Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Here are more cute ones from my cell phone. Some are a few weeks old.

Connor and Aidan wrestling at Bounce Jungle. I am not sure when this tongue thing started. Not a fan.

his future's so bright...

Jeff and I never, ever have photos together anymore so this actually looks kinda odd to me now.

lovin' on his new tball bat!

love this. he's carrying around the Hockey Tiger he made for Noah

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Nearly Wordless Wednesday - Noah Addition!! I take so many pics with my cell phone every day that never make it to the blog or fb so here are several :)

after his first bath

i have no idea what connor has in his mouth, but i kinda love this picture

his very first smile caught on film :)

already annoyed with how many pictures I take of him!

bowl-a-rama!

forgot to post this quick video of connor's mad bowling skillzzzz when i posted his bowling pics here.

4th of July 2010

This year for the 4th of July we celebrated a day early. The dbacks do fireworks after the game when there is a home game on a friday evening. This year they moved the show so that it followed the game on Saturday night. The game sucked, 14-1, but the fireworks were great. There was an employee suite that evening so we took advantage. It's just so much easier with the kiddos that way. Connor can sit in the bleachers that belong to the suite or watch from the room if he wants to or he can run around the suite with the other kids.

as much as he loves watching the game, he seriously loves "reading" the program just as much. He keeps them and calls them his books.

Noah really enjoyed the holiday by sleeping in one of the chairs in the suite

me & my boys

Connor is just like me when i was his age...loved to watch them, hated the noise. We're hoping next year we don't have to squeeze his head like this because the noise scares him :)

this is what Noah did throughout the fireworks!

We hope you all had an amazing 4th of July this year!

Here are a couple 4th of July posts from the past years!

4th of July 2009

4th of July 2008

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

I think i mentioned in a previous post that we're scheduling days where we take Connor out by himself to do things he loves. It won't happen as often down the road but for right now, when he's stuck in the house during the week for the most part, instead of playing with friends at school...it's a necessary reward. He loves bowling so Jeff and I dropped Noah off with Grammy & Papa Barnes and hit the lanes. This is Connor's 2nd time bowling and he did really well. Oddly, he calls this "real bowling" and the stuff he plays on the wii is simply "bowling".

this one went down the lane so slow that the pins actually stopped it. Sad day.

Connor, Jeff & I played some wii bowling this week too...he schooled us. And we were trying...trust me.

Since we signed him up for teeball in the fall, we had to go out and get a teeball bat. Jeff was thrilled. I was frightened. Here's a practice swing :)

while Jeff was off this past week, we took Connor and Noah to Bounce Jungle to meet up with Aidan and Gabi Calabretti. I've mentioned how it's impossible to get good pics of the kids here. I meant it. I have no clue who the kid in the photo above it but the one flailing down the slide just above him is one of mine!

Noah loves this mat toy thingy. He can swat at the hanging toys for hours and manages to move all over the mat.

Here is Connor showing off his new high score in bowling...211. holy crap.

Noah loves his big brother. Connor is a huge help...here he's helping me with Noah's bath.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday - According to Connor

When I uploaded the pics from my camera this morning I thought I was just going to have some pics of Connor helping me give Noah a bath yesterday. Wrong. I saw all these horrible, random photos appear and immediately thought something was up with my camera or that i'd been carrying it and didn't realize I was taking photos. That is...until the final two photos appeared and I realized I must have left my camera unattended. Busted.

Photo of the Day

Just want to point out that when I finally have a good pic of myself taken, this is how the rest of my family steps up. Thanks boys. :)

Crockpot Tuesday...on Sunday

There's no way I'm able to bring back Crockpot Tuesday right now...though I really should. Our eating has been hit or miss since Noah arrived, so having a bit more structure would be amazing. But...it's just not going to happen at this time so why lay on the pressure, right? :)

So even though I don't know when I'll be able to have weekly crockpot posts happening, I have a new one today. We did a pot roast last week and bought one of those 5lb bags of red potatoes. We do this every time...I buy the bag because it's cheap and we need the potatoes for the roast and then we don't use the rest of the bag and a couple weeks later I remember but it's too late...they look like this. gross.

so i decided that this time around, we'd use the potatoes. since i'm home during the day right now i can start the crock pot at a convenient time and that helps. here's a super simple recipe we came up with tonight.

Chicken & Potatoes

4 chicken breasts
6 red potatoes, sliced thick
equal parts of the following spices:
basil
thyme
oregano
rosemary
1 Tbsp italian dressing

After I sliced up the potatoes, I put them in a plastic bag with some of the spices and the dressing. Close it up and shake it up so that the mixture saturates the potatoes. Dump them in the bottom of the crockpot. You can use as much or as little of the spices as you want to. Then use the rest of the spice mixture to season both sides of the chicken. Drop that in the crock and cook on hi for 4 hours. No liquid is needed for this one. If there are other spices you like, use those...I just use what I have on hand.

This turned out great and the chicken was so tender. Next time the only thing I'll change is that I'll puncture the chicken so that the spices soak in a bit more. The potatoes were fully cooked and had good flavor from the spices too. This was stupid easy and could be changed up easily with different seasonings. Maybe I'll use a bit of an italian seasoning packet next time. yum.

Anyway, no pics of this one because I didn't even think about posting it until after we ate it.

Let me know if you try this and if you changed it up at all. I'll try to keep it up with the recipes!

Father's Day 2010

Jeffrey sent me an email way back in January from the Cubs website and the subject of the email was "Father's Day Gift". Subtle Jeff. I took the hint and kept the email saved in my calendar so that once it was getting close, I'd be reminded that I have a gift all set. Score. I knew I'd be just a couple weeks post-partum at that point so I'd surely appreciate the reminder.

The item was called "Newborn Fan Club" with the Cubs and it included a super cute baby beanie-the hat, not the lame stuffed toy, a rookie of the year onesie, a fun birth certificate and the best, most adorable thing...you give them your newborn's birth stats and they put them up on the famous Cubs sign thingy at Wrigley and they take a photo and send it to you. This thing is totally Jeffrey, totally. So a few days after Noah was born I ordered it for him...from the hospital bed. Who's an amazing wife? Oh, that would be me. How cool are these?

When Connor was brand new, for Jeffrey's first Father's Day he'd told me that he'd love cubs stuff for Connor to have. I decided I'd go the same route and got Noah three adorable Cubs onesies that he can wear when he's a bit bigger. Go me.

Also, every year for Father's Day I give Jeffrey a photo book. The book has about 50 pages of photos from the going-ons of Connor (& Noah this year) in the past year. It takes forever and I tend to work on it throughout the year to get it completed, but Jeff looks forward to it every year and I love having them to look back on. We're all so horrible about actually printing photos since they are all digital that I figure this is a great way to have some of our most important photos in hard copy. If you want to see a digital version of the finished product, CLICK HERE. (hope the link works...it's been iffy...) I hope to continue doing this forever because he loves it and for selfish reasons I love it too.

Also, because I love gifts that the kids make we did a cute project for Jeffrey. He had mentioned that he was kinda bummed that Connor wouldn't be in school this summer so he wouldn't be coming home with a cute art project for Father's Day...I figured I could come up with something for him instead. We spent some time the week before Father's Day and the result was pretty great. I dipped Connor's hands and Noah's feet in paint and cut the prints out to make a little wreath. I put a pic of the boys in the center of the wreath and a sappy poem on the back. He loved it and it's already hanging up in his office.