A Wonderful Trip

We made it back from our trip to WI. We had a wonderful time. I am definitely airplaned and helicoptered out; although Nico says he is not. He had so much fun trying to find particular planes he wanted to see. He had about 15 books he had checked out of the library that he and Luca browsed through on the drive up. He also brought his little back pack with him full of his die cast helicopters and airplanes. Luca and him spent a lot of time playing with these.

Speaking of the drive, the boys did fabulous in the RV. Nico spent a few hours watching some DVD's on the mini player and Luca took a nice nap, as did I. I even took over driving for a while so Mike could stretch his legs. We were able to drive straight through as we had the bathroom to use and made lunch while driving. It brought back so many great memories of when I was a child. (The trip home was a bit different.)

Nico only had one melt down when we wouldn't let him spend all his money on the first day for a big set of airplanes. We hadn't even seen all the tents (which sell all the same stuff). He cried for over an hour as we had to drag him along as we walked back to the camper. It is quite unusual for Nico to throw a fit, especially for so long. He was grounded for a day of not buying anything. Eventually we let him buy his items but he couldn't open them. It drove him crazy. Finally we talked about why he couldn't get them and why he was in trouble so he understood what was going on. I feel like he learned his lesson. He is usually one thrifty spender, but was so excited to buy new planes and be on vacation he wanted it NOW! I can so relate!

Other than that, the trip was without tears and screaming. The boys played around the camper in the evening. One night we went to the outdoor theater and watched part of "Six Nights, Seven Days" with Harrison Ford. We even got to see Harrison Ford as he was there. Unfortunately I did not bring my camera to the event, so have no pictures of him. We were hoping to run into him throughout the week but never did.

Our journey home gave us a little of an event, we had to replace a tire. Mike went to fill up the front tire and a huge bubble came out the side of it. He knew there was no driving on it, so we pulled over to a truck stop and he changed it out with the spare tire. He had filled the spare before we left so it had air in it, but as we were driving it was slowly leaking. We pulled into a little town to get some new tires when he realized the spare was a 16" tire and all the other tires were 16.5"....oops, a problem with two different size tires on the front and of course, the place we stopped at did not have 16.5" tires. So, Mike swapped the spare out with one tire in the back (there is a double axle), so the two front tires were the same size. The tire continued to lose air. We drove a few more hours and then used our handy dandy GPS to locate a Super WalMart and prayed their tire service was still open. It was 6:10pm and I just knew they closed at 6pm....we were lucky, they were open until 8pm and had a 16" tire for the spare (but no 16.5"...apparently not a common size anymore!). Anyway, we replaced that tire and carried on!

When were an hour from home, Mike stepped on the brake and said, "UH-OH!",,,I don't like those words associated with the brakes...He said, "We lost the brakes on one side, but it's okay." Eventually he stopped for gas and found that a brake line was leaking. He tightened it up, added some brake fluid, we bled the brakes, and all was well. Half an hour later we were at home.

For those that know me and my family's wonderful vacation excursions as a kid might find this humorous. We always had a break down on our trips. Mom would get so mad and swore she was not camping again! I am so glad I have a man that knows how to fix these things and I give him the award for the fastest tire changer ever! He had those tires swapped out in no time flat. He got us home safely! I also feel his grandpa was watching over us. The RV is the one his grandpa and grandma used. I am sure his grandpa was smiling down on us and watching our journey. I am sure he is happy it is being used and we are loving it!

I will take RVing over dealing with airports, airplanes and airfare any day! Especially with the kids.

I took 335 pictures of our trip and just downloaded them today. I did not have time to do any resizing or modifications to them so I could post them. I can't do any of that at work so I will make a new post later this week with some of the pictures.

Blog Hop - Favorite Kid Photos

Okay, after watching a few videos, I think (I hope) I have the MckLinky thing down.

I have so many favorite photos of my kids, but here are a couple recent favorites.

This picture does not show their faces, but it speaks a thousand words! These two boys are so wonderful together. They are best buds! I couldn't be more proud of them! Nico has taken to big brotherhood like a true champ! They have brought such joy to my life.This is Nico. He was trying to hide from the snapping camera and a great photo was shot.

(I have to admit, I did not take these photos, my friend Nate took them- what great shots he took of two of my kids).

Preparing to Travel

We are getting ready to leave on our first big road trip in the RV. We are heading to OshKosh, WI on Tuesday morning. We will be there for 5 days. We are really looking forward to getting away and all riding in the RV together. I loved it when we were kids!

What's in OshKosh you're asking? Well, we are headed there for the GINORMOUS airplane and helicopter fly in. I have never been before, but for the whole week people fly in their airplanes and helicopters and hang out. There will be air shows, static displays, a museum, a kids tent, movies, and nightly entertainment.

