Granny Bird and Pop's House

Since Nick is away for a while the boys and me headed to Pop and Granny Bird's House. The boys kept busy outside helping Pop out with the fishing boat, it was never even in water today.
It seems so much warmer on this side of the state then where we live. It was down right HOT today. The boys enjoyed Granny's sprinkler Mount Tiki, Cullen did most of the running around while Geremu sat back laughing.

Happy Flag Day

We had a busy afternoon, here we are headed down to the Flag Day Parade.

Family Picture Time

Here are some random pictures from the parade.After we got home from the parade our friends Katie and Billy and their kids came over to help us celebrate our familyversary early. Our true familyversary is really Monday but Nick has to head to MSOE for a class so we won't be together. We had the boys favorite foods; pizza, doro wot and s'mores by the camp fire.

Mama's Magic

I'll let you watch my practice magic session from this afternoon, try and ignore Geremu getting frustrated with me. Frankly, I don't think he recognizes talent when he sees it. If the truth be told, Geremu enjoys being the lovely assistant much more than having to watch the action.

Tonight we went to our friends Katie and Billy's house for beer can chicken- yummo! Then walked to the park afterwards. Here Sophia is spreading her cuteness.

The boys that ran ahead had to wait at the corners for the adults to catch-up. While they waited for us they held hands, at what age does hand holding become uncool? Lastly, just because they are cute!

Life as we know it...

Did you know that by June 12, 2009, all full power television stations in the United States will stop analog broadcasts? Did you also know that today is June 11th? Houston, we have a problem...

We have Amish television, we are cable virgins. To be completely honest we watch very little television. We really have only gotten 3 stations on a clear day since we moved in this joint and if there is a cloud in the sky, forget about it. However our television is our alarm clock, we wake up to the news. So tomorrow, life as we know it will be changing, static will be waking us.

Here's the thing, it's not like we didn't know this was coming. In fact, we thought this was going to happen much sooner than it actually did. We do now own 2 converter boxes, thanks to Nick's mother, however with our current set up the converter boxes do not work.

So we head into the Electronics store today to problem solve. Only to find out that because of where we live we need a roof-top antenna. This may have been the end of our conversation in the store, "So what I'm hearing you say is a metal hanger with a little tin-foil isn't going to do the trick?" Needless to say, when we are ready to embrace the digital TV transition we will again have a functioning alarm clock. In the mean time, I'll be sitting by my computer watching the Batchelorette on-line:)

I will leave you with a few pictures:
Here Cullen is practicing what he will be doing from now on instead of watching TV- looking for bugs.

And here Geremu is doing what he usually does when Cullen goes looking for live animals/bugs.

Nick and me were playing basketball tonight to see who had to do dishes while Geremu screamed "share" at us most of the time. So Geremu got his fair turn when we were done.

Today we were in the car driving back from the electronics store and this was the conversation.

Cullen says: "Ugh, my head hurts horribly bad."

Me: "It does? What do you need?"

Cullen: "I'm going to need some ice cream."

Seriously, who can argue with that?

Keepin' Up

The summer has just begun and I'm already having a little trouble keeping up with the blog. Typically I blog after I put the boys to bed, you probably can't tell because the time on the post never reflects the actual time. But I'm down right tuckered out at night and I need to go to bed when the kids go to bed.

This past weekend Nick's mother, brother Dan and Shana his fiancee came to visit. Most of Saturday was spent working on Dan and Shana's wedding video. Cullen has really taken a liking to Shana, the Pink Power Ranger as he likes to call her.

Hiding in one of the forts they made

Snuggling up watching BarneyI walked into the kitchen yesterday morning and here is what I saw...

The boys were sharing a yogurt for breakfast- how long does this cute stage last?

In the words of Cullen, "What the heck?"

Today Geremu, Cullen and me were driving home from the grocery store. Cullen was upset that I wouldn't give him a treat, it was 9 in the morning. He was voicing his frustrations and here is the ending of the conversation:

Cullen: "Hey Mom, do you want a piece of me?"
Me (with shock in my voice): "Um, yeah."
Cullen: "Do we need to take this outside?"
Me: "No."
Cullen: "Well we can't fight in here because we might pop my balloon."
Me: "So maybe we shouldn't fight?"
Cullen: "Okay"

First of all, who has this kid been hanging out with? I asked Cullen where he learned, "Do you want a piece of me" from and he told me Geremu. It's unfortunate that Geremu was sitting in the car for this conversation as he is a repeater and by this point he was already saying, "You want piece?"

Speaking of The Repeater I'm pretty sure I didn't report on this in September because frankly, I was really embarrassed about it. While Geremu was learning the English language he picked-up the saying, "damn-it", about Mid-September. He used it correctly and incorrectly all the time. It drove me cRaZy, seriously. I think he kept saying it because he got so much attention for it, negative attention, but attention none-the-less. Anyways, after about a month of it my Mother gave me the advice to ignore him when he said it and that really seemed to do the trick. I don't think I have heard him say it since the end of October.

Bedtime Battle

I officially have a half-day of school left until schools out for summer, woooo-hoo!!! This afternoon I caught a caterpillar for Cullen and that kept him busy for a few hours.

Geremu walked up to me on all fours looking like this...

then said, "Geremu, Santa deer, funny?" I'm pretty sure what he was telling me is that he was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Both boys have been drawing on themselves with blue chalk pretending to be smurfs (you may have noticed this in the pictures from the campfire last week where Cullen's cheeks were blue), so the reindeer act was new.

Geremu was really tired tonight and I don't think he is feeling well so I put him to bed early. The boys have shared a full-bed for a long time because Geremu wouldn't stay asleep without someone by him. We are now trying to put them in separate beds because they have been entertaining each other late into the night. Anyways, Nick put Cullen to sleep in the twin-bed tonight after Geremu was already asleep in the full-bed. Here was the scene when I went to check on him shortly after he was put down.

Perhaps they just need separate bed times and not separate beds?