Weekend Fun...

Ahh, another month gone. It seems like time just flies along no matter how much you have going on, it just cruises.

We had a nice week this week and a very enjoyable Saturday (It rained all day. Yes. Rain. Which meant the temperatures were only in the upper 80s). Today again was scorching. If any of you would see my yard you would be shocked. Even with watering (like our OCD neighbor) his yard is still looking pretty horrible. Mine...downright awful. Brown everywhere (except under the shadow of our pine oak out front). I just wish it would cool down...and I could get a chance to mow again. BTW, I haven't mowed since July 2nd. Unbelievable.

Well onto more fun things, we're just about to start up the big Master Bedroom makeover.  Emmy and I have planned a trip to Chicago with the boys to pick up some major IKEA furniture and bring back and completely redo our room. Part of our task is getting rid of our old stuff, which happened pretty quickly with the aid of Craigslist today. Some lady just bought it, didn't need to see it in person first, just was like, "I've seen the pictures, I'm buying that bedroom set." Yikes! So they'll come next week and take that stuff away :)

While preparing the room today, the boys had quite a bit of fun time together. Here's some highlights:

Note here and for most of Mookie's subsequent pictures, the University of Cincinnati sweatbands.  I found them today cleaning out my sock drawer and Mooks got ahold of them and that was it. He wore them everywhere for the rest of the day.  Their SO big on him too that I kept referring to them as "gautlets".  He's our little medieval warrior!

Aid is REALLY getting into Legos right now (which of course makes Daddy scream with excitement).  Here's his newest creation.  "A picnic with friends" he calls it. Note the guy sweeping the roof of the RV and the fish on the grill for all the friends. Not sure what the antenna things are at the front of the RV, but we'll go with it!

So this week, circumstances therein, required me to get Emmy's Anniversary give a we bit early. So today, she gave back a bit with a food dehydrator (shhhh....don't tell anyone we got it for $20 at Aldi's).  But right away it was beef jerky time! As of right now, the jerk is almost done and I'm chompin' at the bit to try it!

Ahhhhh, Mook's and his apple.  What a great shot of the 2 year old wonder that is Mookie Mookie, aka, Ethan Thomas.

Snack time at the pull up bar...two boys ready to snack and then play!

OK, which one of us does this guy look like???  Not me.

We got E a Tag Junior for his birthday in June.  He likes it, but of course, likes his brother's Tag MUCH MORE!

With it being hotter than Hades today outside (this month) we've been doing a lot of fun stuff inside.  Last week was cookies, this week pizzelles!

Mookie won't eat the cookie (go figure) but loved dipping his finger and licking off the batter.  Go figure! (Nice sweatbands :)  )

Mommy made a great quick dinner tonight and had to take a picture of the sandwich.  What you are looking at here is a fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil sandwich on ciabatta bread with a heavily reduced balsamic vinegar spread.  Folks, it was a fantastic sandwich.  Looks like the Italian flag!

Finally tonight, we can finally celebrate something for Mommy which has been in the works for almost an entire year!   On Friday, she was officially named Patient Safety Officer for her hospital.  This huge role will get her some big time responsibilities to monitor, encourage and educate for patient safety at her hospital.  I am so proud of her, for all her hard work and for all the things that she does to selflessly advocate for safer patients at the hospital.  It is truly awesome....she really has a caring heart for medicine and for patients.  The boys and I are so lucky to have her at home caring for us!

That's all for tonight, have a great night!

Ty, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan

Birthday Weekend!

Well Mommy turned over another year yesterday and we (the boys and I) made sure that she had a special birthday...I think she did.

After a very nice dinner at Fleming's Steak House, we headed into Lafayette Square for drinks at a really cool wine bar called 33.  We laughed and talked about the world and our boys and had fancy wine and fancy cheese (and some really awesome water crackers from Austria)...and overall had a great night.  The boys stayed home with Ethan's school teacher Tara, who came out to babysit for the first time.  They did crafts and followed all the routine for a successful night!  So all in all, it was a great day for Emmy!

I'm very fortunate to have quick access to a video camera (i.e. my Ipod) so I can capture really cool moments as they happen.  Here's two that both Ethan and Aidan were the stars in....enjoy.



"Make New Friends" by Aidan...taught by his teacher Miss Ellen



"Hello" by Ethan....as sung by Martin Solvig and Dragonette (whoever that is)

Here's some fun pictures from this unbelievably hot weekend....note, the basement was about the only bearable place to be.

Batman on a plane!

A Mookie on a scooter!

Ready to race! 

That Little One's getttin' big huh?  That's what a chicken finger, pizza and yogurt diet will do for you!

After naps, the boys were quite helpful and both helped make dinner and desert tonight.  Aidan put most of the ingredients in for Mommy's homemade marinara sauce and then both boys did the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies that were amazing!

Watching Mommy closely....

Mr. Talker now Ethan giving us the "hand language" of cookie making!

A couple of chefs...

Again, since it's been over 95 here since last Sunday, we've had to get out some new stuff to play with.  Tonight, they played very nicely and colored and stamped....What great little guys!

That's all for tonight!  Happy Birthday Mommy, we love you so very much!  Hope you had a great birthday....we sure did celebrating it with you!

Have a great night,

Ty, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan

Hot, Hot, Hot!!

It's summer in St. Louis and that means heat and humidity....and only one relief, the pool!

This weekend Auntie E invited us over to the pool and we swam all day.  Our two little swim bugs were in and out and all about the pool.  Aidan even went off the diving board!!!  Here's some pictures:

Swim Guy #1

Swim Guy #2!