We went to the library last week and Nico checked out about 10 books on helicopter and airplanes (not that we already have several at home, but you can never have too many!). He actually sat down and read a whole book (YES!). He is studying up on his identifaction of the planes and helies. He already knows quite a few. He amazes me! I am so proud of everything he does.

Luca is showing great interest in planes and helicopters too. Everytime he sees one in the sky he says, "Daddy", because Daddy flies one at work (and home). He doesn't yet say airplane or helicopter, but instead says, "brrrrmmm" (well whatever sound they make as they fly through the air). Nico and Luca sat for an hour last week lining up all of Nico's airplane/heli toys and playing. It was awesome! Luca will be in awe at the show I am sure and come back with toys of his own. Nico has his little backpack ready to carry his new things in. We are on a mission to find a wallet with a helicopter on it.

We hope to get some spectacular photos to post and scrapbook.

I'll post more after we return from our trip.

Baby's Got Words!

Luca's vocabulary is skyrocketing!

Just this week he started saying "All Done" and "Done", "doo-doo" (for poo-poo), "I want out", "I come down" and "What you doing?"

His other words include: "Sponge Bob" (which is pronounced 'pum bob' - my cousin's boys think it is hilarious the way he says it and try to get him to say everytime they see him). It is quite adorable....especially since it was one of his first words. He also says, "Dye-Dye" for bye-bye, "hello", "hi", "dink" for drink, "eeee" for eat, "Dico" for Nico, "mama, mom", "daddy, dad", "I see", "moo" for move, "uuu" for up, "thank you", "peas" for please, "go", "me", "mow" for No and many more. (He also signs for many of these)

He says a few more that I can't think of off the top of my head. I just love how their vocabulary starts to grow. Sometimes I wonder how they figure out what they are suppose to say, such as "ME". I don't go around saying, "me do it" I say "I will do it", but somehow he started in with, "mow, me" which is "No, me!" I love that he is starting to express himself with words and being able to ask for things. We really try to stress that he uses words or signs to get what he wants.

I just love being home with my boys and watching the developement and spending so much time with them. I am blessed to have a great job that allows me to be with them and not have to stick them in daycare all day....plus to homeschool them and have them home with me...I LOVE IT!

I can't believe August 5 is soon approaching. This is Luca's Gotcha Day. I am not sure what celebrations we are having, but we are headed to Tan-Tar-A for the weekend for MOGUATE. I was so excited to go last year with him in tow as I was not sure when he was coming home. So, every year Tan-Tar-A MOGUATE weekend will be a special event for us.

More later as it is time for me to sign off and get home (I am working some overtime tonight and ready to go).

Playing with Photo Program

I have been having fun over the past couple of days playing with my new photo enhancement program. I have ALOT to learn about it, but had fun playing with some of the settings on some recent photos we took.

Today we sat on our front porch and watched a thunderstorm build up. The clouds were rolling, lightening flashing, and thunder growling. We were able to catch a couple flashes of lightening as it streaked out of the sky. It was a great science lesson for Nico as he was able to see the cooler clouds being pushed up and around by the warm air moving in. We were wondering if a tornado was going to occur it was rolling so much.

Nico found this adorable little green tree frog in the yard. Nico posed the little guy on the branch so I could take some macro photos of him. I love how you can see all his little bumps and wrinkles. We printed them out to frame and decorate my 'nature' bathroom with. They turned out pretty nice.




Here is one of our kitty cats. This is Zeus. I truly believe he is a little boy reincarnated. He is such a little rascal, just like my 3 boys. Today he was hanging over the side of the swimming pool trying to get to the football floating in there. I was just waiting for him to fall in. One day he thought he would make use out of the bird bath since there was no water in it. I don't know if he thought he was going to catch himself a bird or if it was a nice comfy place to hang out. I like the pictures.

The photo of the bee was taken in Hannibal last week. I did some photo editing and just highlighted some colors. I am not printing it, but I kind of like the affect I got.
Our goal is to decorate our house with pictures of our vacations and pictures of our family. We can spend just as much money getting a picture I print professionally matted at Michael's as if we bought pictures that we don't even know where they are.

I would like to take some classes on photography. This is one of my goals for the year, if I can get someone to watch the boys for me for a few hours.

Camping

We had a great time last week on our camping trip. This time we went just an hour north of us to Hannibal, MO. We stayed at a nice campground called Injun Joe Campground. Although we only spent two nights it was great just to get away.

We spent Thursday in the town of Hannibal doing some sightseeing. We toured Mark Twain Cave, Mark Twain's Boyhood Home, walked up the 244 steps to the lighthouse, ate some lunch, and toured Rockcliffe Mansion.

