I Got Nothin'

So I thought I would show you a picture of Princess Kate that made me laugh.

Is is Friday yet?

Birthday Dinner

Saturday was Frank's birthday, and we went to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack in Peoria.  It was a great place to go, and we got to sit outside overlooking the river.  We both commented that it felt like we were on vacation!

Here's the birthday boy.  That wasn't his drink, by the way... !

And a fuzzy shot of our view of the Murray Baker Bridge.

Since there were no babysitters to be had, we brought our friend along.  He was his usual loud, squirmy self but sitting outside make it less (less) of a problem.  He enjoyed watching the fans...

... and drinking from real glasses.

After dinner, we walked up and down the waterfront for a while.  It was an early evening, but it was a fun place to go for Frank's birthday!

Gardening With Jacob- Part 2: Using a Shovel and Bucket

Just as in Part I, your goal in using your shovel and bucket will be to move as much mulch as possible off of the flower beds and onto concrete surfaces.  Begin by inspecting your equipment thoroughly.

Sometimes you may need to use your hands to pick up the mulch.

Your sidewalk should begin to look like this:

Continue to work very hard.

Even if there is a camera in your face.

Move your work onto the porch

and give the flowers a nice sprinking of mulch.

You may want to take a break to kiss/annoy your kitty through the screen.  This is perfectly acceptable.

With a little hard work

You, too, could use your shovel and bucket to transform any surface into a very dirty one!

Gardenng With Jacob- Part 1: Using a Rake

It's very important that when you begin gardening, you have a firm grip on the handle of your rake.

Then you pound the rake on the dirt several times. 

If you can, try to pick up some mulch with your rake.

Taste the mulch.

Then you are ready to begin your main job of moving mulch from the flower beds onto the porch. Any concrete surface could use a good sprinkling of mulch!

Inspect your work from all angles.

Pull the blooms off mom's flowers (Rake not required)

and add some mulch to the flowers. 

There you have it!  By following these simple instructions, you will be using your rake like a pro in no time! 

[I actually took these pictures a few days ago when it was warmer.  Today is nice, but it's not shorts weather.]

Guess What?

WE FINALLY HAVE A NEW ENTERTAINMENT CENTER!!

It only took at year a half for me to pull the trigger, but I really do believe the problem was that I couldn't come up with an overall concept for that room.  It's hard to buy something when you don't know what you're looking for.  So I've been looking at magazines and design blogs and trying to come up with some inspiration for that room. 

On that note, I'm only letting you have a sneek peek at the entertainment center until the whole room is finished. 

(Excuse the really poor-quality photo)

The new entertainment center looks great, and it will look even better with some new lamps...  :)  :)  :) 

My Guys

I took the sweetest pictures of my guys last weekend...

Don't let their innocent looks fool you, though.  This is what was going on just a few minutes prior to the pictures above:

Yep, wrestle-mania!  The two of them make me laugh.  They are so much alike, right down to their striped polo shirts! 

Hot and Bothered

Now that it has finally stopped raning, our street has once again come alive with various construction and earth-moving equipment and general commotion.  We are getting some new neighbors down the street (who are young, says our neighbor across the street), and they have had huge trucks parked on the side street by our house for at least a week now.  The "gucks" (Jacob-speak for "trucks"), are fascinating to him, and I actually don't mind the noise that much.

The next-door neighbors are also putting up a new fence.  They had told us a few weeks ago that they were getting a fence, and it wasn't because they didn't like us!  They wanted a fenced-in area for their new dog, as well as some wind break. 

However, part of the fence is about 6 feet away from our family room window, and I'm pretty sure we will have no view at all out of that window anymore.  I guess they have a right to do what they want to on their own property but... dang.  Not cool.

Needless to say, it has been noisy around here, and yesterday the temps reached the mid-90s.  When I broke down mid-afternoon to turn on the air (you guessed it), it didn't work.  It was too late in the day to call a repairman and not pay an emergency fee, so I decided we could wait until tomorrow.  By 4pm, it was 86 degrees in our house.  We were MELTING.  By 10:30 when we went to bed, it was a balmy 82.  All of the open windows and ceiling fans just couldn't compete with the west windows and lack of breeze.  Wait, is this July???

Today, we had the farmers working in the field behind the house as well as the neighborhood association mowing the common areas and open lots with a tractor and blade.  Lovely, lovely timing.  Oh, and the fencing guys were working thisclose to my family room windows.  Like, I could count the freckles on their backs, they were so close.  Plus, they were drinking from our water spigot.  I hated to be a b---- and begrudge them water on a hot day, but hello?  Bring your own water jug.  Jacob, of course, loved the action. 

So because of the dust and lack of privacy, I kept some of the downstairs windows closed until the repairman arrived around noon.  We were at 83 degrees when the repairman arrived.  He put in a new thermostat and thought that would take care of the problem.  When he said, "I need you to follow me outside," I knew there was more to the story.  It turns out, the mice had built a nest in the air conditioner and chewed through the wires.  I stayed far, far, far away from the air conditioner as he was explaining this, using a screwdriver to disassemble the mouse nest. 

(Should I even be blogging about this? )

After he uncovered two carcasses of electrocuted mice, I hightailed it back inside.  Some things, I just don't want to know. 

Finally, our air conditioning is back up and running.  The field work and construction work make for some good neighborhood entertainment, and the fence... I will have to get used to. 

Zoo Fun

For Mother's Day, we went to the Miller Park Zoo here in town.  We had gone to the zoo once last year, when my little dude was about 6 months old and looked like this:

(Those are his favorite older cousins Jenna and Brett.)

Not even a year later, he looks like this:

The zoo is tiny, but for a small kid, it works out just fine.  He liked watching the birds, especially, from inside a building where they are allowed to fly free.  (Momma, who is not a fan of birds flying around her head, did enjoy this exhibit so much.)

There were a few exhibits where we could see the animals really well, and Jacob really seemed interested in watching the animals.  He was pretty fascinated by some of them.

After the zoo, we walked over to the adjacent park, and played on the swings for a while.

He enjoyed it.  Clearly. 

I think we'll be spending a lot more time at the zoo over the next few years!

Favorite T-Shirts

Lately, Jacob has taken an interest in his clothes.  Not that he really cares what we put on him, but he has two shirts, in particular, that he really likes to wear:  a truck shirt and an aligator shirt.  On days when he wears those shirts, he will point to the truck or the aligator on his shirt, and then usually go look through his books to find a picture of a truck or an aligator.  I love that he's made the connection between the aligator on his shirt and the aligator in his book. 

Here's a picture of the aligator shirt.  (See how he points to it? :)

(Yes, I know these pants are a little short.)

He was wearing the truck shirt on the day that he got his hair cut, which was not a coincidence.  I thought it might keep him happy, but aparently he forgot all about his cool shirt when he saw the stylist! 

Anyway, I took a few more pictures of him in the aligator shirt that day, since the weather was finally halfway decent and we were able to go outside for a while.

And my favorite:

He looks like he's saying, "Don't you wish you had an aligator shirt, too?"