the obligatory pumpkin pick

to the lee turkey farm!

ohhhh, so sleepy.

gobble, gobble.

if they only knew...

remember 'rock boobies'?

two birthdays, a tooth, and a race

happy third birthday josiah!

i wish i had other pictures to show, but as it turns out siah didn't feel like wearing any pants or underwear during the opening-of-the-presents. and that's something no one needs to see.

i made out like a bandit - he only wanted cupcakes, so off to sugar & sunshine. no baking for me!

happy 6th birthday henry!

superman cake? easy. or so it would seem. after a disastrous outcome with royal icing, i managed to pull it together for a decent cake. henry was going to have a real party with friends and games and a theme but lost it because he can't seem to keep his seatbelt buckled in the car. he's done pretty well since that. i just love that my children don't even respond to threats.

what's a mom to do.

1st baby tooth gone - a huge rite of passage. he pulled it out himself and walked into the room holding it out in front of him, looking a little terrified and probably thinking: this thing just came out of my head. i might die. but quickly got over it when he learned about the tooth fairy.

marks 2nd half-iron man.

which he ROCKED, shaving over an hour off his time from the last race 6 months ago.
he still smiles when he thinks about it.

joe, matt and mark

our three amazing athletes

beeb loooves a good race!

the boys helped me find cool mushrooms in the forest. and when josiahs hair gets long and puffy like this, we call it 'mushroom head'

a tale of two holidays: one that was, and one that was not to be

i'm sure you've all heard the ireland-vacation-debacle of '09, and so let us move on.

jain was here for two weeks, and we packed in as much as we could in one because, obviously, we weren't supposed to be around the second. so here is a week of our summer, jains 1st big trip east, and some firsts for me as well.

let us begin:

how friendly is new jersey already?!

we ate ice cream. lots and lots of ice cream. here we are at gil & berts, a cute little icecream shop in someones home in cranbury. they have the bestest of the best cookie dough ice cream. it's worth a trip here just to try it. promise.


si and dixie sent me these three giant boxes of packing peanuts! ok, so there were a few things in each box, but mostly peanuts. and it mostly made my life a living hell. i'm still finding them in random places around the house. but the boys loved it.

did you know i'm in love with the target clearance rack?

found this little beauty on it the boys had been asking for all summer. for 10 dollars.

regularly 40. kiss kiss. did i mention the sharks teeth are in 3-D?

we went to the butterfly festival, and this was the most interesting thing there.

jain and i went on a little tour of central jersey, starting out in colombus trying to attend the giant flea market/farmers market, but it was an off day and there were about 4 people there. so we packed it up, passed this lovely blow-up-rat,then through scenic trenton and onto lambertville and new hope. here we are on the bridge overlooking the delaware, to the left nj and the right pa. two great little towns. and just down the river a piece is washington crossing. historical!

another day was a trip to ellis island and the statue of liberty, which were both new to me. we didn't get to go inside the statue, but after seeing the line to get in, we decided that was ok.

if only they loved eachother like this all the time.

one afternoon we skipped over to the shore where henry almost got sucked out to sea and then burried alive.

here we are in new brunswick after an amazing ethopian feast, considering our options...

jaunting to princeton, quite the quaint townand it also has the worlds best toy store.

jain had her first water-ice/custard at ritas, and east coast institution.

onto philadelphia

where we saw the liberty bell, and caught jains boyfriend with another woman in the line for independance hall.

grabbed a philly cheesesteak at a vendor for the ride home.

la piece de resistance:

nouveau york

pizza at lombardis - americas first pizzaria

typical new york stuff:

30 rock

helpful hint:

guard your dwight poster with your life, cuz someone will want to steal it on the subway.

summer junk

-here are some random shots of summer in the MC-

as promised, more photos of little beeb. sadly, most of that hair is gone and is NOT coming in blonde as i had hoped. oh well.

henry and si love looking for the pretty mantis...

siah isn't as big of a bug lover/holder as henry, sometimes he screams his really high pitched scream and runs away. and i try not to laugh out loud.

new jersey is the garden state after all, so we think it's our right to tresspass on private property to enjoy fields of sunflowers and try not to get stung by bees.

utarrrrrh

tank wars set up. an intricate process.

messy siah. not enough hot air.

the horror.

the sacrificial cow.

a little squench, a little "yuh puh puh puh puh puh..."

when good cats go bad.

MEOOOOOW!

summer fun at uncle al's

IT'S A WHOPPER!

summer fun at flaming gorge

beeb hearts camping

catching straight-from-the-hatchery lunkers on flies tied to look like dog food.

(seriously)

then to muffins when they got wise.

no. sleep. till brooklyn! yay dramamine

Microsoft XBOX 360 Problems - a tale of poor customer service

This is a post out of pure frastration. Our XBOX 360 is less than two years old and has been "repaired" 3 times. We have seriously spent more than 10 hours on the phone with technical support trying to explain the problem multiple times. The past two times the unit was sent for repairs, and they simply returned it telling us that nothing was wrong.....yet the problem continues. Now we are waiting for them to "call us back" aftern they speak with management. Last time they didn't call us back.

My personal recommendation is to stay away from the XBOX products. I believe in customer loyalty. Amy and I are already talking about buying a Wii.

smiley