Matching Shirts

While in NH we made matching shirts with the Kelley family. Here is a short tutorial on how we made them. My friend Liz got the idea from Family Fun magazine, and she supplied everything to make them (what a great friend)! Please just click on the photo to blow it up if you can't read the words.

Here is the crew after we made them.Sam and Ethan Jess and James


Nelson and Mollie


Carrie, Sarah and Emmy.

Back to School!

It's that time of year again... the girls went back back to school yesterday. They were excited (Sarah admitted to being a little nervous) especially to wear their new school clothes. Here are all three girls ready to go... Sammy our 2nd grader
Sarah our Kindergartner

Jessica our 4th grader

They all seem to have great teachers, it looks like this is going to be a really good year!

Can you say GROSS!!

We planted tomatoes this year and the plants are doing great! They are covered with hundreds of green tomatoes just ready to ripen. Unfortunately we notice that something was eating them, and the plants. After some research we set out to find the tomato horn worm that we suspected was eating our yummy food. Deric and I spent a long time searching and this is what we found. These very yucky worms that were devouring our plants. Needless to say they didn't last much longer than to have their picture taken. Hopefully we got them all but we will be on the look-out.

My Cousin Vinny!

Vincent DeVito was born August 2nd at 7:19am. He weighed 9lbs. 7oz. and was 22" long. He and Mommy are both doing great, he is already above his birth weight! This is the first picture taken of him.. he is holding his Dad's hand.

His first portrait... the hat is covering lots of dark hair on a very cone shaped head!!
I am a very proud Auntie!

The kids couldn't hold him because he was a little sick at first. They enjoyed getting to see him though (Carrie and Nelson were a little shy due to all the hospital "things" in the room).
What a sweet handsome boy!

Eldridge Family Dinner

On July 31st we had a fun Family Dinner with the Eldridges (my Mom's side of the Family). We gathered early at my Grandfather's house. As you can see it was a rainy day. The kids enjoyed playing in the puddles as we cooked lasagna and waited for others to get there.

Nelson was sick of the rain and went and got paper towels to mop up the puddles... he wasn't very successful!
Dinner was yummy... Meat, Cheese, or Chicken Alfredo Lasagna with salad and garlic bread as well as veggies with dip and "Taco Salad" (our family's version of 7 layer dip). Thanks to everyone who brought parts of dinner to share!!

Tyson and Nelson climbing in the apple tree.

My kids holding my cousin Kayla's baby.... Kayla was their babysitter for years, and once upon a time I was her babysitter!

Fourth generation!
Those who could be there... many were not (catch you next time!)

Karate

While in NH Jessica and Samantha LOVED doing Karate. Their instructor (a home school mom) was awesome with them. This first picture is of them after the first class getting a few pointers to catch them up with the other kids. Here they are doing a kick... Sarah tried it at first but didn't like it and chose to play with the little kids in the other room instead!

My dirt/Grout novel

As most of you know when we moved into the house we are living in it was on the heels of our landlord. They moved out and we moved in with out the chance to have everything cleaned. For the first week Muria, her mother, my mother, sister in laws, and friends helped us clean and move in at the same time. This was crazy at best. The Kitchen was cleaned and the floor was moped many times. A few months after we moved in Muria pointed out that she felt like the tile in the kitchen never looked clean. One day I tried to clean the grout and found out the the grout color was not dark brown or black like we though but cream to match the tile. Since then I have made a few half hearted tries to get the grout clean. This consisted using many chemicals including industrial floor stripper. Never once could I get it clean. A few weeks before Muria and the kids were to set out for New Hampshire I Googled "How to clean Grout". This gave me a few home remedies and many ideas on how to get the grout clean. With the reality that it was going to be an all day project and cause the kitchen to be off limits I decided to make my attempt when the 10 muddy little feet were not around.

After 6 hours and many new home remedy's the final cleaning product that worked the best was Oxi Clean and water(about 1 gal and three scoops Oxi Clean). You poor on let sit for 20min and scrub each grout line. Then wash off with water.
When I get the rest of the Grout clean I plan on sealing the grout and waxing the floor with 3 or 4 coats of floor wax