Weekend Fun

This weekend was busy working around the house and yard as we (I use that very loosely-meaning Brian) finished chopping and stacking the fire wood. We got to use a wood splitter from a neighbor across the street which made the harder middle pieces easier to split.
Here are the photos from Saturday.
Madelyn just loves shoes. She has a pair that look like ballet slippers that she wants to wear all the time. Her she is trying on my shoes.Brendan got to play with some sparklers after it got dark. He just loves all the fireworks that are going on around the block here. We are going to have to take the kiddies out to see some since we won't be in GA for my birthday fireworks show.
Sunday after working and taking photos we took the kids to the park on the bikes again. Brendan seems so grown-up sometimes with the way he talks and the things that he says. But today was about Miss Lou-Lou just being her normal crazy little self. First the slide~oh my goodness the girl has a need for speed (just like her papa Tatz & Great Grandma Johnson). Over and over she kept going down the slide HEAD FIRST! She gets going so fast that you have to really catch her at the bottom before she goes boom!Then Brian tried to distract her by going for a walk. It went well till she found something better and just started walking in the other direction. (There was some event at the pavilion and they had a moon bounce thingy that she wanted to check out)
All in all a good weekend, got tons of stuff done around the house. We went and bought the area rugs for the downstairs. All that is left is to put the trim up then Brian says he is taking the rest of July off. This from the guy who is only working like 8 days in July due to all our vacation plans.

6/19 - Robina Rhapsody

Last Thursday Maddie and I went to the Robina Rhapsody here in Berkley (the Juniors are the co-sponsors with the City Beautification Committee doing most the work). We went while the boys finally got to go fishing. Maddie had a great time. We went early so I could help set up the stage and get things ready.Once the concert started Maddie couldn't be held back, she danced, socialized, and ate of course! She had a ball. My girlfriend from the Juniors opened up her own lunch cafe a couple of months ago and had food there. The strawberry shortcake was the 'bomb'! & large.

Of course I have to have a couple of pictures of Brendan too. Here he is trying out the new chairs that we bought the next day when we got the flooring for his playroom.

New Play Room

Here is the view from when you walk in. The tv & crafting desk are at one end with a play area in the middle. On the left where the brown shelf is (it's Brian's) another set of the white ones will go to hold all the art & craft supplies, most of which is on the craft table or the other white shelf. Both Brendan and Madelyn have tv chairs.
Here is the play area in the lower part and the computer desk at the other end of the room.
Here is the toy storage. These are mostly Brendan's toys with Maddie's just being off to the right. And the white shelves above to hold board games & smaller bins.

I only have the painting left to do but Brian said that we are taking July off from working on the house so it will have to wait.
I found rubber floor mats at Costco and put those down on the floor, boring gray color but a whole lot better on the knees and feet then the outdoor type of carpet that was the only other thing that we could put down with the possibility of the floor getting wet.

Brendan loves being able to play and Maddie just likes making a mess so I guess that means she likes it too.

Brian was the only one who was not excited about moving everything around. Given that we had to take the computer cubical totally apart I don't blame him. He did get a larger area though, 6 whole square feet! The other half of the basement is still a huge mess and it is tricky to get clothes in and out of the dryer. But I got what I wanted for the kids so I can't complain.

Father's Day

We finally have our new computer and it is up and running with almost all of our programs installed.
So finally we are able to post pictures and stuff.
Here are the photos from Father's Day.
The kids spent the weekend at Grandma & Grandpa's house while we worked at a wedding. So on Sunday we drove up and brought Brendan some of his outside toys.
First is his bow & arrows. Brian has this target at his parents house and wanted Brendan to try shooting at something other than the tree in the back yard.The neighbors across the street have all the grandkids over and they had these rockets that Brendan really liked to play with in the evenings so I bought him some. They were smaller so I thought they wouldn't go as far, I was wrong, they go up to 80 feet! Brendan really enjoyed shooting these at Papa's house.Madelyn had to have a chair just like Brendan. Brendan kept getting mad at her because every time he got up she stole his chair.Brendan being crazy man on the swing set in the back yard.Maddie of course has her own swing too.

