Today we did errands. We went to Lowe's to get some outside stuff, then we went to Krogers to pick up some groceries and then to Joey's favorite fruit market! Whew! When we got home and it was noon we put Joey down for a nap beccause today was the day that Joey's daycare/preschool had their graduation ceremonies. It started at 2pm - right around his nap time! Augh!

Though Joey isn't graduating yet (he's not even 2 1/2), their little league school (3 and under) were getting on stage to sing and dance in a performance! We were so excited that we brought the camera AND and video camera.

When we got there they were showing this cute video of all the kids with photos and songs like 'forever young' and other songs about them growing up. It was so touching it brought tears to my eyes. Our babies are growing up!!

Anyhow it came time to get Joey ready for his performance and he was crying, just crying - he wanted daddy. We tried to get him to go with the other kids onto stage and he would have none of it. This really surprised me because he's quite a ham in front of crowds and is very friendly, but he just didn't want to go if daddy wasn't there. We were a bit disappointed, but really - he's 2 1/2!! He gave it an effort and that's what mattered! After they started to perform he said something like he wanted to go up there but it was too late. Dena (the daycare owner) said he should be ready for the Christmas performance so I guess we'll have to wait until then.

We actually stayed there from 2 - 5:30 or so. They had this little train you could ride on, and a moon bounce. Joey actually got in the moon bounce but the other kids were bouncing him around so much he wanted right out. Poor kid :(

Sorry for the overexposure on some of these photos - I forgot to turn my digital camera back down from 800 iso to 400 iso!

Anyhow we had a great time seeing all of the parents, the kids and having fun. Joey loved riding on the train. The kids also got blow up beach balls that Joey loved playing with. I got so many comments on how big Joey is. He is really quite taller than most of the other kids his age and older.

When we got home we did a bunch of yard work. We pulled up some tulips to transplant and Joey helped with the shovell and loved helping us! We got our garden ready and the boys were looking for worms. Joey is obsessed with worms now and thinks they are cool. He's such a boy! Joe was keeping them so we can take them to my parents house so he can go fishing tomorow! We moved some shrubs that were too close to our rock border, edged out in front of our rock border by taking out grass, and then put new mulch down.

Joey learned how to use the hose and how to turn it on and off and had a blast. He was watering everything. At the end he kept watering everything he didn't need to be, like the driveway, the lawn bags, so we finally took away the water. He wasn't too happy about that but we warned him to stop goofing around!

He was not only drenched but dirty so he got a bath as soon as we got into the house. When we were downstairs later it was raining and sunny so Joey and I went outside to see the rainbow! He loves rainbows!! What a great way to end the evening!

I got this blog challenge from scrapjazz.com

7 DEADLY SINS

PRIDE – Which of your attributes or talents are you most proud of?
The fact that I graduated from college, have a great job and a wonderful family.

ENVY – What brings out the green-eyed monster of jealousy in you?
Women who are skinnier than me and eat what they want!

SLOTH – What’s your idea of relaxation?
SLEEP!!!

LUST – Who do you lust after?
Honestly, my husband !!
For celebrities, Ben McKenzie (Ryan from The OC) he's HOT!!! Drool.... These are photos of him.

GREED – What was your last budget blow out on?
Probably my IPOD.

ANGER – What gets your blood boiling?
Tantrums. People that don't try at their job.

GLUTTONY – What’s your favourite food?
Pierogies (polish food!)

Scrapaddict.com had a challenge where you need to list 3 obscure facts about yourself that maybe others wouldn't know. Here are mine!

1. I was a black belt sensei (instructor) when I was in high school until college.

2. I've had ear problems with my right ear all my life, including 4 sets of tubes - one that was out about 6 months ago, and 2 surgeries!

3. I love listening to the music on our weather channel called weatherscan - no commercials, just weather. It's the same 5 elevator songs over and over and I can listen to it all day. I used to rock Joey to it when he was small and when he's upset, I put it on!

First off I just did three blog entries - see below for Saturday and Sunday's blog update!

We're very fortunate we had the whole three day weekend off! Today was our last day up north with grandma. It was my day to sleep in so I slept in until about 9:30, which was nice. We both stayed up until about midnight the night before watching 40 year old virgin. Very very funny movie. I also was scrapbooking but wasn't really in the mood to get a lot done.

Joey took an early nap today - dozing off at noon, before we even sat down to eat a turkey dinner/lunch. Joe's mom made a turkey and stuffing, and grandma made mashed potatoes and gravy - YUM! It was awesome. When we were done eating and doing dishes, everyone went off to take a nap. Joe dozed on the chair, Joe's mom went home to take a nap, grandma went to her room to take a nap and Joey was already sleeping. I (for once!) wasn't tired and finished up all my scrapbooking projects! I pounded out three layouts and 2 cards!

Once Joey woke up we decided to go back to Grandma Char's house to go back to the lake. By then the thermometer read 95.7 degrees! EEK!! Were we crazy?? This time Joe went with Joey and I and grandma stayed back. She said it was too hot out for her. On our way out there, Joey reminded us to watch out for the snake. It's amazing what he remembers!!

Joe and Joey swam in the lake. This time we put a life jacket on Joey since we took him out on the floating lounge chair. He loved the floating chair. We had him try floating in his life jacket but he really didn't like it that much. The dog was back swimming after her ball. When they were done swimming they came up to shore to throw rocks. Joe was skipping rocks and I couldn't believe when it went skipping about 9 times across the lake. I guess he's had a lot of practice living here for years growing up!

Grandma Char brought Joey out a 'picnic' lunch of a banquet frozen chicken fingers dinner and he was happy. He hadn't eaten in hours.

For the rest of the day we just relaxed INSIDE out of the sweltering 95 degree humid weather and then started to get ready to go home. We were sad to leave all this fun behind! :(

Once we got home, we got inside and KNEW it was going to be HOT. We never turned on the A/C and didn't know it was going to be in the 90s! We got upstairs and it was 93 degrees upstaris! OIY~~~ HOT! At least our lower level was in the 70s so the cats were dying in the house. We immediately opened the windows, put on the attic fan to pull in some outside 79 degree air and turned on the a/c. It's about 88 degrees now. It seems to keep cooling off downstairs, but not really upstairs where all of our rooms are! I hate that! In the summer it's blazing hot upstairs in the house and cool downstairs. In the winter it's really warm upstairs and cold downstairs. We let Joey go to bed late because we couldn't put him in bed with it being so hot upstairs. Tomorrow I have the day off so hopefully he will sleep in for me!

Sunday we woke up and got the cleaning bug. The room grandpa used to sleep in needed to be cleaned out. We were going to make it into Joey's room for when we visit up north. I think we must have cleaned out that room for THREE hours - no joke. A LOT of it was Joe's stuff from when he was a kid - baseball cards and junk. I think we threw out 5 huge garbage bags of stuff. The final result was a bed that Joey now can call his own and a room where we can stash all his toys - no more stashing it in the living room in the corner! I can't believe the different in the room! It looks so nice and open now! Before it was almost hard to walk into! WOW!

After we cleaned we had lunch around 11:30. We all ate steak and corn. We offered Joey corn but he wanted us to cut it up. Once we had the cobs half eaten he got brave and wanted to try it himself. He LOVED the corn. He ate every last piece off the cob we gave him. We ar going to have to make this at home for him more often - he LOVED it!!

After Joey's nap, we went to Joe's father's side of the family to see them for a Memorial Day party. It was soooo hot outside - 90s and oh boy was it hot. We slathered on sunscreen trying to keep from getting sunburnt. We had Joey wear a hat so his head didn't get burnt. The poor kid got sunblock in his eyes and I think his eyes burnt for about 5 minutes as we tried to have him wash and wipe his eyes with water. Lesson learned - don't put sunblock on his hands - he just uses them to rub his eyes!

Joey ate a lot of popsicles to keep cool. We had to take him in the house a few times to cool down. I didn't know until a lot later that they had just eaten lunch at 2pm (we came around 3) and poor Joey hadn't eaten lunch yet so he was really hungry. They didn't eat dinner until 7:30 so we tried to keep him munching on chips and whatever they had available. Had I known they just ate lunch I would have fed Joey before we left. Oh well, lesson learned - make sure the kid eats before going to a family party because you just don't kn0w the food schedule!

It was nice to visit with family. We took a few rides on the golf cart around Grandpa's fields. Joey enjoyed seeing the chickens and ginea hens (and boy were they loud)! We stayed over there until after dinner. After Joey ate he wanted to go running full speed across their yard. Joe and Joey were running together. I wasn't even going to attempt to run after them. Joey tends to do this right before he goes to bed - he will run full force and then conk out. We figured he was winding down for the evening.

On the way home we were coming up Grandma's driveway and there was this HUGE snake - and I'm talking about 4 feet long crossing the road. I haven't seen a snake like this before so Joe wanted to get out and take a few photos. This thing, when Joe moved to the side, it snaped it's head around to follow Joe. I was nervous it was going to strike out at Joe because it was SOOOO huge! Joe got back in the car unhurt but was also a little nervous. He was a few feet away from this thing but it was so big! We got back home and I found it to be a harmless Eastern Milk Snake. It was pretty much full size and eats other reptiles, rats and mice. It's not poisonous but will strike if it feels threatened! Joey saw the snake too. He kept saying 'HSSSSS'. We told him not to ever touch a snake because they bite. He kept saying 'Snake bite'. It was so cute!

Saturday was a lazy day for us. Joe and I took turns taking naps and sleeping in. At one point Joe was pretty much passed out on the couch, I had just woken from a nap so Great Grandma and I took Joey over to Joe's mom's house which is right down the street (Grandma Char is what Joey calls her) so we could go play on her playground that she has built for Joey and go see the lake.

When we got to Grandma Char's we went straight to the lake. Joey went on the dock and amazingly right into the water. Last year he was deathly terrified of the water and wouldn't even really touch it. This time he walks right in up to his knees. We couldn't believe it!

He passed the time picking up LARGE rocks and taking them to the dock and throwing them off the other side. He also liked to take smaller rocks and throw it into the water. I think we were outside for a hour or so. He loved every bit of it. Every time he went to pick up a huge rock he kept exclaiming 'Oh my GOODNESS'. It was so cute. Grandma even was amused by it. Hazel B the dog loved going into the water and playing with Joey and chasing her purple ball. We were all cooling down - it was in the 80's and warm!

When we got back we woke up Joe and I told him Joey went in the lake. He couldn't believe it either since he did not like the water last year. We had a great time going in the lake. He had so much fun.