E taking a pretzel time-out...what a goofy smile.

Here's Aidan doing his "shark"...nice!

 "The Swim Guys"

So a couple of hours into our fun, we decided to get out the floats and just relax.  While Aidan was maxing and relaxing on the float, boy was he surprised when Daddy "dive bombed" him from the board.  Kaboom!!

Just relaxing.....

Auntie E and Mookie!

Giddy up!

Because we hadn't seen Auntie E and her family in a while, we did some Mookie Mookie Birthday celebration!  They sure spoil that little guy!  Thank you Auntie E and family!!

Checking out his new bubble leaf blower....very cool!

 Loving his new Lightning McQueen relaxing chair!!

So today, we all got up early and headed to Church.  By in large the boys are getting better, with Aidan scoring an A+ and E a solid B today, which was fantastic because if they were good we had a little surprise in store.  For lunch we all headed into the city down to a new place we had never been.  Occasionally, a St. Louis company called Fitz's does a demo at Costco.  Fitz's makes fantastic root beer and other types of carbonated soda (grape, cream, orange, etc.), and it's pretty well known for them across the midwest.  They have a restaurant in their brewery so we decided to check it out and boy were we impressed!   It was really nice, food was good and we got to watch them bottle, cap and label the root beer.  It isn't a huge place and they are no where near the capacity of say a bigger place, but it was just a really nice time and hopefully a new tradition to take the Grammy's and Grandpas when they come and visit.  Here's some shots:

That's it, the bottling, capping, mixing and labeling. Cool place.

Aid liked the factory, but he (and his brother) REALLY liked the root beer!!! :)

That's all, stay cooooool this week.

Tyler, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan

We're back....

We're back!  Sorry for the missed blog last week.  We had quite the weekend over the 4th.   As many of you know I was out of town on a wedding weekend for my good friend (and Ethan's Godfather) Aaron's Wedding.  Their location was in Sunset Beach, North Carolina, which is a stone's throw away from Myrtle Beach.  It was a nice wedding and it was good to see friends from long ago again.  I certainly thank Mommy for handling the boys under some very dire conditions.....see below.  Anywho, here a a few pictures I got while I was there for my 2 day stay.

Looking Due East from Aaron's rental home at the Sunset Beach pier

Looking down the beach, pretty typical Atlantic Ocean beach.  Hard, Packed and pretty full of people.  Not my kind of beach unfortunately, but still, a nice place for folks to come and drink on 4th of July Weekend. 

Me and the Groom

I really liked how they decorated the walkway down to the beach ceremony site.  Coolest wedding related thing from the weekend. 

The wedding party, including "Uncle Dan" as the best man.

There were 9 on each side, here's the 5 that I'm friends with: Don, Kev, Jim, Dan, and me.

I know I was hatin' on this beach earlier, but one thing it's got over Mexico is the type of sand that is perfect for building sand castles, check out those arches...awesome!

So, leaving the boys and Emmy over a holiday weekend wasn't the easiest thing to do in the first place, but it got much more tough when Emmy woke up on Sunday with a horrible stomach virus.  She said that she could barely pick up E and that eating of any sorts was not an option.  The boys, by some Godsend, were angels on Sunday.  They played (read: destroyed) the basement and did all sorts of other fun stuff, while Mommy recovered.

Let the destruction begin!

Fortunately, with the help of Emmy's good friend Tracie, she was able to get some liquids in and started to feel better on the 4th. The boys were all dressed up in their Americana garb (thanks Grammy T) and they were ready to play some more!

 Happy 4th of July!

The guys are really going through a "playdoh" phase right now, they play together so well with it!

Big guy posing with this "Birthday Cake"

Mookie Blue Eyes....:-)

It was pretty hot last weekend, perfecto for Popsicles outdoors!

So that's it, Daddy got back on Tuesday, very happy to see the family again (it kinda sucks being away from those little ones and Mommy, especially when she's down).  In any case, I was ready to be back again, you know. Travelling for work is different, travelling for pleasure - to a beach - on the 4th of July, without the fam, well I'm glad to say that things are back to normal.

This weekend was finally a restful weekend that we could just hang out and do our thing. Our parish picnic was going on and we braved the masses to attend on Friday night.  They gave out free hamburgers, dogs, chips and drinks to everyone on Friday, so EVERYONE came.  It was part of their declaration that the parish was now debt free, so they were giving back.  

An important note (and one I didn't capture) was that we took a shuttle bus from a parking lot a little bit away from the picnic and it was a REAL school bus!! Aidan was amazed that he got to ride in a real school bus.  Pretty darn sweet from a kid who will probably never ride one (the Catholic schools near us do not have bus service).

The rides at the picnic were pretty lame this year and ridiculously expensive ($4 a ride, I know?!?).   So, the boys got one ride, this train that took them around 5 or 6 times.  I hope the cut the free food next year and bring back better kids rides, remember last year...awesome!

Make it worth it boys, the church is gettin' us a train ride!!

Today, we got up and went to Church as a family and the boys were very well behaved.  Aidan got an A and Mookie a B+.  For these two boys to be so well acting at Church for the first time in a long time, I was quite impressed.  Way to go boys!  Here's E doing his smiley thing.

Smiling....

Coloring before church....

Our weather here is going back up into the 100s, so after nap today the boys played in a new pool that has a waterfall that we put up on the deck. They very much enjoyed it!

Water guys!

Water bug! :)

Have a great night everyone!

Ty, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan