New Haircut

Well Mr. Joel, a few weeks before starting kindergarden, decided to take some serious length off several sections of this lovely auburn hair while I was upstairs giving Grant a bath... the bathroom was covered in hair when I found it, and I could see the back of Joel's head from a distance and I braced myself as I asked him to turn around so I could see the damage. He cut the front section and a couple other sections in the back to about a quarter of an inch long, because "it was bothering him". It was so short in those spots that we didn't even get it all cut that short when we went the next day to get it fixed. All in all, it turned out ok, and he actually likes sporting the shorter do. I actually like it too, although another half inch or so and it will be looking much better. yeesh!

Superhero Camp

The boys got to spend a few mornings at "Superhero Camp" this summer. These are a few pictures of the pictures the instructor sent home with them. Dressing up as a superhero was optional and you can see from the picture that Grant was the only one that chose to dress up for any of the days. He was a different superhero each day... spiderman, captain america, and iron man. When I picked them up from the first day of camp, he told me that he "hopes other kids dress up like superheros tomorrow". I told him I wasn't sure and thought maybe he would choose not to the next day, but my TRUE, to the bone superhero fan didn't disappoint and chose a new costume everyday.

Buffalo Weekend

A couple weeks ago now, we had a quiet weekend in Buffalo. Friday morning, we all hopped in the car to meet Mitch's aunt in Woodbury and get in off to WI Dells with aunt and cousins. After that, we hit the Bell Museum (a natural history museum on the UofM campus). I was glad we stopped, the place was packed with showcases of every MN animal species you could ever imagine and also had a couple of more interactive rooms where the kids could touch snakes, beetles, etc.

Saturday night we had a campfire. The boys favorite thing to do is hold a big stick in the fire and get it to smoke (such boys).

Check out Grant, yes, I purposely took this picture to show just how ridiculous his face sometimes looks at the end of the day. His nose it constantly running and if he wipes it enough times with dirty hands and then eats a sticky popsicle ,this is what he ends up looking like. As far as the smile... never ask Grant to smile for a picture. This "stroke-like" appearance is what you get. I have no idea...

Sparklers!

Trying to start the tree on fire with the sparklers, before we told them they shouldn't do that.

The weather was SOOOO beautiful, we decided to take a quick ride to Lake Mariah State Park in Monticello and check out a few of the trails. They have 2 half mile nature trails that the boys just loved, and there were hardly any bugs! (photos taken by Intstagram)

Monkey Bar Success!

It's just a few monkey bars, but it is pretty cool because today was the first time Joel was able to do them at all! He was pretty proud (and so was mom:)...

Superheros

Since my new phone has video, I thought it would be a good time to get a little better about taking some little video clips here and there. I have tens of thousands of pictures, but video has always been a little more frustrating for me. For instance, with out video camera we bought just before the little guys were born, it could only be downloaded to the computer with a powerful connection cable they call firewire. Well, since our computer didn't even have a port for this in the back, I had to open up my computer and install it. Once I did that, burning the video to DVD was near impossible and almost resulted in my computer being tossed out the window of our loft a few years ago. Then, shortly after that, the firewire port stopped working, and I just haven't had the capability or time since to figure out the darn thing. The phone video is certainly not the best quality but it is better than nothing! I do have some videos on the computer from when the boys were quite a bit younger, but my obsession with photography for the last couple of years has definitely slowed down the video production around here. Here is a quick clip of the boys playing superheros from the other day. I never want to forget their voices or how much fun they have (when they are playing nice together).

Keeping Busy

I often find myself hunting/thinking/looking for something to keep Joel busy. Grant can keep himself busy with toys for hours, but Joel needs a little more direction and likes to keep busier. This last week, we used fingerpaints on the sidewalk to kill at least one hour anyway:)

With my dad's surgery this spring, it seems that we have been out in Nana and Papa's boat a little less, but the boys have been out a few times without me, so they have certainly still been getting chances to enjoy it. They have become quite the waterbabies this summer.