Computer Issues

We have been having comuter 'issues' for the last week and will last for hopefully only one more week before our new computer arrives. So until then I won't be able to post as often as I would like but I do have our camping photos up so I will hopefully have some computer time later in the week in the evening.

For those who don't know our home/business comuter decied to die on us last monday while I was busy with a session. And while that is not a problem for our photos, we just don't have a computer for during the day.

Interlochen Camping Trip

The family went on our first camping trip of the year a week ago. We went to Interlochen State park which in up in the pinkie of the Michigan mitten over by Traverse City. Very beautiful part of the state with the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes running along the majority of the area along Lake Michigan. We drove up Friday morning and managed to take a 2 hour lunch break over by one of Brian's camping/hunting stores - Jay's. And during lunch we saw a Amish gentleman at the Taco Bell/KFC! We also saw a Amish horse & buggy driving down the road & an Amish house(you can tell by the clothes on the clothes line outside!)

Saturday we went on our hike that Brian found for us before we left home. It was 2.5 miles and the half way point had a lookout to the islands (can't remember the names right now). Brendan did very good given that he had to walk the whole way since daddy was carrying Madelyn and there is no way that I can carry Brendan that far. Maddie did great the way to the look out but the way down she wanted to nap so I carried an empty backpack and Brian carried Maddie with her head on his shoulder the way down.

After the hike we drove around part of the area and stopped at a local town for lunch. Then I got to stop at two winery's and had a wine tasting at both & also bought some wine at both. We headed back to the camp ground so Maddie could take a nap (I ended up taking one too) & the boys went to the beach and Brendan did swim in the cold lake.

Sunday we packed up and headed home.

Here are the photos:
We brought Brendan his Mee-mee to ride around the camp ground, and we were right next to this hill he loved to go down. (He did an excellent job of looking for cars)Mommy & Maddie got matching Traverse City tee shirts.Daddy with the kiddies on our walk to the lookout.Daddy with Maddie on the way down from the lookout.My little car all loaded up with our new trailer & the canoe.The kiddies in the car, lots of room this time with the trailer.

Weekend Events

On friday Brendan had his Graduation party. I also had gotten him a Graduation Present that he opened when Daddy got home from work. It was filled with spiderman garb. He was so excited.On Saturday Brendan and I had a 'date'. We went to see Pirates 3. It was a great movie. Brendan was all into it too, he was acting like he had a sword and fighting along with the movie. Brian stayed home to try to finish the floor but rain stopped him. When I got home from the movie it was raining cats & dogs but Maddie still wanted to play outside. So I let her, she loved being outside in the rain. On Sunday we took the kids to the Mall because once again it was raining. After dinner Brian went a head and got the wood floor finished. Of course we then decided that with the extra wood we might as well do the downstairs closet too. So he will be doing that tonight. Here is our finished wood floor in the dining room.

Graduation

Brendan had his Pre-Kindergarten Graduation at school today-also his last day of school. It was so cute all the kids had little graduation hats and they got diplomas and afterwards had snack. Brendan also got to play with his friends one last time at school. Afterwards we went to one of his school friend's house for a party. There he got more snacks and to play with his friends for a long time. Only 2 school friends weren't able to make it, but that still leaves a lot of kids!
Here are the photos:
Brendan walking down the isle to get his diploma.Brendan with his diploma.Madelyn of course had to try on the hat.Brendan with his teacher Ms. Alisa.Brendan with his other teacher Ms. Kim.Brendan with his two girl friends.Brendan playing at his friends house.

Memorial Day Weekend

This past weekend was a busy one for us.
Saturday: Grandpa & Grandma Andrews came down to help with watching the kiddies and to help put in the wood floor. So while the guys worked, the girls took the kids to the mall to play (it was a rainy morning here). JCPenny's had a sale so Brendan got two more tee shirts (one spider man & one TMNT) and two pairs of shorts. He now has either a spider man, superman or TMNT tee shirt for every day of the week, add in his pirate shirts and the boy is set for the summer (must be a little boy thing). Anyway the guys got the living room and hallway to the dining room done. Bad news is we have to get more wood. I didn't know this but a 2x4 does not measure 2 feet by 4 feet, it is just a little bit shorter, same thing goes with the wood for the floor, so that little bit added up over the space of the floor and add in all the pieces they cut out due to having knots or dark spots. So we need more wood. The floor is on hold and this gives us time to clean up the back yard and work on the wood pile. So between that and Prom & Graduation's in the next week we are super busy. But here is the photo of the living room.

