Some days are just pretty good

Today was pretty good. We finally got our economic stimulus payment today! (it was supposed to come on saturday)... then at the grocery store we won the weekly drawing for $50 in groceries! AND I have both kiddos sleeping at the same time! So what do I do with all that free time?? Blog. And think about folding laundry...

Maria's last softball game was last week :( It was over too fast... but she had lots of fun! And she makes a really awesome 3rd baseman!

Beatrice will miss picking grass at Maria's games... If you take grass out of her hands enough times before she makes it to her mouth... she will just lean over for a bite! Duncan will miss running around like a crazy monkey during Maria's games...
We caught him in a still contemplative pose here... and thought for sure he was attending to some serious business ;)

See the similarities?

Here everyone is waiting anxiously for the summer ritual of after dinner ice cream!

Here is baby Beatrice modeling the shorts I crocheted for her! :) Happy belated 4th of July!!

To see more of pics of the shorts, hop on over to my crochet blog here

The Crazies :)

Anyway, here is what the crazy kids were up to this morning! :)

Some days Duncan actually still takes a nap :)
Beatrice is cutting her top two teeth! I gave her a frozen waffle to chew on and she completely demolished it! Ate the whole thing up! :) She's an eater!
We got a picture of all the kids with Great Grandpa Perryman :) Of course in this first one Duncan is looking away...
And Great Grandpa Perryman closed his eyes on the second one...
Beatrice pretending to be shy with Grandma Campbell :)

And here I had a flash-forward to 16 years from now! :)

Ice Cream and Pickles!

Since our trip to Iowa's Best Burger Cafe (check out Mike's post about it here), everyone has been enjoying the summer past time of ice cream here!! Baby Beatrice will not be left out of that fun either!

Along with the ice cream, she will scream her butt off for pickles! She loves them!!

From baseball to baskets...

Another catch-up in pictures :)

I got some better pictures of Maria playing softball last week. My camera batteries held out this time :) Here she is up to bat.

She had to duck for this one

She played 3rd base for the game last Tuesday and made 2 outs in a row! And both times up to bat she got good hits! :)


Beatrice looks like she's ready to play some ball too! :)
Is that a goofy smile or what?? ;)
Now just what do you do with a bookshelf after you've emptied out all the books?
Getchie getchie goo ;)
Here, I'll give you a little push

Remember the oh-so popular clothes basket rides? Duncan would ride all day. Looks like he still would in this clothes-basket built for 2! :)

Or this milk crate will do too

Iowa's Best Burger?

I know, I know, I've been keeping you all in suspense about our trip last Saturday to taste Iowa's best burger :) It's been a busy week!

Here is what I typed up on our way home from the trip: We took the trip to Iowa's Best Burger Cafe today. Well, maybe we hyped it up too much or were looking forward to it too much, but it was a little bit of a disappointment. It wasn't bad, but it definitely was not the best burger in Iowa. The food was really fast and cheap. The food came within about 10 minutes of ordering.

Of course as soon as we sat down and started looking at the menu, Duncan decided to poop. He stood up in the booth, got all serious and watery-eyed ;) Right after we ordered I went to the car and changed the stinky boy and the food was there when we got back. Almost as fast as McD's. And it cost our family of 4 food eaters $25, and that included ice cream cones. That's about what we pay at McD's without any dessert.

The experience was a tad on the sucky side. They had a bunch of those cheap fast food booths crammed in with very little space to walk. They did have a booster seat for Duncan, but no high chair for Beatrice. Just try eating anything with a squirmy, grabby 9 1/2 month old :) it was a challenge. I think she grabbed my food about 5 times and about pulled it off the table a time or two.

The funnest thing was trying to eat my ice cream cone before it melted all over! The second we stepped outside they all started melting! Maria and Mike got in the air conditioned car quickly, but I wasn't quite fast enough :) my cone was dripping all over the place, and as it was chocolate, I decided just to stay out of the car. Some guy was walking in with his kids and said "I guess it's a day to get it in a bowl."

All in all it was a nice drive. It was so hot and humid, to which our little window air conditioner does little to alleviate... it was good to get out and do something adventurous.

All about Maria ;)

Maria was in the local paper this week! :) How many more times do you think she'll be in a newspaper ;) I think she was in the paper at least 3 times in Wisconsin. She certainly has a knack for it :)

She also had her first softball game last night. They were supposed to have a practice on Tuesday, but the field was too wet, so they met for practice an hour before the game. It was certainly not a bad game for only having 1 hour of practice! It's not a competitve league, so they don't actually keep score. Maria did a great job! She played right field for two innings and then was catching for the next inning. They rotate positions, and she will be pitching at the next game. She struck out her first time at bat, but the second time?? She hit a double!! It was a good solid hit right between the third baseman and short stop. The pictures I got weren't the greatest - they were taken with my cell phone because my camera batteries ran out after taking 2 pictures of her doing some warm-up exercises...

Anyway, so our big plans for the weekend?
We were watching a show on the Travel channel called Hamburger Paradise, about the best hamburgers in America. Of course none of the places were anywhere close, but Mike was trying to find out about a place in Illinois we saw on a segment on Sunday Morning that had great burgers and he happened upon Iowa's Best Burger Cafe. It's in Kellog, IA, which is about an hour or so away from us. So we are off to have a taste of Iowa's Best Burger!! They also have some yummy looking ice cream on the menu ;) I will definately be posting pictures of our trip :)

Bike Riding Like a Pro

Emma learned how to ride her bike this past weekend in less than 30mins! With a little help from Maria. They both had a great time over the weekend riding around and around ;) It was hard to get them off their bikes.


Duncan and Dad got in on the fun too! Duncan really enjoyed it! Both him and Beatrice went for a ride in the caboose on Saturday. I was worried about Duncan pestering Beatrice, but she ended up pestering him by pulling his hair.
It was actually (finally!) a nice weekend to be engaged in outside activities. We've had so much rain and colder weather lately.

We've had so much rain that there's been lots of flooding. We went through a road that was just about washed out on the way to meet Carol Anne to drop Emma off on Sunday. And just had to throw in a pic of Beatrice sleeping on the way :)

The 3 1/2 inches of rain we got last Thursday turned into major flooding down the street again. A news van came, as well as just about everyone else in town to gawk :) We are so lucky our house is up the hill from here! This is the 4th time it's flooded!