Rainy Day picnic

Last night, as I was cooking dinner, I decided to go ahead and pack the boys' lunch for school today. I figured I was already messing up the kitchen and doing this-n-that, so I may as well get that chore knocked out. As luck would have it, the school called about 1 hour later saying that there had been a flood at the school so school was cancelled Thursday. Nice.

So, I decided that we would use said lunches and go for a picnic today, you know, since they were already packed in lunch boxes and ready to eat. Well, as more luck would have it, it rained all night long and off and on all morning.

Here is what we ended up doing:

There's nothing like a picnic lunch on the living room floor! The boys thought it was great. As we were eating, I said to them "So, what do you think about a picnic on the living room floor?" William replied, "Mommy, I like it, but it's weird, isn't it?" Yes, it is weird. But weird is good, no?

School!

Today was the first day of school for both boys! We had been planning all along that William would go to Pre-K this year, but it was sort of a last minute decision to send Hudson. With working part time, it would give me a couple of days a week to either work or run errands or whatever the heck I want!

William has been so excited all along. When we went to register him in the Spring, Hudson was so upset that he didn't get to go. I told him "When you're 4, you can go to school too." That appeased him. Well, about a month ago, we decided to send Hudson as well. So, one day, I took Hudson up to the school to register him. As we were walking up to the building, I told Hudson that this was going to be HIS school too. He looked up at me with this puzzled look, and said "Mommy, am I 4 now?" I about lost it! I told him that we had just changed our minds, and that he is still indeed 2, but he still gets to go to school.

Needless to say, Hudson waltzed right into his classroom like he owned the place. He never looked back!

Hudson was THRILLED to see his name on the door:

First thing, he picked up a few guys and then headed over to the puzzle table. 

William was pretty good about going to his classroom. He gets very nervous in new settings, with new people. But, he was very brave and walked right in and said good morning to his teachers. He made sure I told him what time I was going to be back (like he even can tell time!), and then he was ok.

He found his mat to sit on, and he was good to go.

It was a great first day, and both boys are ready to back again on Thursday (and so am I)! Yeah for pre-school!!!!!!!!!

This one is for Grandma...

William isn't a big poser for the camera. Well, actually, he's a huge poser. He is always looking to get a laugh, so I can never get him to just smile nice for the camera!

I told him: "smile nice. Grandma wants a nice picture of you smiling." This is what I got:

this one is a bit better:

Of course, I never have trouble getting Hudson to smile for the camera. 

Our summer is finally winding down! I'm not looking forward to the cold weather, but I am looking forward to the 80s! It has been an incredibly hot August, even the pool has been hot! We are excited about the little things like riding our bikes to the park and eating dinner outside.

Superheros are the best

My kids, like so many others, LOVE to dress up. Currently, they are really into superheros, The funny thing is that they've never seen any superhero movies. But, they know who they all are. Batman, Spiderman, and Superman are their favorites. 

Here's Superman and Batman:

They have SO much fun dressing up and pretending to be superheros. They'll chase each other all over the house for the longest time. These pictures are rare because normally they won't stop for long enough to let me take pics. I had to bribe them to get these...

You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream!

We had friends over for dinner on Saturday night, and I had intended for us to eat some homemade ice cream that I had prepared for my CuisinArt ice cream maker. Problem was, the bowl was frozen yet. Thankfully, I had prepared another dessert, so we were not without sugar.

On Sunday night after dinner, I decided to go ahead and make it for the fam. It was vanilla ice cream with chopped up Reece's Peanut Butter cups mixed in. It was DELICIOUS! (Thanks again to Rachel Ray)

my "helpers"

the finished product:

he was a fan

and so was he

Life...it isn't always exciting.

One of the reasons I write my blog is to keep our family and friends who live far away up-to-date on the daily happenings of our lives, particularly the lives of our kiddos.

Some days are super fun. We do something exciting. We go somewhere cool. Some days, on the other hand, are just downright boring. That's life. I can't always make our days "duper-duper" cool (that's Hudson lingo for "super duper"). But, for the people that love me and my kids-- they still want to read about it. They care about the fact that we just bought our first minivan, seeing pics of the kids at the pool, pics from the past, trips we/I go on, visits from friends and/or family, cute pics of my kids, or just a random story from the day. That's our life.  I wouldn't change it for anything.

If you read my blog, and you don't like what you read, there's an easy solution: stop reading it. I'd rather only people who care about me and my family read this blog. I know this is harsh, and I'm sorry about that, but that's just reality.

Now, to lighten things up, here's a cute pics of the boys from tonight:

Winnings

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was in Virginia on a business trip back in June.  It was a conference for our clients-- we were doing training classes and workshops for our software. On 2 of the nights, we had special events. One night was a Wii tournament. We had 4 Wiis with the games projected up on big screens. There were 4 games: jetskiing, archery, frisbee dog, and basketball. Everyone had a scorecard, so as soon as you finished a game the person "manning" the game would write down your score. The main prizes were for the clients-- the top 4 clients got a Wii. For the employees, it was cash prizes. Up until the very end, I was in 1st place. At the last minute 2 guys slid in to 1st and 2nd, pushing me down to third. That was ok, I still got winnings.

Yesterday, my winnings came in the mail:

It was perfect timing because a friend of mine was keeping the boys today!

I took the opportunity to go shopping, and I decided White House Black Market would be my destination. It was successful! With a coupon, I was able to stay within my winnings. Here's what I came away with: (obviously, not me in the pics! I stole them from their website)

As I said when I emailed a buddy of mine from work who I beat, "Victory is Sweet."