It's been the best of times and the worst of times.

My boys are boys.
Lately they have been very boyish.
And by boyish I mean mischievous.
I don't know if it's because they are getting stir crazy after being inside for the long Summer or what, but lately they have been more wild then normal, not listening as well & just making all kinds of trouble.
I hope it's not just me. 

Saturday morning we had the most AMAZING weather. It was like 84 degrees out. Preston pretty much thought it was Christmas when I told him that our morning routine that day wouldn't be : get dressed, eat breakfast, chores, play but would be: get dressed, eat breakfast, go to the park, come home.

It was fantastic.
I have a feeling we will be making a lot of park trips once its normal outside.
Later that day we went to Jamba Juice to use up some Groupons we had.
It was a day of mostly good times.

And then this happened.
I was not off watchign TV or lounging  or neglecting them, I was taping off Lucas's room so I could paint it and they unrolled the rest of the roll of masking tape and then streamers.
If you look hard at the picture you can see Preston in the background putting something in his pockets. He and Jaxton found my jar of change and filled their pockets with pennies. Those pennies have been found all over the house since then.  

Lucas is currently getting 3 teeth in (1 top tooth, the other has already broken the surface & 2 more bottom teeth). He's been delightful. 

And then came Sunday night. I was in Tucson all night with a friend who's husband was receiving a heart transplant (SO AWESOME!!!) and I got a text from Patrick saying the boys had found a marker after he put them to bed and had drawn all over themselves. They were asleep when he saw it so he didn't get to see that they also drew all over the wall, top of the dresser, on the cup, on the prayer rock, and on the closet.
When I got home and asked Preston about it he said that they had snuck into my room and found a marker and drew all over themselves. They learned the meaning of the word "grounded" that day & of course had to clean up their mess.
This is just not normal Preston behavior. Jaxton, yes, but Preston is usually more level headed about this stuff. I don't think it will happen again though.
And not just because I'm locking up all the markers in the house. 

But lucky for them we still love them and like them and we ended that experience by going back to the park to feed the ducks.
And the mosquito.
Seriously Summer, lets break up. I've got a thing for Fall. 

Next time on the blog...
Lucas's new room!
Hopefully.

This week in Pictures.

Not too much is happening around these parts lately. We are in a good routine with school days, play days, church day and such. Which, as a family who thrives on routine we are happy with. But some things happened this week that I thought worthy enough to photograph which means I can share them.

We got 2 windows replaced! The 1st window broke when Patrick was mowing the lawn and a rock shot out and hit the window. Looked just like a bullet had hit it until it started getting hot and then in spread like crazy. The other window was broken about 14 years ago when Jimmy accidentally hit a baseball into it. The story makes for a great one to use as an attention getter in a talk or essay but still needed to be replaced.

Work on Lucas's "Adventure" themed room is underway. As soon as I get the walls cleaned, and one wall painted we can start assembling it all. But I have a good feeling about it all! And it's been really fun to collect all kinds of fun stuff from different thrift stores. 

Speaking of Lucas, he's doing great.
Messy, but great.
This is a typical high chair after he's eaten a meal. 

Jaxton was a huge 2 year old this week. I came home from the gym to find the inside of the house had been toilet papered. When I asked him about it he said he was making a race track for a race car which is cute, but incredibly wasteful. The upstairs looked worse then this, TP in and out of every room and a basket of clean clothes thrown all over my room. 

We had a steak night and Lucas went all Caveman on us chewing on the steak bone. He LOVED it. 

Jaxton built a long train out of blocks and then told me he was so big too. He is pretty big.

Preston is learning about zoo animals this month in school & he had an assignment to create his favorite zoo animal to bring in and show everyone. He picked monkeys. And if you are wondering what those yellow lines are, those are a "trail of bananas the monkeys are following that got cut in half with a sword." I love the way it turned out. Sometimes it's hard for me to let him do what he wants because I want it to turn out perfect, or at least my version of perfect, but when I let him have control I end up loving the results more then I would if I had done it myself. 

We started the countdown to Lucas's 1st birthday! It also is a countdown to my mini Triathlon & Jimmy's next visit. They are all happening on the same week, so that will be a busy/exciting week for us!! Can't believe my baby is almost 1... 

My Grandpa's dog had puppies and we went over to visit. Preston hasn't stopped talking about the puppies since then. They were super cute. We are planning on going to see them again sometime this week & this time we'll bring Patrick with us so that he falls in love with them too. 

And since it's now September we've started the "I can't wait for it to cool off so we can ____" talks. We have survived another hot summer. Any day now we expect it to cool off so we can go on walks, go to the park, live outside or at least not sweat as much. Till next Summer that is.