My Favorite Month

I love July. Who doesn't? There is sun, swimming, picnics, & fireworks. Not to mention homemade ice cream, snow cones, and of course watermelon.

One reason I love July so much is my own selfish, personal reason...

Here is what my calendar looks like every May & June:

And then this is how July looks:

Ahhhh, doesn't that just look heavenly? Not much of anything that we have to do. We can mostly just do what we want, when we want.

Another fun thing about this month is that Layne always takes vacation. Honda shuts down for the week of the 4th of July and Layne usually adds on some of his vacation too to make it a nice long break. But this year he is taking a week here and a week there all summer long. It has been fun so far, but I do have to say, when he is home from work it gets expensive. I swear he is at Lowe's everyday. Today the boys came home from Lowe's and pulled the truck out into the backyard. When I went to see what was going on this is what I found...

...a new fire pit. For 13 years we have had a fire pit that was just big rocks found on our property and a shallow hole. We've had many good cook outs with friends and family out there. Now we have a very pretty block fire pit. Good job Layne & boys!









And one more thing I love about July is celebrating our country, The United States of America. I am so grateful to all the men and women that have and currently are keeping us safe and providing us with the freedoms that we hold so dear. We have friends and family that are currently in Iraq and we couldn't be more proud of them and all those that work with them. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!


Have a wonderful 4th of July everyone!

Please Come Again

(just a pic of some of mom's favorite flowers)

We had such a fun time with Grandma Lucy & Grandpa Jay. It seems like we spent a good amount of time in the van, but I guess that was because we had fun places to get to. They came to see the boys play ball. Their timing was perfect. It is the end of the season tournaments for both boys! So they got to see them play several times. The only problem was that they had to leave before the tournaments ended and dad was bummed he couldn't finish it out with them. We'll keep them updated.

If we weren't at the ball park we were at home playing ball. Morning till night for our boys.

Even Grandma got in on the action.

Here we are playing mini golf. I'm pretty sure we didn't break any records, but we had a good time.

The time went by too quickly, but I think we got most of what we like to do done. Dad got to go antiquing and mom and Josie got to go to the mall shopping. We got to stay up late, sleep in, eat lots of candy & pop, and visit. Can't wait to do it all over again next time.

We love you both!!

Chicken Alfredo Recipe .... this is your copy Geri & Jason

8 oz cream cheese

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 t. garlic salt

1/4-1/2 cup milk (thin to desired consistency)

Heat ingredients in a small sauce pan till hot & bubbly. Pour over pasta, chicken, & vegetables.

For everyone that is wondering why I am posting this recipe......

#1 - Audrey called tonight and asked why I haven't posted in a while.

#2 - I saw this pic and wanted some.

#3 - Geri & Jason have called me for the recipe 5 times in the past six months and I decided to help save time and cell minutes.

We Got Him!

Around 11:30 Layne and I heard what sounded like something in the garage. When I closed the garage door, before I went to bed, I locked in a momma raccoon and four babies. Todd and Mitch were still up (they napped too long after church) and came in and asked what was on the front porch. We didn't realize that anything was going on out there so after we got everyone out of the garage we went and looked. Here is what we found. We have been trying to catch these little rascals for a month now. So, Layne and I headed out for a drive at 11:30 p.m. and dumped out the raccoon, who peed his pants in the back of the truck.

We got home at midnight and went to bed. At 1:00 a.m. Todd woke us up and said that he heard something on the front porch. So Layne got up and low and behold, raccoon #2. I want to point out that for a month we have tried our hardest to catch these raccoons that have been driving us crazy and instead, the only thing we've caught has been two (2) cats. Now, in the space of two hours we've caught two of the raccoons. At this point we were too tired to care so we left him there till morning and Layne took him to work in the back of the truck and dumped him out somewhere.

Last night I got home from Wal-Mart at 10:30 p.m. and when I pulled in what did I see on the porch? You guessed it, another dang raccoon! I couldn't tell if it was the momma that we still haven't caught, but it was too big to be one of the babies. The trap wasn't set last night so they got to roam around without worry.

Here is something funnier than raccoons.

I went out to check on Justin. When I opened the door I saw this.....

Here is the view from the other side....


He is the type to go and go and go and then crash wherever he is. I guess taking one more step to get into the cool house was just too much for the little guy.

Weekend Whereabouts

Well, since I posted last, Layne has been home again, gone again, and home again. We decided to make this past weekend nothing but family time.

Here are some highlights.

Todd's game.....

Todd's baseball team is doing great. They've only lost one game, by one. He plays second & short mostly, but now and then he'll get put in as pitcher. He might not be the fastest pitch on the team, but his accuracy is almost always on target.

He had to try out for the team this year. He was nervous, but he made it. I like that he is one of the younger players on this team. It makes him practice hard and learn new things. (#4)

Mitch's game.....

Mitch has had a good year in baseball too. He is at a level (coach pitch) that is more fun than competitive. He has out grown some of the tendencies that he had in T-ball. Like sliding into EVERY base, EVERY time because he liked to see the dirt fly and hear his mom yell at him. He is a good first baseman and is making some good tags and catches.

Sorry Judd, no game.....

Then there is Judd. He is only three and can't be on a team yet. He is a die hard fan though. As a matter of fact, his first words were, "Hey, batter, batter, batter". No kidding. He is as good hitting off the tee as he is off of any of us that will take the time to throw to him. Maybe we'll be able to sneak him on a team next year.

That brings us to Saturday. It is the only day on our calendar for the month of May that didn't have anything written on it! It felt like heaven. Layne got home Friday night so Saturday afternoon we loaded up the bikes and headed for the bike trails. We have access to some awesome biking trails here. We went 9 miles and decided that we needed to get home for dinner. Okay, Layne and I decided that we were ready to go home for dinner. The kids could go clear down to KY if we would let them.

So there you have it. Last month was hard to blog. Too many things going on for a 'part-time single mom'. But the craziest month of the year is over (Yahoo!), Layne is home for a while (Yahoo!), and now Judd has what he calls "his friends" home from school for the next couple months (Yahoo!).

I took this picture eariler this spring, but I always get a laugh when I look at it. Looks like one of those Cingualr commercials, doesn't it? Even though it looks like I have a 'full signal' I usually have to say things over and over before even one of them hears me. (a guy thing?)

Clean Up Everyone!

He's coming home! I tend to go into 'vacation mode' when Layne leaves for two or more weeks. He and his biker buddies got some tests done early, so they will get home sooner than we thought. Don't get me wrong, we are pumped that he'll get to be home a couple more days than we thought, before he has to take off again next week, but it sure gets my heart pumping knowing that I need to get my cleaning crew together and bring back our Home Sweet Home.

Thankfully our kids ended up with Layne's cleaning gene and can out clean any crew from Merry Maids. One thing I have noticed is that the house doesn't get as cluttered as it did when they were smaller. Probably because we aren't home as much as we used to be. So the dusting, vacuuming, sweeping, and bathroom scrubbing gets done pretty quick with all of us helping.

We missed our dad. The kids missed playing ball and working with him in the yard. I missed another person with a drivers license. Okay, I missed him for more than that. I hate hauling the garbage up to the road on Wednesday mornings. I know some of you missed him too because if you called me you ended up having an eternal phone call while I tried to talk to you about anything and everything, just so I could talk to an adult.

Here is something that I thought was just too cute. Thanks Dad for being so cool. And thanks Marcee for snapping a pic and sending it to us. Layne said his buddies thought that was really fun.