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4th of July Chaos

Well our fourth of July was definitely full of fireworks and not just the kind that look pretty at night. The days started with mass chaos in the hallway outside our room. Nothing like waking up to kids fighting outside the door of your room. We had hoped to get out and do some fun family things, the kids decided that it would be more fun to bicker, whine, and not listen to a darn thing we asked them to do. We were determined to try and make a go of it but first we wanted to get Landon's closet shelving re-do finished and Liam really needed to clean up his room. Yeah well that was much harder than it needed to be. Jason worked on the closet while I worked on the laundry that needed to be put away. Liam worked on rolling around on the floor whining and crying that it wasn't fair that he had to clean up his toys and put his dirty clothes in his hamper. So once we finished what we needed to do we took on Liam's room with trash bags and boxes and packed up all the stuff he didn't deem important enough to put away. It is all now resting comfortably in our room until he feels the need to earn them back.

After the drama of the morning we decided we would go ahead and head out for some late lunch and trip to the park. We headed out, went through McDonalds drive thru as we knew that should make them happy. Got the park and told everyone to stay in their seats and finish eating, that once every one was done we would go to the park. I guess Alexis took that to mean everyone but her needs to stay in their seat because with in minutes she is up and roaming around the car. Oh the joy of not listening has begun again. Once convinced back to her seat so that everyone could finish Landon had to start touching and bothering people. Are we crazy to think this adventure is going to work. Finally everyone finishes eating, including the baby who had been screaming for his bottle as soon as we drove out the parking lot of McDonalds. We opened the doors and freed the beasts from the vehicle.

The park was really nice and had lots of fun things for the kids to do and they surprisingly managed to play nicely with no fighting or whining. Sweet relief. We finally got a picture of all 5 of the kids together on one of the playground pieces.

[wp_caption id="attachment_27" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="5 firecrackers"][/wp_caption]

Then we took the beasties on a walk around the park. We came across a little bridge over a creek and they had a blast watching the water run under the bridge.

[wp_caption id="attachment_28" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Water watchers"][/wp_caption]

We watched some guys playing frisbee golf. I had heard of it but didn't realize how serious it was. Jason told me that they have different frisbees like regular golfers have different clubs. It was fun to see as I had never seen anyone actually playing.

Then we headed back to the playground area and decided to let them have at it in the sprinkler park. Brenna was hesitant, she would play with the little sprinklers around the edge and on one post. Landon was a lunatic he went running screaming into the water and I would just catch a glimpse of him as he went shooting by. Lexi doesn't like to be wet as she will soon be followed by cold so she sat out for awhile and then finally decided she would go play and off she went. Liam liked it but he liked using the water canons to try and shoot us or other people more than he wanted to get himself soaked.

[wp_caption id="attachment_32" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Brenna loved the little water sprays "][/wp_caption]

After fun was had by all in the sprinkler park we headed for home. Surprisingly everyone stayed awake for the ride home, I thought for sure we would loose a couple to the land of nod. We hung out at home waiting for darkness to come and fireworks to begin.

It's all in the perspective

This week Liam is visiting camp Oma and Poppa (my mom and Bill) and Lexi and Landon are at Y camp so I just have Brenna and Baby Bryan. Yesterday I got the crazy idea to take Brenna to the baby pool to let her play in the water. So I packed up the baby and the water toys and we headed out to the pool. Brenna had a blast splashing and playing in the water. She played for a good hour while Bryan slept in his carseat. It was peaceful and easier than I expected. Bryan woke up and wanted his bottle so I fed him in his chair to try and keep him out of sun. Took him out to burp him and he went right back to sleep. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to do. Brenna gave me a fit when I said it was time to go but at least she went out the gate even though she was protesting. When I was putting them in the car the lady that ran the sign in area of the pool was leaving and stopped and said "Wow your brave going to the pool with baby and a toddler" I replied with "This is much easier than any other time we go to the pool as I don't have my other kids with me, it is much harder with 5 kids than 2."

So it all is in the perspective.

Just when we thought our life was crazy enough

Just when we thought our life was crazy enough we get a phone call. The kids bio mom had another baby that needed to be placed in care and they asked that we take him in. Jason and I talked it over and our hearts said we had to give it a try for him, for the kids, because we couldn't stand the thought of him going some place like where we picked up Landon and Lexi. So we went against everyone's opinion and followed our heart and picked up Baby Bryan on Monday June 9th.

Man, Boys can be funny

Tonight at dinner Landon (3 1/2 years old) said "Ouch! I bit my chin." Jas and I started laughing and asked him to show us how he bit his own chin. He just bit his lip and said like that, but that didn't stop us from laughing it was still funny.

The winner of the night has to be my Liam. Jason was baking something chocolately and Liam smelled it and said "I smell something." Hubby in his infinite funnyness said "oh excuse me and fanned his butt". Liam replied "your farts can't smell like that". "Depends on what I ate", refuted Jason. They go around and around for awhile then all of a sudden Liam sticks his nose down by J's butt and sniffs and said "that don't smell good definitely not chocolate". J and I both almost peed our pants laughing at our little butt sniffer. Jason's final comment " And I was counting on him to support us in our old age, guess that's out"

Oh what fun a night can be with boys, both big and little

Buried Treasure in our Yard

We have lived in our house for 4 years now and we have always had a spot in the front yard where we had trouble getting grass to grow. It would sort of grow and then die off every year. One of my friends mentioned when she built her house they had left a piece of plywood on her lawn and then sodded over it. So Jas got to thinking and decided to go see what was up in our yard, hoping maybe it would be the same thing and we could just pull it out and our yard would grow in. So out to the yard he went with his shovel, started digging and hit something hard. More digging turned up the culprit in the yard it was concrete. Yes that is right concrete from when they built the house. We pulled out a couple of chunks and figured we better check around the hole just to make sure we got it all. Then we found what basically was a concrete slab buried about 6 inches in our yard. Jason was able to bust it up with a pick axe and we pulled it all out. It turned out there was more than a wheelbarrow load of concrete in our yard. Some of the chunks we pulled out were about 6 inches deep. In fact on chunk was big enough we put in the flower bed as a stepping stone. Once we got it all pulled out we were left with a nice hole in the front yard. So now we hope we will be able to get actual grass to grow in that spot. However if you stop by in the near future steer clear of the whole in the front yard right now it seems to just be a giant mud pit and it will suck your shoes off your feet.

For viewing pleasures here are some pics of the process. You might even be able to notice that there was so much concrete in the wheelbarrow that it flattened the tire. Click here to see all the photos Concrete Nightmare

I am not able to get the slideshow to load to the blog so here are a couple of pictures

Boys Day at the Indy 500 Track

Yesterday started out bad. The kids were all kinds of wound up and whiny. Jas and I both were at our wits end and it was only lunch time. Jas was sitting on the couch flipping channels and came across a broadcast about the happenings at the 500 on Sunday. He decided that he would take the boys down to the track and let them watch the cars. So they headed out for the track and the girls and I headed to the grocery store which desperately needed to happen.

The boys had a great time. It turns out it was Armed Forces day so they got to check some military vehicles. Landon said he got to fly the helicopter way up in the sky but something makes me think that they didn't let the three year old pilot the helicopter. They sat and watched the race right behind the Wii Fit racecar which just thrilled Liam to know end. They had ice cream, corn dogs and pretzels and great fun.

Here are some pictures from their adventure.






Some ice cream is always nice



All the fun and excitement wore Landon right out. Daddy said he didn't make it off of the track before he crashed out.



I am glad the boys got to have fun together. I think Jas had as much fun showing the boys everything as they had seeing it.