The REAL reason I love my husband so much...

The day I knew I loved my husband was not after a romantic date. It was not after he bought me an extravagant gift, or after our first kiss. The day I knew I loved my husband was the day that I walked in on him doing his math homework. I stood watching just long enough to hear him talking his way through one of the problems using a particular voice EXACTLY like I had always used when I did my math homework. That was the beginning of many similar quirks that made us perfect for each other- which brings me to last night...
So, I went out on a quick errand and realized that I had gotten to the store without my debit card (something that Kyle does often, and I usually give him a hard time for). I called him and asked if he could bring it to me to save some time. He (having empathy) gladdly met me with my card. Ten minutes later, Kyle calls to tell me he managed to lock himself out of the house and would need me to hurry home so I could let him in. I grabbed the last of what I needed and checked out. On my way to the car I started thinking I hadn't seen my keys and couldn't remember where they were. By the time I got to my car I was certain they were locked inside. Thinking Kyle would be a bit annoyed but still he has nothing better to do anyway I called him and asked him to bring me the spare key... which I really thought was a great plan until he reminded me that the spare key was inside the house and he was still sitting outside - completely locked out. This is when it occurs to me the REAL reason that I love my husband... only he could understand how we could get ourselves into a situation like this- he, locked out of the house, and I, locked out of my car. He has the spare to my car inside the locked house. I have the spare to the house inside my locked car. So anyway, after a lot of laughter (mostly from me) and a little panic (mostly from him), I finally asked if he knew where his second set of house keys were. After a minute of thinking he finally looked in the console of his car and realized he had had the keys to the house the whole time... he still had to meet me with my spare car keys, but considering how close we came to a hopeless scenario, I think everything worked out perfectly. And it makes for a great story to blog about. :)

From Blog to Blurb

This last week has been such a battle between where to spend my free time, Blogging or Blurbing. I have officially begun working on a Blub book (http://blurb.com/) and have completely fallen in love with it. It is exactly what I've been waiting for- the alternative to scrapbooking. I actually am a scrapbooker- I enjoy doing it and actually do it for someone else for a little money on the side. But for me, I've always been concerned that as soon as I finished one year, it would already be out-dated and out of style. So I kept thinking I would wait... but not anymore! The Blurb book has solved my problems. I can easily transfer my pictures to an already formatted page and add a few words and I'm done. It will still take a little while to catch up from before the Blogging days, but I've just begun and I'm already six months into 2007. This has really taken a huge weight off my shoulders. I can't wait to see the end results!

June what?

Wow this summer is flying by. I really can't believe June is almost over already. School starts so early in August that it's really just over one month before we're back into school schedules.
I have been so pleasantly surprised by how smooth this summer has gone. Right off the start I knew I was going to need a plan, so I started by giving myself something to look forward to each day and signed up for the gym. Kyle got inspired by this and decided to join me, so now we meet up 3 to 4 times a week for a good, hard core workout. I must admit- it has been way too long and I could not have needed this anymore. In addition to that, I made up the official "chore chart". Yes, I now have Ethan helping me with anything and everything that I don't want to do (ie. toilets, floorboards, windows, etc...). He has done so well with this reward system I took from my cousin- he does 8 "chores" a day which earns him beans in a jar which will earn him $10.00 when it's full. It's taking a lot longer than I thought to fill it- which amounts to less than $.10 a day at this point- I am obviously also applying the life long motto, "Over worked and under paid". Poor kid. We have managed to squeeze in a little fun so I'm pretty sure he's not miserable. Truth be told, the kids are up at 7:00am, chores are done by 9:00am and then we play the entire day- it really is a good life (for all of us)!

This was a pretty cool summer day- our neighbor who is a firefighter, hooked up a huge fire hose to the hydrgen and connected it to this cool fireman trailer. It was actually a game to spray the water into the holes in the trailer. When the buckets inside the trailer were full, the sirens and sprinklers would go off and the other side would get drenched. Pretty fun! Licity lasted about a minute and then was back inside in her favorite spot- in front of the TV. She really likes to wear the swimming suit, prance around and pretend she's going to get wet, but she is definitely the one watching from the sidelines. I put her in swimming lessons for the second year- which worked well- except that she refuses to actually swim now.

I just love Maci's smile- she seems to smile with everything she's got- and the dimples are awesome.

I'm getting there...

As you can see, I'm "trying" to change my heading- but it never fails that as soon as I start working on it I get interrupted... So this is what I have so far and instead of erasing it I decided this will have to work for a little while. Stay tuned for the end result...

I know that this is not ideal and is kind of hard to read, but I'm working with limited supplies and still learning the Photoshop program. When I've got another 3 days to work on it, I might get around to changing it.

Is there anything cuter?

Seriously, Lisie was SO Cute! The whole "graduation" was adorable. Her teacher has done such an incredible job with her. It's going to be a long summer, but because of some mispronounced letters she continues to qualify for this program and will be able to return in the fall. I never thought I would be excited for my daughter to have a speech delay. Hooray!

Birthday Season and other stuff...

It's been a little busy since my last post. We've done Maci's 1st Birthday, Ethan's 6th Birthday and we can't forget my personal favorite, Mother's Day all within about a week. And now with the end of the school year activities and a trip to Las Vegas that we squeezed in last weekend I'm struggling to even make this post...

So let's get started-

MACI TURNED ONE!!

I really wanted to send announcements and probably still will next week but ever since her birthday she has been SO grumpy! She has been fighting off every germ out there while her miserable teeth all decided to come in at the same time. She has had runny nose, cough, soar throat, throwing up and fevers all consecutively for 3 WEEKS!! I can't blame her for being a bit crabby, but I have to admit, it's getting a little exhausting (for me).

In stead of the big 1st birthday shin-dig, we decided to stick to just family this year. (It's about all my small house can handle now as our family continues to grow.)

ETHAN TURNED SIX!!

We struggled on what to do for Ethan's birthday. Kyle was able to take him to a D-Back's game the night before so we wanted to keep it simple and definitely NO PARTY-we thought just a few friends that we could take to do something fun but when all was said and done- we had a party. He had about six little boys come over for pizza, doughnuts (Ethan's request) and a bike ride. It was still very simple but it worked out great!

We headed back to Las Vegas for our final farewell! Jake has officially graduated from Medical School and they are headed to Michigan next month. I really like Nevada- we're going to miss having an excuse to go again.

ONE MORE THING...This was also the last time we will see my parents for the next year and a half. They got their mission call... they are headed to Romania!! Wow- looks like we probably won't be visiting. How fun though. That is definitely a day down the road that I look forward to with Kyle.

My Mr. Smarty Pants

This is Ethan's most recent spelling test. I was especially impressed with this one because, one- I'm not sure I could spell all of those words, and two- we normally get the new words on Friday and then he takes the test the next Friday, but we were out of town and didn't get the words until Wednesday and then because of a school holiday that Friday, he took the test the next day on Thursday. Is it just me or does that seem pretty incredible for a kindergartner.