Out with the old

 

We spent our Labor Day weekend upping the curb appeal of our home. Big, BIG thanks to my mom and dad who gave the whole weekend to help us paint and to Tom and Susie who helped by watching the kiddos for a day and half (I felt lost all day—I was able to just make myself a meal and sit down. I love those squirts, but it was glorious!) Lucky for me, I broke my toe on Tuesday before the painting weekend. So whenever I got tired of painting I’d just say, “Need to put my foot up…”

The kiddos did a little helping once they got home, too.

The Before:

Although the before at the time of painting was really much worse…chipped paint everywhere. We were a real eyesore to the whole neighborhood.

And the After!

I Love how the shutters came out. We also went very thrifty and just spray painted our awful light fixture and mailbox and saved a good 50+ bucks. (And you may notice the superhero pictures on two of the windows, thanks to our artist-in-residence, Dominic.)

Our landscaping and yard still needs some work. Of course, the projects will always be there!

Neighborly

I’ve mentioned Jill plenty of times, but the rest of her family is equally awesome. Kim watches the kiddos every Wednesday for a bit and they are always willing to come over when I just need to run to the store to buy a gallon of milk. They also have a super fun trampoline that has provided plenty of fun and opportunities for fights…

Their dogs Cody and Jessie are loved by the kiddos. Sometimes I’ll find the boys crawling around the house pretending to be the Gillespie’s dogs.

After a few pictures, Luke asked “Do you think people think its weird that you take your camera everywhere?” Which, I assume means, “I think it’s weird that you take your camera everywhere.” Probably not going to be cutting down on picture taking time any time soon, though…

Spoiled

 

Another wonderful weekend with two beautiful, inspiring women. I always just feel happier after being in their presence for a few days…

 

Rockstars

One weekday morning, the kiddos spent about 2 hours readying our basement for a big concert. They put up homemade signs all over the house with arrows pointing to the basement and then set up chairs with their stuffed animals filling all of them except the one left for me. They LOVE playing songs with their guitars, drums, keyboards and awesome voices.

And Leo mostly just likes to cause problems join in the fun!

Wee-wohs

That’s still this cute kids nick name. He is CRAZY. Perhaps I have selective memory, but I’m quite sure he is more wild than any of our other children. I cannot keep up with him. He insists on doing everything his brothers can do.

Dominic is big into spelling things for us now and Leo will follow him by shouting out whatever letters he knows “Mom—B-P-I-O” And he loves to take a stool and stand next to the microwave and say “Mom—3? 5?” just like his brothers do.

He learned how to climb up the slide in our backyard, making playtime quite a bit more treacherous. He always runs the opposite way of where everyone else is going and he HATES being carried anywhere. I guess that is probably every (almost) 2 year old, but I forget how wild they can be. He brings lots of energy and laughs to our home.

Pre-K

 

His first day of School…

 

When he came home I asked him, “How was preschool?” “It’s PRE-K, mom!” He’s way to big for that preschool stuff now!

Big boy Dominic is going to school four afternoons a week at the Catholic preschool. He has the same teacher as last year. This year his class is a whopping 9 and there are five girls—he’ll finally get a little estrogen in his life (other than from me or his cousin, Jessica).

This pic was supposed to be my beautiful recreation of a pinterest pic I found….but you can’t even read that it says “Preschool, 2012”

And these sweet boys wanted their pictures taken, too. How could I say no to that?

Super-Deavers

I know I’ve posted lots of pictures of the kiddos with superhero clothes and capes over the past 9 months. Their enthusiasm really hasn’t waned at all since last Christmas when they got their superhero capes. Dominic finally moved past his Superman cape with the Robin mask after wearing it almost everyday for about 5 months. He’s since moved on to sometimes Ironman, sometimes Spiderman, sometimes Superman. The kiddos also have various superhero shirts. Last week I had to wash Dominic’s superhero shirt 4 times so that he could wear it to preschool every. single. day that week!

Dominic knows how to spell every superhero he’s ever heard of (Ironman, Spiderman, Hulk, Superman, Batman, Robin, Captain America, Thor…) and he can draw pictures of all of them, too. We recently did his room in a Superhero theme and he’s added dozens (literally—DOZENS!) of his own pictures of superheros to his walls. He’ll staple the pictures into books sometimes and make me write on every page, “Batman can fly and Robin is his partner” or “Hulk can smash all the bad guys” and often he’ll put a picture of God in there because, “God’s the real superhero.”

 

 

We checked out a Superman and a Batman movie from the library yesterday. It is almost impossible to get these littles away from the TV screen. I keep thinking they’ll grow out of this superhero craze…but secretly I hope they never do!

Anniversary and other fun

Luke’s cousin had a graduation party in Lincoln so we decided to make a weekend of it. We went to Wahoo on Friday and look a long walk with the kiddos in the morning.

 

 

After the graduation party, Luke and I left the kiddos with my parents so we could get away for a night and celebrate our 6th anniversary.

We went to Vincenzo’s—where we went for our first date. And…to be honest, the night was kind of a bust. Both of our meals were pretty mediocre and I got sick in the middle of dinner, forcing us to take our food to go and eat it at the hotel later that night.

There’s always our 7th anniversary, right?

Farmer’s Market

Luke had to work late on a recent Thursday, so we took Jill with us to take McDonald’s the Farmers Market (yes, I did get scolded more than once for taking Mcdonald’s to the Farmer’s Market)

)

There was live entertainment—an Elvis Presley impersonator. The kiddos danced.

Father Lux bought all the kiddos ice cream, and then they all raced back and forth on the sidewalk.

There he is eating again…

Hot-tubbing at the lake

Just a few cute shots of the kiddos at the lake…

Harlan

An empty Thursday turned into a great day to take the littles to Harlan lake, 30 miles south of Holdrege. It was a hot day-perfect for a picnic lunch and swimming.

We took our new friend, Heather, with us. She graciously let the kiddos wear her sunglasses and buried the them in the sand over and over.

We made sandcastles, too and enjoyed a very sandy picnic lunch. Leo, especially, ate all kinds of sand that day.

Leo was crazy in the water, as expected. All three big kids were getting very comfortable in the water by the end of the summer. They would jump off the dock with their life jackets on and float all over!

The Cottonmill

The kiddos and I recently went to Kearney for a full day of fun.

First we stopped at the Cottonmill. They have a small petting zoo. Dominic, Jackson and Leo did pretty well with the animals. Leo and Jackson, particularly, still LOVE animals (I really want to get them a dog—well…I like the idea of a dog, anyway…) Patrick was mostly terrified, though. There were some pretty violent goats that we were warned about.

They had a small nature center inside with coloring books and puzzles. They also had a very, very loud cockatoo that screeched at the littles. Leo was not loving that bird.

They also had skeletons and hides of various prairie animals that mostly just confused the kids. “But is the rest of his body behind that wall?”

Then a little time at the playground with plenty of photo ops.

The one above of the three big kids kind of makes my stomach hurt it is so cute. How to keep them from growing?

*sigh*