Fun & Exciting Lake Adventures

Since we've fixed the boat, we've spent several of our weekends at the lake this summer. They have all been fun and well spent family time together. When we go to the lake, we always find a spot on the shore to stop and jump in the lake to swim. This is Zander's favorite part every time we get out on the boat. He loves the water! Mason has learned to enjoy it as well. He loves to splash in his baby float. Sometimes he gets to excited for my liking and tries to flip himself out. Luckily, he has not succeed in that stunt, yet! To make the boat more fun, we've bought a tube and some skis. Jason has skied since he was a teenager, but I, on the other hand, have never even tried. Well, until now. Here is a peek at our adventures at the lake this weekend......

Fun family shot of everyone (minus Taylor, she took the picture) swimming in the lake.

Zander on the shore while Mommy attempts to ski.

Here I am, getting all set to try the skis out, again.

Here goes nothing.

Oh, WOW!! I got it!! (It only took me 3 weeks and a few hundred, well maybe just about 50, tries.)

Look at me!! I was SOO excited & had a blast. I can't wait to go do it again.

Unfortunantly, the boat was injured the past weekend and we have to fix it before going out again. Hopefully we can get it fixed so we can go out for Labor Day weekend.

Improvising

Our city finally got a spary park and we were excited to go try it out! So, we got our suits and sunscreen on and loaded the bags with snacks and towels and headed out the door. We arrived at the park, which is only 5 minutes from the house (yippie for that!), ready for some water fun! I got the boys and all our stuff out of the car and noticed the water was not on and other people were getting back in thier cars. Our brand new spray park was not working and wouldn't be fixed until MAYBE later that afternoon :(


So, we settled for playing in the sun at the playground across the street. I didn't really want to return home after loading up to play outside. We ended up having a pretty good time in the sun, although there was no water to run in.


Of course we had some friends join us. I got this really great shot of all the kids. I'm very happy with it, if you have kids, you know how hard it is to get a good group photo. Don't we have some cute kids!??!



Mason sitting in the shade, having a great time!

The kids found a giant stick, so of course they had to play with it.

Zander on the playground before our friends arrived.

Yummy Dessert Recipe

I was looking for a recipe to use up the extra can of Philsbury Crescent Recipe Creations refrigerated flaky dough sheet. I found this yummy looking recipe on Philsbury's website and the recipe was super easy, so I tried it. It was very delicious, so I thought I'd share the recipe with you. Here is the recipe as it is on their website. I traded the Cashews for Pecans. I'm always trying to use my big stash of pecans. And of course I used the dough sheet and not the crescents.

Crescent Layer Bars
INGREDIENTS
1 can (8 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated crescent dinner rolls or 1 can (8 oz) Pillsbury® Crescent Recipe Creations™ refrigerated flaky dough sheet
1cup white vanilla baking chips
1cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup slivered almonds
1 cup cashew halves and pieces
1can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated)

DIRECTIONS
1.Heat oven to 375°F (350°F for dark pans). Grease bottom and sides of 13x9-inch pan.
2.If using crescent rolls: Unroll dough into 2 long rectangles. If using dough sheet: Unroll dough. Place in pan; press over bottom and 1/2 inch up sides to form crust. Bake 5 minutes.
3.Remove partially baked crust from oven. Sprinkle vanilla chips, chocolate chips, almonds and cashews evenly over crust. Pour condensed milk evenly over top.
4.Return to oven; bake 20 to 25 minutes longer or until golden brown. Cool 10 minutes. Run knife around sides of pan. Cool 1 hour. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until chocolate is set. For bars, cut into 9 rows by 4 rows.

25 of 52

Love you, Mommy!

I edited this one on my Adobe Photoshop. I thought it would be fun to make it look like an old vintage photo that had been manually colored.

So here's the original .....

And here's the edited one...

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Are you the Mom who's always taking pictures and look back only to realize you aren't IN any of them? Do your kids look through photo albums and ask "Where were you Mommy?" Well, Carin over at Forever in Blue Jeans decided to change all that and challenges any one who's interested to do the same. So hand over the camera, or at least figure out the self-timer and get on the other side of the lens more often. Post your photos of you enjoying time with your family every Thursday and share the link with other Mom's by posting it on Carin's blog. You can start any time with week 1 of 52, don't worry about being "behind" just jump on in.

Last Weeks Scrapbook Pages

This is my version of Pencil Lines Sketch 143. I wasn't sure about it at first, but now that I'm looking at it again, I really like it!

I really like how this one turned out as well.. This sketch I copied from a page in my Scapbooks Etc. Magazine. Zander liked it, too.

Outdoor Fun

Just some pictures of Zander & his friend, Diego, playing outside with his sand and water pit.

Pet Butterfly

Last week, we had a butterfly follow us home from Mimi's. It rode along on Mason's car seat right into the house. I don't think it could fly for some reason. Zander was fascinated by it. He went down for a nap and the first thing he asked when he woke up was, "Where's the butterfly?" It stayed in the house overnight and Zander played with it the next morning. He enjoyed watching it and poking and petting it. I told him we needed to let the butterfly go back outside so it could find some food, otherwise he would die. So, he agreed and let him out on the back porch. He was watching to see if it would move and Cassy, our big fat Golden Retriever, came tromping over and smashed it. Poor butterfly dies anyway. I guess I should have just let him live in the house. Oh well, RIP little butterfly.

