A Fun Afternoon

Last Sunday we spent the afternoon outdoors.  It was a beautiful spring day in Indiana.  We signed the kids up to go to Camp Tecumseh for a week of day camp this summer.  So, the camp puts on an 'open house' for people to come check it out and enjoy a few of the experiences, meet the counselors and see the camp.  We were really impressed and the kids had lots of fun!  I can't wait to hear about everything else they get to do during camp!

Hayden tried the climbing wall.  And loved it!

Mallory did it too, and did well!

See how high she got!?!

Then they enjoyed a ride down the Black Hole.

And didn't mind posing for a photo together at the end of the day!

Confessions of a Loving Wife

The Waffle celebrated his 40th birthday this year.  While I have been teasing him for quite some time about being old, I wanted to be honoring, not mean, for this special occasion.  I decided a long time ago that there would be no "Over the Hill" decorations, no black balloons, and no gag gifts.  You see, I am younger than the Waffle, and I know that what goes around comes around.  I don't know how I will be feeling when I am preparing to hit the big 4-0, so I wanted to go easy on him.

The Saturday before his birthday, we had plans to be in a Euchre tournament with a group of friends from church.  I decided to go ahead and use this opportunity to celebrate with Brett.

Here's the cake:

And here are the candles:

WOW!

Now, for the confession part.  After a very busy weekend, complete with euchre party and cake, we started a very busy week.  Monday came and went.  Tuesday came and went.  Wednesday (the big day) came, and almost went, without me even wishing the Waffle a Happy Birthday!  Can you believe it?  Sometimes our lives are in such a routine, and we have stuff going on ~ Scouts, sports, homework, Bible study, etc. ~ that doing something special mid-week is out of the question.  The REALLY bad part?  I didn't even buy him a card!  Ugh!  Good thing we gave up keeping score in our relationship a long time ago.  Or I would really have some points to be making up for!

Slumber Party = Making Memories

Many years ago, we met some people who became dear friends to us. A saying that we often come back to, after having spent time together, is "Making memories together." Since we met, we've gotten married, changed jobs, moved to a new town, and had children.

Mallory and I recently had the opportunity to "make memories" with them again. A few weeks ago on a Friday noght, we drove to Indy to have a slumber party.

Mallory enjoyed reading to Titus.

And playing with Vanessa.

The girls sat up on the new bunk bed to watch a movie . . .

. . . on the wall!

The next morning we didn't have much time to play, but the girls managed to make the most of what time they had. They planned a wedding ceremony and acted it out for us! Too cute!

I am certainly looking forward to making many, many more memories with these dear friends of ours!

Believe it or not . . .

. . . this is not a posed picture!

Last Sunday afternoon, after a very busy weekend, I asked the kids to catch up on some of their reading. You see, both of them are supposed to read for at least 20 minutes every day. Most days, this isn’t a problem, but sometimes we do fail! And, it never seems to fail that if we miss one day during the week, we often miss more.

So, when we got home from church services, I asked the kids to read for a little bit while I fixed lunch. They ran off to the other room, and I started cooking. After a while, I noticed that it was quiet. Very, very quiet. “So what’s the problem?” you ask. Because if they are reading like I asked them to, it should be quiet, right? Right. Of course. But, as a mother, I still distrust the quiet.

When it’s quiet, most mothers trust their instinct and go check on their children. When I did, I found them both snugged up together, under the covers, reading up in Hayden’s bed. Complete with pj’s.

I love those kids. I really do.

Birthday Fun

A few weeks ago, we were blessed to have spent the day with our dear friends, the Brewers. It was their younger daughter Vanessa’s 4^th birthday, and boy did we have fun! Vanessa’s daddy, like the Waffle, is a construction contractor for a living. He made the most awesome bunk bed for his girls! Check this out! Of course, they have 10 foot ceilings, so this bed is simply massive. It would NEVER fit in our house! But it is beautiful. Brad did a fantastic job.

Vanessa received many gifts. This one was a $5 bill in a card. The expression on her face just kills me. What was even more hilarious is that she had this expression EVERY TIME she opened a gift.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but Mallory is a very crafty and clever little girl. She is also a fan of tissue paper. This is what she decided to do with the leftovers from all of Vanessa’s packages. Do I see a fashion designer in my future?

Here are a few more pictures of the day. What a great time we had. Hope we get to do it again real soon.

Mallory and Emily

Brad and Titus

Vanessa, Hayden, Emily and Mallory

An "Extreme" Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Yesterday, instead of making a big Sunday lunch after church like I normally do, I did not feed my family a smorgasboard of leftovers from the fridge.

I did not do this simply so I could have a quick lunch before begging the Waffle to drag me and my family to a big muddy field in the middle of nowhere over an hour away from our house to watch (from a distance) many, many people, all wearing the same blue t-shirt, volunteer to do lots of work building someone else a new home.

We did not have to wait in line for over an hour and a half inside an airplane hangar just to get on a bus to take us to this muddy field in the middle of nowhere. And if we did wait for an hour and a half in line, I would not have enjoyed every minute of it.


My children also would not have enjoyed this very long wait to get on a bus. They would not have passed the time by playing silly games like thumb wrestling, "Rock, Paper, Scissors," "Mercy," and the hand slapping game called "Hot Hands."

If I had not done all of these things yesterday, we would not have arrived at the Extreme Makeover Home Edition Build Site in Bunker Hill, IN, about 3 hours after we originally left our home. I also would not have been completely amazed to see all of this:

Ty: You are totally AWE-SOME!

Here are the children in the "spectator tent" making a sign for the family.

"Move That Bus!"

Mallory wanted her picture taken by this pink tractor - pink is for Breast Cancer Awareness month

The episode of the home built for the Cowen-Brown family is set to air sometime in January - watch for it! It's sure to be awesome.

