Peanut Butter

This evening Reuben and I must have shelled about 100 peanuts to make our own peanut butter. Last week I bought a giant bag of peanuts from Costco for the baseball game. So after not making a dent in the bag after gourging myself on peanuts at the game; I figured peanut butter was the way to go. Made it through maybe a quarter of the bag now :-)
The peanut butter came out great. I think Reuben was surprised when we finished. First he goes, "Wow, it really looks like peanut butter." Then, it was "It tastes good; like peanut butter." He is excited for a peanut butter sandwich tomorrow.
 

Swimming Weekend

Kids had fun at our neighbor's pool yesterday. Reuben and Jacob started jumping off the diving board. Here is are a couple of shots of Reuben.


Today I brought the kids to our community pool. And i was amazed to see for myself that Faith is now swimming. She's even putting her whole head under water. We had a good time. Hot and humid day... perfect for the pool.

Take me out to the ballgame

Barbara and Fred got me tickets the Nats vs. Cubs game for last night. Beautiful night, wonderful stadium, same crappy Nats!  
 
 
 

Lazy Sunday

Started the morning with me taking the kids for breakfast at McDonalds and let Mommy catch some extra zzz's. We had a very nice time out. Then Karen, Reuben, and Faith rode their bikes to the park; Jacob walked. He's still getting the hang of his new bike. While they were at park I hacked away at my overgrown backyard. Made a bit of progress.
Then it was lunch, rest time, and then the pool!!! Lots of fun there.
We topped the day off with pizza for the kids, a veggie calzone for me, and baked ziti for Karen. A very fine Sunday.

What's a little drizzle

The kids really enjoyed baseball camp a couple of weeks ago, so today we decided to go see the Potomac Nationals (Single A ball). Even though it drizzled on and off for most of the game, it was a lot of fun. We got see the Nats pull off a successful squeeze play and by the 5 inning Jacob was calling balls and strikes (by reading the scoreboard).

Oh and before the game Uncle Slam (Nats' mascot) and Slapshot (Caps' mascot) were out signing autographs. Kids were scared of both of them, but Slapshot got them to loosen up acting cool, but funny. He addressed his autograph for Reuben to "My favorite sandwich." :-)

Happy Independence Day

First a hearty breakfast at home, then off to the Fairfax parade.

We got a good spot about 30 minutes before the parade started. Enough time for a game of Uno. After the first game, Karen and Faith went to use the bathroom. The boys realizing their opportunity rigged the deck splitting all the good cards and leaving Mommy with duds. Didn't take long for her to catch on :-)

I let the kids use my old camera. Came home to 161 pictures, just about all cockeyed! And lots of Fire trucks.


I guess the cardboard cut outs were better than nothing...

Hard Times really knows how to sell to Chili. I mean what a nice truck!


Can you see Faith's reflection taking the picture?



Then the kids and I hit the pool for a bit in the afternoon, while Mommy picked up the boys new bikes. They'll get their test rides tomorrow. And finally the grand finale was our own fireworks show.

Faith's Got A New Bike

Faith is finally graduating from her itsy bitsy bike. Now she's got a 16 incher with an attached 4 incher for Barbie :-)



What she doesn't know is that I'm going to start raising her training wheels little by little to hopefully wean her off them by the time she graduates High School.