A Couple of Things...

Ryan MADE this sword for his cousin, Jake, for Christmas! He's taking a wood shop class and has developed an interest in woodworking. For his birthday, he got his own scrollsaw from us and some other tools from his Grandpa. Then he saw a sword like this online and decided he wanted to make one for Jake. He begged us to give him a belt/disk sander so making it would be easier, but we didn't give it to him early and he had to do a lot of hand sanding to give it a good shape. He did get the belt sander and a nail gun for Christmas, so he will be making many more projects.

We got a third car for the family (that Tyler will get to drive). It's a dark blue 2006 Toyota Corolla. He's excited about driving it to school. I'm excited for him to run errands for me, take Justin to piano lessons for me, pick up Ryan from basketball for me... you get the idea. It's a much nicer car than I had in mind, but Todd is hoping that this car will last through all three boys. (Lucky Tyler!)

And now, we have this little face to look at every day. I can't stand it. The cuteness is too much!

18 Years and Counting

Today is our 18th Wedding Anniversary! I am so blessed to be married to my best friend and the best guy I know. We went out to lunch and did some shopping and now we are watching a corny movie with our Three Greatest Achievements. It's been a really good day. I thought about putting our wedding picture in this post, but that would take more effort and I'm not sure I'd like the side-by-side comparison. But this is what we look like today. Tyler took some pictures of us before our lunch date. We're a pretty good match! Happy Anniversary, Todd. I love you more now than ever.

Nerds!

Justin came up with his costume this year. He wanted to be a nerd. So he did it all himself (I helped with his geeky hair.) When Todd saw him all dressed up, he said, "I think I could do that!" And next thing I knew, Todd was a nerd too! I've never seen Todd dress up for Halloween, he must have been really inspired.

I love my nerds.

Justin won the award for The Corniest Costume at the church Trunk or Treat.

Ryan wanted to wear the gorilla suit at the party, but he realized none of his buddies were dressed up so he only put it on to spook the kids from the back of the van while Todd & I passed out candy.

Tyler was on a trip with the marching band - they got all Ones!! - so he missed out on the costumes & candy.
Happy Halloween!

Baby Things

My sister Emily had her first baby 3 weeks ago! His name is Heath and he is adorable. I can't tell you how excited we have been around here. During Emily's pregnancy, I was just itching to make baby things. In the wintertime, I knitted him a hat and some booties and Em put a picture of Heath wearing them on her blog. She's getting lots of cute pictures of him with her fancy camera! I made this pic my desktop wallpaper.

And then I had to make this.

It's my first sweater and my first time changing colors and doing buttonholes and a few other things I didn't know I could do. It was an experiment & there are a lot of mistakes, but I love how it turned out. So soft. I just can't wait to meet him in person and snuggle him up and smell his hair. I only feel a little bad that he's a summer baby with absolutely no use for knitted hats, booties, and sweaters. I had so much fun making them and loving Heath the whole time.

Summer Strawberries

I LOVE STRAWBERRIES!! My garden finally gave us a few bowls of berries in early June. They weren't very sweet, but it was so satisfying to grow them and eat them! Don't they look yummy?

About this same time, our freezer failed to freeze and I had a bunch of strawberries, blueberries, & raspberries that needed to be used. So I made 9 pints of Three Berries Syrup with them and some of our homegrown berries. It's so good on pancakes and ice cream!

Pioneer Woman Meets Alton Brown

I keep hearing how delicious homemade Macaroni & Cheese is and so I've tried a couple or seven recipes. Easy ones, hard ones, basic ones, fancy cheese ones... and none of there were that great. I think I really wanted a pumped up version of good ol' Kraft Mac & Cheese. So last week I was flipping through my Pioneer Woman Cooks book and found her Macaroni & Cheese recipe. I actually had everything to make it and I was feeling lucky. Or maybe I was just hungry enough to give it another try. And it was good! Still not sure it lives up to the hype of homemade, but it's the best of all the recipes I've tried.

But the story doesn't end there. During my searching for a great Macaroni & Cheese recipe, I found Alton Brown's Next Day Macaroni & Cheese Toast.It's leftover Mac & Cheese (which gets very solid when it's cold and it doesn't ever taste as good as the first time you serve it), sliced up, breaded, then FRIED! At first, it sounded gross and I didn't think I'd ever try it. But then I had PWs pretty good but not great leftovers. Whaaa-laahh! Ryan helped with the breading, the frying was fast, and the end result - hot, gooey, cheesy macaroni on the inside, hot, crispy, crunchiness on the outside. Mmmm.

EAGLE SCOUT!!

Tyler had his Board of Review tonight and he is now officially an Eagle Scout! We couldn't be prouder of him. He is an amazing kid. He has worked hard for this Eagle rank and he's so excited to reach this goal. Way to go, Tyler!

Justin's Bed

If you know me, you know I have issues about buying furniture. I just can't bring myself to pay hundreds (or thousands!) of dollars for something that I'm not 100% sure I love. As a result, we have gone without, as I've saved my money and waited to find the right things. Furnishing our home has been a very slow process. I redid Justin's room last summer but still had not found a headboard that would go with his dresser. But then I found Knock Off Wood and the Simple Bed. Yay!

When my Mom & Dad were here in May, I showed Dad the plans for the bed and he built it! (He had a little help from Ryan & Justin.) We opted to just build the headboard because if Justin is anything like his Dad and brothers, his feet will hang off the end in a couple of years.

We could not find 4x4 posts so Dad engineered a solution using 2 1x4s with a 2x4 behind. We painted it navy to tie in with the Clone Wars theme and because I didn't want to try to match the color of the dresser. I wouldn't say this was a cheap build because I chose some smoother boards that of course, cost more. And we ended up buying a saw (which I have wanted to get and will use for other projects). Gotta have the right tool for the job!

Justin loves it. He did his happy dance. It's even more awesome that Justin's grandpa made it! I think it's just right. Since our 2 older boys need new beds, I think I'll be building them custom headboards too. Thanks, Knock Off Wood! And thanks, Dad!

Oh, Ryan!

After posting about Justin and Tyler, I get to focus on Ryan! He just finished a fabulous 7th grade year and is so happy to be starting 8th grade in August. He got straight A's all year! He's really kickin' back this summer though. The one full week of vacation that we've had here at home, Ryan spent mostly watching TV. (Tomorrow, I'll get tough and set some limits for the rest of the summer.)

Ryan had a Dr. visit last week. He is 5' 11" tall! I'm so glad it's finally shorts weather because Ryan's legs keep growing out of his pants! He has better than perfect vision - the dr. and nurses kept commenting on how impossible it is to see that well. And Ryan is generally healthy, but since he still has some pain in his collarbone, they did some x-rays. There is not as much healing there as they'd like since he broke it way back in March, so he'll be going to see an Orthopedic doctor. Ryan has broken several bones so we're getting a little concerned about what might be wrong. Keeping our fingers crossed that he's OK, just accident prone.

Ryan is a Life Scout and only has 2 more merit badges and his Eagle project to do. Any good ideas for a worthy project would be appreciated. He has opted to skip scout camp this year on the condition that he'll spend the time working on his Eagle. We'll see.

We're are so proud of this boy too! He has the best sense of humor and can always make us smile. He's learning to work and when he set out to do something, he really gets it done. He's been our chief lawnmower this spring which is especially helpful because Tyler & Todd have had busy schedules and I don't mow lawns. He's asked me to put the word out that he can babysit - he's had one or two paying jobs, but babies and kids love him. What's not to love? Ryan's amazing.

Bumble Boogie

More of Tyler! This one is sooo fast! Look at those fingers flying!