Splish Splash Fun

More pictures in the water. Last Friday, we went to the splash park to play. Zander didn't want to go, it seems lately he doesn't want to go anywhere. He had a blast when we got there, which I knew he would, and didn't want to leave. Mason, too, had some fun. He loves water and got really excited when he saw it. I let him sit by the water sprayer and he had a good time waving his hands in it and splashing his face. Be sure to click on the picture so you can see the boys faces.

Look at Me GO!

Mason has been taking his time when it comes to moving. But now that he is ready, he is really ready. He is trying to do it all at once, while Mom is sitting here saying, "Slow down, please!!" He has been trying to crawl for about a month and a half. He is finally there. He can scoot on with is arms really well, and is starting to master crawling on his knees. Here's a picture of him scooting/crawling....

Aug 5, 2009

Even though he is moving around, he isn't very good at sitting up. I swear it is taking him the longest time learning to balance enough to stay sitting. But he is doing it now, even though it took him forever. Here is the 1st day he actually sat up on his own.....Aug 11, 2009 (Don't mind the goop on his face) :)


Now I am really not ready for this, but he thinks he is. He is now pulling up on the furniture and walking around it. He is still not very stable and falls over lots of times a day. But, I can't keep him down and I'm sure it won't be long until he is ready to take off. I sure wish he would wait. Oh well, here he goes.........Aug 15, 2009


Can you believe it, all this within 10 days!!??!

24 of 52

On Friday night, before going out with my family for dinner, Mason was being fussy. I put him on my shoulders and he thought that was great. My husband snapped a few pictures of us. I love it! Me and my mini me :)

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Are you the Mom who's always taking pictures and look back only to realize you aren't IN any of them? Do your kids look through photo albums and ask "Where were you Mommy?" Well, Carin over at Forever in Blue Jeans decided to change all that and challenges any one who's interested to do the same. So hand over the camera, or at least figure out the self-timer and get on the other side of the lens more often. Post your photos of you enjoying time with your family every Thursday and share the link with other Mom's by posting it on Carin's blog. You can start any time with week 1 of 52, don't worry about being "behind" just jump on in.

What a Catch!

We went out on the boat this evening to swim, ski, and fish. I was able to get up on the skis for the first time, only for a few yards, but I did it! I was pretty proud of myself.

Zander has been asking to fish for about 2 weeks, so after I skied, we found a spot and got out the fishing gear out. Zander was the only one to get a catch. Daddy really did all the work, but the fish was caught on Zander's Spongebob pole. Zander I think was more into eating his snack than helping Daddy. He did watch him pull it in and looked at it when he pulled it out of the water. It was a pretty big bass.

Zander's 1st Catch

Mason enjoying the boat.

23 fo 52 - Our New Water Park

Friday, I took the boys to check out our new water park. We all had a pretty good time playing in the water. There's nothing better to do outside in this heat!!

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Are you the Mom who's always taking pictures and look back only to realize you aren't IN any of them? Do your kids look through photo albums and ask "Where were you Mommy?" Well, Carin over at Forever in Blue Jeans decided to change all that and challenges any one who's interested to do the same. So hand over the camera, or at least figure out the self-timer and get on the other side of the lens more often. Post your photos of you enjoying time with your family every Thursday and share the link with other Mom's by posting it on Carin's blog. You can start any time with week 1 of 52, don't worry about being "behind" just jump on in.

Where's Mavis?

Zander is totally enthralled with Thomas the train. He loves to get out all his trains and play. I'm not very creative with setting up the track, I usually just do it exactly how it's supposed to be. But, Jason sets is up very different than me. He makes all kinds of twist and turns and makes the track bigger than I do. I'm guessing that's why he likes Daddy to do it :) He always plays a lot longer when Daddy puts the track together.

But, Zander always has one question when he's talking about Thomas the train. "Where's Mavis?" He has learned all the names to the trains from watching the videos. I'm guessing he really likes Mavis, because he tells everyone, "I don't have Mavis." So, I looked for him at Target today, just because I was curious how much he cost. They didn't have him. Amazon did, though, for $30! I couldn't believe it. He has the plastic set so he would need the "Take Along Mavis." For some reason, he was retired in 2005, so he is very expensive now. They have the wooden one for $10, but he wouldn't work very good on Zander's track. We may always be missing Mavis in our set :(

Baby Pages

I've been busy working on Mason's Scrapbook. I've enjoyed putting them together and remembering all the things he was doing at each month. There are lots of scrapbooking resources available now to "steal" ideas from, so it makes it more fun. I've used a lot of ideas from my new subscription to Scrapbooks Etc. that I got for my birthday and I've used some idea's from Pencil Lines website. I've also gotten some inspiration from my friend, Andrea's, work. So, here are Mason's 1st 5 months of pages..