Trips like this really add to our homeschooling experience. Being able to see where Mark Twain lived and picturing what life was like in his lifetime really imprints on your mind. I have been to Hannibal many times since I was a kid and they keep expanding the museums and adding more information about Mark Twain's (Samuel Clemens) life growing up. I learn more each time and really enjoy sharing my childhood memories with my kids and Mike. I love creating our own memories. I sat Thursday night and watched the boys running around together. Luca was following Nico everywhere and imitating everything. Nico was teaching Luca the art of 'sticks as guns'. Some may say sticks as guns is a bad thing...but boys will create a gun out of anything, trust me having three boys I know. As the saying goes, "It's a boy thing." My kids know they go after the bad guys and they are also aware of the danger of guns. We don't have real guns in the house .

Me and my two babies in the Becky Thatcher Butterfly Garden.

Mike and his boys.

Luca went up and posed in this doorway. He just loves when the camera comes out.

I like this photo of the lighthouse. We walked the 244 steps up to it and then found out we couldn't go up inside the lighthouse. Oh well, it was great exercise. Mike carried Luca up in his stroller - luckily it was an umbrella stroller.

We did some fishing on our first night there. They had a couple of nibbles but no fish for dinner. Nico was glad, he just likes to catch and release, not eat them. I love both of these pictures of the boys. Nico looks so cute with his new tackle box and Transformers fishing pole. He did pretty good casting this time, although I did untangle his line several times! That is what it is all about. Luca did great just hanging out throwing rocks. Mike did come over and let him hold the pole.

Here are a couple of photos from the cave. It was a cool 54 degrees. This cave is not as spectacular as Meremac Caverns as it did not have all the formations in it as there is not a lot of water that runs through the cave. Missouri is known as the cave state because of all the caves found here. If you are ever in MO be sure to check out at least 3 of them. They are all different. Mark Twain cave is neat because they tell the story as based from the book, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", by Mark Twain. One can just picture young Samuel Clemens running around in the cave with his friends and creating this story as he got older.

With all the adventure last week I decided that for fourth grade (2010-2011) we will be studying American Literature, with Mark Twain as one of our authors.

I love these family times together away from home. It gets us out of our work mode and into relax mode. I also enjoy these times as these are some of my favorite memories from when I was a kid....vacations and camping with my family. I am planning on creating a "Then and Now" Scrapbook with photos of myself as a child and my children in the some of the same locations.

Boys of Summer

One Happy Boy!



I have had Brian for a few days. It is so nice to see him again. Nico loves having him here because it gives him someone to play Wii with and today they were able to go swimming without mom having to hang out right there. They are all getting along really well this time. I think Brian being away helped their bond. Although I really miss him, the house is alot calmer when he is not here. I know he is 17 and I know our bond will get stonger again too. He is a very loving boy and still gives me hugs and kisses. He is doing good and enjoying working with his dad. As always I worry about him and am always excited to see him and have him with us.
(The Three Amigos!)


We are planning on going to Tan-Tar-A with Brian in August for the MO-Guate weekend. He is really a big help to me with the boys. I really need to try to plan a night or weekend away with just Brian and myself.


Luca's personality is growing every day. He is so funny and has the cutest expressions. I try to capture them on film, but of course, he won't perform on demand. He is very empathic and tends to go up to children when they are crying and pats them on the back or arm. It is so cute. He is enjoying drawing (scribbling) on paper and then proudly shows us the beautiful work he has done. He does most of this while Nico is doing his lessons. He is also getting very interested in looking at books and 'pretending' to read. In his mind he is reading. He loves music and enjoys singing and dancing. He loves Mike's guitars and the piano.
Guitar Hero!

Luca's vocabulary is coming along. He now has two and three word sentences; although most can't understand him, we can. He tends to be lazy in forming his words completely. He is still picking up on the sign language and signing while saying the words. Nico and I are having fun learning sign language and have used it a few times amongst ourselves. We play games like Simon Says and Red light, Green Light (stop and go). Hopefully soon we can get some sentences together and carry on a mini conversation.

Writing an important note to Daddy! He holds his pencil right already.

Oh, I forgot, he is also showing signs of using the potty. He now runs and hides when he is pooping in his pants. We were in the middle of playing catch tonight when he ran off around the corner. I heard some grunting and said, "Are you pooping." He lauged and ran off....yep, a load in the diaper. So, we are working on the potty chair.

This week was not overly exciting in our activity calendar. Next week we are going camping at Mark Twain State Park and the Lincoln County Fair is going on. Nico is on the look out for a turtle and a bullfrog for the turtle and frog races. He is also practicing for the watermelon eating contest. Last year he came in 2nd place....shooting for 1st and the $3.00 jackpot. (Hopefully this year it won't pour down rain while the event is taking place, I had to put my camera away early and obtained blurry photos...but blurry is better than none!)