Goodbye, September.

I don't know where the month went, but the last post I wrote was saying hello to September, and here we are, waving goodbye to the month.

I usually blog on my lunch break; I may take a day, close the door to my office and leisurely eat my lunch at my desk and type up a few posts at one time and schedule them to go out automatically throughout the week.

Unfortunately, my co-worker resigned late in August and we have not yet replaced her.  I was devastated on a personal level, as we had become great friends over the past 5.5 years of working together. She took a position that put her back into a field she really wanted to be in, so while I'm happy for her, I'm sad for me!  The office is lonely, and she happened to leave during one of busiest times of the year...the start of the new school year.  There were only 2 of us in the department, so it's down to just me....needless to say, my lunch breaks (if they exist at all) have been very short and I'm normally reviewing a resume while I eat, instead of leisurely  writing blog posts. I'm not complaining, and I'm of course happy to have a job, but I am SO ready to have someone else in here!  That process is slow going, so I'm just taking it one day at a time for now.

So there's the catch up on my work life, I'll try to get caught up eventually on our home life, too!

Liam started Preschool 2; he's still in the same center and same classroom, but this year will be more focused on kindergarten prep.  He is always talking about how excited he is to go to school and ride the big bus with Jake next year, so let's hope that excitement holds on when next August rolls around!

Speaking of school, Jake has managed to have 3...yes 3....sick days already.  2 for a random virus that involved a sore throat and swimmer's ear, and one that was a stomach bug.  Let's hope that he got that out of his system and that (maybe!) we will have a healthy cold and flu season!  Here he is, during a healthy time, being silly at a friend's Oktoberfest party recently:

 Other than trying to get back into the swing of school stuff and after school activities, we've been outside a lot, enjoying the warm temps and lack of rain!

A bonus to your dad building you a treehouse and having leftover wood is that you can make some sweet bike ramps :)

Jake had "favorite team jersey" day at school---Hail to Pitt!!

 

 

He likes to keep the front porch of the treehouse free of debris.  A kid after my own heart.

Sometimes we head inside to dress up like Pirate Cowboys or play a board game....

 

Our neighborhood association put out flags for 9/11, and I had a little helper for my block:

 

Brian and I had a few hours to ourselves at a recent wedding...it was at a farm and even though it was a bit on the chilly side, it was a gorgeous day to be out!

And then we celebrated our own wedding anniversary last week!  Thumbs up to 9 years of marriage!

The boys are back in Sunday School after summer hiatus, and I'm always happy to snap a picture of them looking so spiffy on the way there:

Earlier in the month, we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday together with my parents and Nate, Katie, and Luke.  It was so nice to spend the day with everyone...we had good food, played some games, and got to love on baby Luke!

 

Uncle Nate, showing Jake how to fly a drone

It's all fun and games until the drone gets stuck in a tree!

 I always thought I was a baby hog, but I have some stiff competition with Liam around....this kid would hold Luke all day if we let him!

 

Brian finally got a turn....

And in swooped Liam, trying to steal him!

And just in case you needed a little heart-melting today, here is a video of Liam singing "You are my sunshine" to Luke.

Happy 60th birthday, Pappy!!!

So, that's been our September!!!  I hope everyone is enjoying fall so far!

Montana - Day 5

Just joining us for the Montana recap?  Check out all of the posts here!

Day 5 was really busy, and it deserves its own post!  The fun started in the morning with some water balloons!  Ben's sister and her husband had arrived the night before, and brought this awesome balloon launcher...this thing shot crazy far!

Some videos of the launching and the boys nailing each other with balloons:

Ben's parents were kind enough to rent a boat, jetski, tubes, and water skis for us to try out that day; the boys could barely contain themselves, they were so excited to try out the tube!

 

Uncle Ben had given them instructions before getting in and shown them the proper hand signals to give if you want to go faster (thumbs up) or slower (thumbs down)....Liam spent most of the ride frantically trying to give a thumbs up  and yelling things like, "I SAID FUMBS UP!"

