides to get up at 2am and stay up until 4am (thank you to the first molars, which are FINALLY cutting through as of yesterday!) He fell back asleep after some major rocking and I pulled the crib directly under the fan. (I have no idea how we didn't wake our friends up with all the furniture rearranging we were doing at 3am!) I then crashed on the floor next to the crib and Rob was sprawled out on the bed...sort of. We were both just exhausted! Morning finally rolled around and I headed out to the church to finish getting ready with the girls. About 1/2 hr. into it, Rob shows up with Jack yelling that we needed to go to the ER right away as he gashed his head on the corner of the fireplace and he's acting odd. We rush there (right next door, thank goodness...one good thing about a very small town I guess is that everything is close!) and are told that the chapstick-sized goose egg across his forehead simply looks a million times worse than it actually is. (No major damage, yay!) In the meantime, Rob is still not feeling well so I send him and Jack back to our friends' home to wait out the wedding that starts shortly. I rush back next door in time for photos and then the ceremony, which went perfectly and was beautiful. I decided it was wise at this point to (sadly!) skip out on the reception and just get my boys back home. So as the couples were being introduced and then seated at the head table for the reception, I just kept walking...right out the door! (I'm sure people were scratching their heads wondering what I was doing!) I did apologize ahead of time to the bride who was more than understanding given the circumstances. Anyway, we had a nice and smooth ride home, thank the Lord. And within an hour or so of arriving home, our basement flooded.

Whew. Did you catch all of that?! Honestly, I'm laughing about it all :) I don't think any other weekend has topped that one.

And this weekend was the craft show! The morning started out a little disastrous...our tent broke and wasn't even duct-tape fixable...I mean metal-pieces-broke-there-was-no-way-this-thing-was-going-to-stand-up! After that we decided to set the table up at the very least and we broke that too! Finally, we dumped our stuff, headed to Amanda's sister's house to ransack it for whatever we could find to house our items. We ended up with some super great laundry racks (that worked PERFECTLY!) and another table. Then we hit up my house for Jack's umbrella from his sand and water table for some much needed shade. The combination of random items actually ended up working out pretty well! Amanda and I couldn't help but laugh about the morning's events. But! We ended up having a great (dare I say relaxing even?!) and successful day :) The best part was seeing the little excited children fall in love with a sock animal and then walk away snuggling it in their arms :)

In other news, I just booked our family vacation for next winter! We are going on a cruise to the Bahamas. All of my family is going as well (my parents, sisters and their families). It's sort of a celebration for my parent's 40th anniversary as well. It should be a grand time with all the kiddos :) And we've never been cruising before, so I'm very much looking forward to the new experience. It will be nice to have that break of sunshine and warm weather in the middle of winter for sure!

In Jack news...Oh my little boy just lights up my life! He will walk in to the room now simultaneously waving and saying "hi" ever so clear with the hugest (is that a word?) grin on his face. It is just precious! And tonight the three of us took a walk to a little goat farm right outside of our neighborhood (sans stroller because Jack wanted to actually walk himself). We stopped at I think every crack in the sidewalk to examine it and see what had fallen in there. And then every bird that flew overhead we looked up and screamed with excitement until he got so dizzy from looking up so much he fell over. Every moment with him is just too cool and I thank the Lord for bringing such an amazing little person into our lives :)

And last but not least, happy second birthday to my darling little nephew Sam tomorrow! I love you bunches, little man! I hope you enjoy your second year of life and wish you many blessings! Smooches for Sam! XOXO!

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Happy June!

Well, last week Jack and I had a fabulous time at the zoo with my friend Amber and her little girl, Regan. (Remember the post with Jack and his friend digging through the fridge for cupcakes? That's Regan.) He LOVES the zoo...I think it's time to invest in a zoo pass because something tells me we'll be there a lot this year! Anyway, I convinced my friend Amber to ride a camel, Jack danced his little heart away on a mini stage, and we of course saw lots and lots of animals! (By the way, the new lion exhibit opens a week from Saturday! We'll be back in the near future for that!)

So, you're probably wondering where the pictures are? My camera broke! :( I could cry about this...I use it ALL THE TIME. It's currently being sent to Canon and hoping they can fix it for less than the cost of a new one at least! But boy oh boy, being camera-less is almost as bad as not having a cell phone or laptop. (Crazy how much technology plays a part of our lives, eh?) In the meantime, use your imagination and I'll try to be as descriptive as I can :)

We're headed out for a long weekend tomorrow as my best friend, Deb, is getting married! We've been friends since high school and I'm happy to be a part of this special day for her :) Looking forward to the celebration! But alas, I remind you...My camera broke! So I probably won't be sharing any photos with you from the weekend...bummer. And wow, I haven't been back to Caro in...a VERY LONG TIME. Several years at least? It's going to be fun :)

Well, sorry for such a short entry, but I have things to do! Going to finish picking up the house this morning (Jack STILL isn't up and it's 9am...woohoo for sleeping in!) so we can head to the neighborhood pool this afternoon. It's going to be a HOT one! (Also the first day we've turned the air conditioning on!)

All for now!

P.S.- Next weekend (June 14) my friend Amanda and I are going to be doing our first craft show! We've been working on making sock monkeys and other sock and glove critters since February for this. So we're both pretty excited! Come out and join us at the Annual Craft Show, part of the Cutlerville Days celebration. (Our tent will be in Cutler Park.)