Our New Car

We purchased a brand new silver '09 Ford Focus this weekend. It will pretty much be Ray's vehicle in commuting to work and also our weekend errand vehicle. We're all pretty excited about the new car especially since our last new vehicle was the Highlander purchased in May of '06 and Connell has no memory of the switch (and Liam was still in the womb for a few more weeks yet!)

For those of you keeping track, we ended up trading in our maroon '99 Chevy Prizm for the Focus. It just turned 10 years old this past week, recently needed new tires and rims and now needed a new battery and alternator. We were not ready to put any more money into it and so basically decided in the last few days that we needed a new car!

Scrapping Away

Well, as of this morning I counted 49 pages that I have "scrapped" this past week. I am caught up with all the photos that I have gotten prints of, so I have to take a break. So far I have 189 pages since I was pregnant in spring of '04. I am going to put a few of the recent ones I put together to show you (since many of you will never see my scrapbooks in person). And yes, I was over a year and a half behind -- these boys take too much of my time!

Keep in mind that I am a very simple scrapbooker -- with few embellishments and very simple pages with items purchased at the Dollar Tree/Walmart since I just can't drop tons of time or money into it. I had to take the pictures off-center in order to avoid the flash appearing on the pages -- these are all 12 X 12 pages in actuality.

Our Family --

Christmas of '07 --

Professional Photos from Summer of '08 --

Scooters and Bikes from '08 --

Liam's 3rd Birthday ---

Connell's 4th Birthday ---

Mega Messes --

Fire Engine Park --

Splashing at the Kelley Park --

Liam moves to a "Big Kid Bed" --

Bagging Leaves with the Neighbors --

Captain Hook and Peter Pan for Halloween --

Smile! --

Loving Brothers --

Fishing at Cobblestone Lake --

Sledding in Winter of '07-'08

Our Week

Well, Connell started attending Bridge to School this week M-Th from 8-12 at our neighborhood elementary school. It will last for 3 weeks. It is a program designed for kids who need a transition before starting kindergarten. Due to Connell's late summer birthday (and the fact that he will be one of the youngest in his class), we thought that it would help with any immaturity he has in sitting still and following directions, etc. He seems to enjoy it. It's exciting for him because I get to drive up and drop him off at the sidewalk and he gets to walk in and down to his room like a big boy! He's wearing size 12 tennis shoes and they measured him at 45 inches (although it sounds like he was wearing shoes at the time because the doctor had him barefooted just under 44 inches in June). Connell told me that his friend August is the tallest at Bridge to School at 46 inches and so it sounds like Connell fits right in with his height/build. Within the first 3 days they were already doing graphing of information and writing letters and singing about the months of the year and so it is a nice mix of activities for him. Academics are right up Connell's alley and so there is nothing more that he would prefer doing during his summer!

Liam is home with me for those 4 hours that Connell is gone. We have our Playgroup in the Park two days a week and Bible Study one morning so it is still pretty busy. His potty training took an unfortunate turn for the worse this week and since he was doing excellent for several weeks, we attribute some of the problem to the big change in our schedule and Connell being absent. Hopefully it is only temporary and he gets his act together because his attendance at preschool starting the second week of September is depending on it!

We plan to buy a new car this Saturday to replace the Prizm which just turned 10 years old last week and is almost to 100,000 miles. We have recently put new tires and rims on it and it needs a new battery and we simply don't want to be concerned with all the maintenance (and money) that it will require from this point on. Ray has been investigating the Pontiac Vibe and the Ford Focus and since he will be driving the new car to work every day, I trust that he will pick something that will be perfect for that task.

I have been a scrapbooking fool lately. When I discovered that I was years behind in my books, I started organizing my photos and decided that I had to get back with it. I set up a card table in the living room and have pretty much trained the boys to leave it alone and I try to do a few pages during the day and evening. I suspect that within a week I will be all caught up. But don't forget that I am not your typical scrapbooker --- I do not put tons of money into embellishments and stickers and scrapbook supplies. I get a lot of my scrapbooking purchases at the Dollar Tree, Walmart and also at Joann's when things are on sale. My pages are very simple, but that is how I am so they fit my personality perfectly and I am usually happy with what I come up with. The boys have enjoyed looking back at all the pages I made from their births and on. I have about 160 pages that I have done since I was pregnant with Connell and I know many ladies that literally have thousands and so I "pick and choose" the events and moments that I scrapbook related to the boys.

Sorry for the graphic photo

Since many of you have commented about how I often put my boys' injuries on the blog, I figured that I deserved equal time.

This photo is from my roller skating accident from late last week. You can see that the bruise spans the entire width of my thigh. Unfortunately I didn't realize as I was sailing down the hill that the speed bump ran from nearly curb to curb and so I didn't have room to skate in between. By the time I realized this and was going too fast, I wiped out! I was back on my skates the next day so it hasn't soured my skating experience. Luckily I didn't break anything.

Fortunately my boys haven't had injuries that have been worthy of posting lately!

Puppet Theater

I managed to do a little organizing this week --- minimal, yet necessary. I found lots of craft supplies that I hadn't seen in years and so we brought them out and made some spoon puppets with pipe cleaners, fabric remnants, googly eyes, yarn, etc. We used shoe boxes for the theater part. I got the idea from Family Fun magazine (the spoon puppet thing) as I am not THAT creative!

Sorry about Connell's wild hair -- he had just taken off his bike helmet before the picture was snapped!

The Weekend Recap

For the 4th of July, we watched the Apple Valley parade with Rich/Jennifer and Amy. We were quite annoyed with the rude children around us who were only interested in the candy and blocked our view for most of the 90 minute parade. This resulted in a letter to the editor of our local weekly circular paper (the letter was penned by me of course!)

The weather was a bit rainy on Saturday which actually made for comfortable temps and low humidity levels although there were more than a few sprinkles during the course of the day. Liam went to bed about 6 pm and Connell shortly after 7 pm and neither claimed to have heard the fireworks around 10 pm. One of these years Connell might feel like staying up for the fireworks but this year he stated that maybe 3 years from now would be the right time.

Late on Saturday I started to get some terrible lower back pain. Of course I know that it is a result of all of my rollerskating late last week. It's starting to feel better although Sunday was a rough day.

Sunday after Mass, we had a group of 16 people over for our annual 4th of July BBQ. This year we opted to do it on the 5th which was more convenient for most. The 5 cousins (the girls are second-cousins to my boys) had a fun time with the Slip and Slide and just running around together.

Roller Skating

I finally found the perfect pair of roller skates on craigslist -- size 8 1/2 Riedell ones. They were a little scuffed, but that's ok. And you're not seeing things -- they are pink! I think that they are adorable! The boys and I drove down to Mpls to get them the other day and since then I have worn them a few times. Today I roller skated about an hour up and down the block while the boys played outside as well. What a workout! I have come to realize that you never forget how to skate.

Sorry about the helmet. When Connell took this photo, I hadn't yet realized that I had it on backwards! Oops.