Next up was me and Amy....I was really proud of us, we held on (despite screaming our heads off at certain points and getting our bums suctioned cupped down inside the tube)....at least the first time.  Pictures to follow of the 2nd time with a different tube that wasn't so pretty...

 

 

We interrupt this action packed post to bring you this adorable picture:

Back to the action!  Up next were Amy and Sally...

 Followed by Brian,then Brian and Jake....

 

 

 

We then took a short break from boating mid afternoon when the winds picked up, and the guys built this Hobie Cat and took it out for a spin:

Then we got back in the boat and decided to try out a different tube...this one didn't go as well.  Amy and I were tossed around like rag dogs and had to give a frantic motion to stop the boat....

 

 

See how we had to have our arms crossed?  That seemed like the best idea in terms of keeping us stable and on the tube; however, what actually happened was every time we'd hit a slight bump, our chins would slam onto the other person's elbow.  No bueno.

The water grew even more choppy/wavy by late afternoon, so we waited to test out the water skis until it was a bit calmer after dinner.  First up, Ben's dad Dave, showing everyone how it's done!

Giving Jake a lesson....

Video of Jake trying to get up...he almost made it!!  So proud of him for trying, and he probably could have been up if he'd kept going, but he checked out after this.  I can't say I blame him; it was 8:30pm and the temperature drops very quickly there once the sun goes in...he was shivering like crazy!

Up next was Brian...success!!!

View on the boat....

 Ben on the skis....I wish they weren't blurry because I think it's so pretty!

That's a wrap for day 5!

Recent rundown

We are really in the homestretch here; June just snuck right up on us and today is Jake's last day of school and it's only a half day!  Let the summer camp shuffle begin!

Work on the treehouse has continued; I forgot to snap some shots of the actual updates, but I did get this one of the hard-at-work boys, doing their thing in the garage one day.  We are hosting the end of the season baseball party at our house in just a little over 2 weeks, so Brian has set that as his deadline so that the team can enjoy the house.  Fingers crossed!!

Speaking of baseball, Jake's team is really coming along.  It seems like they have fallen into a groove as a team, and many of them are getting some great hits and making awesome plays in the field.  For some reason this video is sideways, but here is a recent hit that Jake had:

 

 

As for Liam...well, there's only 2 games left :)  I don't know, he really does a nice job once he's there (with the exception of some poor listening skills/attitude at the game last week) but he really seems to dread going.  We started Jake in t-ball at roughly the same age (he was 4, but a few months older into the age of 4 with the way their birthdays fall) but maybe it was just too young for Liam.  Oh well....we'll finish out this year and give him the choice again next year.

On Saturday, we were supposed to have our annual neighborhood outdoor movie night, but off and on all-day storms prevented that from happening, so instead I had a temporary lapse in my sanity invited over some of the neighborhood kids and moms for an indoor movie night in our playroom.  We ended up with 10 kids, who were WILD when they first got there, but did settle down to watch the movie, so all was well.

Sunday morning, everyone was dragging due to the late night the night before.  We had plans of going to church, but then I realized that summer hours had started and there was no usual 9:30 service so we'd either be rushing like crazy to get there by 8:30 or not going until 10:30.  We decided to just skip it, and instead took the kids biking over at Jake's school (which is something he has been begging to do, apparently lots of kids at school talk about how they come there on the weekends!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier this week, Jake's class had a field trip to the Science Center and I chaperoned....I've said it before, but it's worth saying again....every time I'm in that classroom or around teachers, I appreciate them even more!!  It was fun, but phew...tough to keep track of kids in such a crowded place! (his shirt has those boxes on it to block out his school name)

 

Jake had to go back to school to finish up his day, and then when I got him off the bus we decided to pick up Liam and take a little impromptu trip to the laser tag place by our house.  Here was their reaction when I said where we were going:

  We had a blast!! 

We decided to keep up the fun by making a stop at our local library on the way home; they have a cute little play area in the children's section, so these two set up shop.

So that's been the last few days for us....Happy June, everyone!