Happy Monday everyone!

Next year - double digits

A few weeks ago we celebrated Hayden's 9th birthday. You may recall that on Mallory's birthday, I wrote this very special post about the day she was born. Well, you also may have read the Not Me Monday post where I said I am no longer pressuring myself to live up to the expectations of others. So, I didn't do a "day he was born" post on Hayden's birthday. Come on folks! I've just been TOO busy! And I know that I am also a few weeks late writing the post about his birthday, but at least I'm doing it, right???

We chose to keep it simple, as we did with Mallory's party (which I didn't write about, by the way), and go to the movie theater. He was allowed to invite a limited number of friends - the movies aren't cheap, you know! We went to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which was VERY cute! Highlights from the day included Hangman, air hockey and a very interesting round of "Would you rather?" Hayden received many cash gifts, which he promptly exchanged for his much anticipated Nintendo DSi. It's all the rage these days.

His guests included Julia and her sister Anna (who was really Mallory's guest), Christian, Brendan, Jack and Jacob from his baseball team, his cousin Haleigh and his sister Mallory. One little girl from his class couldn't make it, but it turns out that nine was plenty of children to keep me busy!

Here are a few photos from the day.

Waiting outside for all the guests to arrive.

Gift table and the baseball cupcake cake that Hayden requested.

Playing air hockey is always tons of fun.

Show time!

We really did NOT need another version of Monopoly in our game closet,

but it did make the birthday boy smile!

A River, a fort, and a weekend of fun

In our county, there is an annual festival called Feast of the Hunter's Moon. It's a re-creation of the events that took place in the 1700's at the trading-post-turned-fort called "Ouiatenon" on the Wabash River. The Waffle and I have been to the Feast a few times before, but we have never taken the children. We decided last year (when we couldn't go due to a schedule conflict) that we would definitely go this year, so we bought our tickets ahead of time to save money. Then the rain started. It rained for several days before the weekend of the Feast. I was not looking forward to tromping through the mud and muck, but I knew we already had the tickets, so we had to go. So, we dressed in layers, put on our hiking boots and rode the shuttle bus from the Purdue stadium (we were kind of afraid our car might get stuck in the mud!).

We heard the 42nd Royal Highlanders (yes, they are in kilts)

The kids got to make candles the old fashioned way, which took for - ev - er.

Good thing my feet needed a rest anyway.

The Waffle and Hayden tried their hands (arms?) at throwing hatchets.

And we visited this tent with some very cool (and authentic) looking old games. Hayden REALLY wanted to buy the chess looking game at the bottom of the picture, but it was quite cost prohibitive, to say the least.

It was muddy, as expected, but it was still a wonderful day. The kids ate food cooked over the fire, browsed through an unending supply of vendor tents selling everything from authentic drinking vessels (mugs) to some not-so-authentic Chinese paper umbrellas, and enjoyed the sights, sounds and smells of a time long past.

Storing nuts for Winter . . .

Today was a very busy and productive day at the Kincaid home. We spent several hours splitting and stacking firewood in preparation for the cold winter months ahead. With all the rain and cool temperatures the past couple of weeks, I was getting concerned that we hadn't split the wood yet. The forecast looked a bit cold - and, while I knew this work needed to be done, I wasn't really looking forward to it. As it turned out, it was an absolutely perfect day for working out in the yard - not too cold, not too hot, not too windy, not raining. So, work we did, while listening to Purdue STOMP Ohio State on the radio. (Boiler Up!)

The kids know the routine - everyone helps.

Here are the Waffle and the kids getting started.

Mallory showing her big muscles!

This summer, the Waffle's mom and step-dad had a walnut tree taken down at their house. And, luckily, they called us to do clean up. That left us with LOTS and LOTS of large logs that needed to be split for burning. In the past we have rented a log splitter for the weekend, but not this year. We are the proud new part-owners of our very own log splitter! No more rental fees for us. Yippee!

Fancy, eh?

So, after seven hours of work, lots of hauling back and forth, two meals and a big win, our family is set for the winter (it will probably last into next winter!). There's just something about standing back and looking at those stacks that makes me feel satisfied, prepared, rich - kind of like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter!

Three and a half ricks - we're rich!

A little hard work is good for the soul.

Birthdays x 4

This year the Asaro family tried something a little different. The grandkids' birthdays fall at the beginning of each month, August through November. That's a lot of road time between here and Michigan - which is challenging for all of us. Additionally, the time we 'spend' together is also spent with all the other birthday guests, thus not allowing for much bonding and visiting for just us. So, we planned a birthday celebration for all the kids together!

So, this weekend, the last hooray for the summer, we drove up to Michigan for our Asaro Birthday Celebration. Unfortunately, for all good intentions to arrive at a decent hour on Friday, we got stuck on 65 due to a semi wreck. So, a 3 hour trip turned into almost 5. UGH!

Anyway, after arrival, we relaxed at Gramma and Grampa Asaro's house. The kids slept on cots, which they thought was awesome. Brett and I slept in the spare room on a king size bed. Equally awesome. The next day, the cousins arrived and it was fun for all.

Beautiful Cousins - Mallory and Chloe

(And, yes, they will both be locked up until at least age 25 . . . )

The kids enjoyed getting wet in the swimming pool and slip n slide.

Mallory and Hayden each got new games for their Nintendo DS.

Mallory has hardly put hers down since!

Heading to the playground down the street.

Hayden and Alayna checking the mail for Gramma.

Playing Ladder Ball in the backyard.

Good idea. Good company. Good times.

And we're planning an Asaro Family Camping Adventure for next summer. Stay Tuned . . . .