Sunday: Brian was sent home with a vehicle over the weekend to drive to get a sensor to go off so that he could record the data as to why it went off. So we had a car (with free gas!) where to go? Toledo! There is a children's museum there called COSI that I wanted to take the kids to. The adventure begins. We got directions from the Internet and are driving down and just at Toledo there is road construction. We follow the directions and are just about to get on a different highway and notice a sign saying this way to COSI, to late. We continue to follow the directions we are looking for exit 10A, we see exit 11 then exit 9! And of course there is a bridge going over a river between 11 & 9. So we get off on 9 and turn around get back on the highway go back over the bridge and there is exit 10A-only on one side of the highway-Ohio go figure.
So we find the museum and the first parking deck is closed so while we drive around to get to the other deck we are also looking for some place to eat lunch-we can't find anything. We find the other parking deck, park and go to the elevator the sign says that there is some sort of walkway, we get in the elevator and push the only button that doesn't have a number-it goes down. So we ride the elevator on every upper floor looking for a walkway-it turns out the walkway is under ground. Great. So back down. There are stores & signs saying restaurants but it is Sunday and this place looks like a ghost town. We make it to the museum using the under ground walkway still not having found a place to eat, so we go to the hotel next door. They have a restaurant-a hootie-toodie that has brunch on Sundays, two forks at the table, gives us weird looks for having a stroller restaurant. We eat, we leave, we make it back to the museum, the kids are playing, we are checking out all the different exhibits, the museum has a food area with sandwich's & stuff! This should be information that they list on there web site! Oh well. The kids had a blast, I was too busy play with them and didn't take that many photos (only in the small kid play area) but there was a bike that if you were tall enough you got to ride on a high wire over the first floor with weights on the bottom to balance you. Pretty neat. They had a Mind Zone with illusions to see how your mind sees things, a Sports Zone were you got to see how fast you can throw a ball, run, how high you can jump, a Water area & a Kids Zone with a sound room, hospital, tree house, water area, construction area, and baby room. So when we were finally done with the museum we took a different way home to go to Cabela's. (One of Brian's favorite outdoor type store). Then back home. The nice thing about this car that Brian had was it had a flip down DVD player in it so both Brendan & Madelyn watched movies in the car. The only problem was trying to figure out how to get the movie out of the player. (Not as easy as you would think)
Here are the photos:
Brendan in the hootie-toodie restaurantBrendan & Madelyn in the sound room-giving kids sticks is normally not such a good idea but Maddie really liked being able to hit things on the wall & make noise.Maddie at the water table-again not such a good idea, we had to take her away before she tried to crawl onto it!Brian & the kids outside Cabela's.
Monday: Yard work, yard work & more yard work.

Dinosaur Night

The museum that we have a membership too has a new exhibit that just opened today so last night was the member preview night so we took the kids after dinner. The new exhibit is all about Dinosaurs! This one is really neat because they have a special section for smaller kids Brendan's & Madelyn's ages. Then they have the large exhibit that is a maze with facts about dinosaurs, and of course some really cool hands on type of learning too. There was also juice & cookies, a craft & the bat house was opened as well.
Here are the pictures:
Brendan playing at the dino table (two of his school friends were here as well, so he played with them)Brendan walking like a dinosaur, learning how the dinosaurs made their foot prints.Brendan flying like a dinosaur.Madelyn reading a book.Madelyn playing on the rocking-dinosaur.One of the bats in the bats house.

New Park

There is a cool new park over in Southfield about 3 miles from our house on 12 mile. Yesterday after lunch I took the kids there to play. It was hot here in Michigan, about 88'. So we didn't stay long, just long enough for both kids to get sweaty.
Here are the photos:
Brendan on the play groundBrendan on a spider's net that had a small trampoline in the middle.Madelyn checking everything out that was on the ground level.Brendan climbing the rock wall.