RANDOMNESS

LEGOS
the boys have really been into building "inventions" with legos lately. finally they are old enought to play with the fun ones. you know, the tiny ones that have really cool pieces and fun sets. they pretty much don't go anywhere without taking an "invention" with them. it's really neat to see their little imaginations come to fruition, especially jax. he has an engineer's brain FOR SURE! he loves to take things apart to see how they work and then put them back together. which is why i appreciate the legos so much, before legos it was breaking apart toys or the back off the remote!

MOTHER'S DAY
for mother's day this year jason and the boys made me a picnic table. they stained it white and engraved each of our names in it (with room enough for newbaby, too) it was really sweet. i'm not sure i like that the boys are being taught really young to keep secrets from mama, who knows how great they'll be at it by the time they're teenagers!! but i do appreciate surprises and they've never spoiled one for me so far!!



GARDEN/YARD
our garden is surprisingly THRIVING!! i never would've guessed that we could even keep it all alive. the peas are almost to the top of the fence and the lettuce is gigantic! we need to plant new radishes now since we planted 4 rows at once and they're all gone already! boomer chokes down lettuce now because he's proud he grew it! which is the biggest reason for me to have a garden! the yard needs a whole lot of work, the grass is very weedy and dead-ish in places, but we have some plans to help it out, so we'll see how that goes.

a few weeks ago my mom found a huge frog near her house. we took it home to set it free in the pond out back. the boys named him hoppy.

TeeBall 2010

wow... teeball season is over already and i haven't blogged at all about it! the boys really liked it, i think boomer more than jax. maybe because we went sometimes a week or more without a practice or game because of the weather, jax had a hard time jumping back into the swing of things. but he had a TERRIFIC coach that was really patient with him and never got tired of motivating him (which he seemed to need lots of).

GO PURPLE DRAGONS!!
boomer had a great time. his little ladies' man side came through very often since he had 2 pretty girls for coaches. he was always tackling or snuggling one of them on the field during games. they both learned a lot this year and it was a great experience for all of us.

GO BUMBLEBEES!!
off to the birthcenter to get some blood drawn with BOTH BOYS in tow!! wish me luck. i'll blog later today about what else we've been up to!!

our weekend

this past weekend we were lucky enough to have jason's mom and stepdad AKA "the outlaws" come to visit. it was wayne's first time seeing our house and coming up this way since i think jax was born. he's got a bad back and long car rides are hard for him. we were so excited and thankful he endured the journey just for us!! another reason for their visit was to help us out with our very first garden. we got straight to work right after they got here. we planted all the seeds and starts we had already, then made our rounds at the farm and garden stores here in town, and then planted everything else when we got back! it was really exciting to see our garden and yard come together. it feels much more complete now!
grammee and papa surprised each boy with their very own blueberry bush. they were stoked for that and check for berries everyday. sometimes more than once! hopefully gardening will help them learn patience!!
so here's the rundown on our gardens... they filled up super fast! cherry tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, june bearing and everbearing strawberries, green, red and walla walla onions, garlic, green pepper, romaine lettuce, peas,carrots and radishes. celery, cucumbers, cantaloupe and watermelons are being started. pumpkins, and mammoth sunflowers are planted by the shed. and potatoes and chives are in pots. in a week or so we will be able to plant my dahlias (probably what I'M most excited for!) jason also bought me a climbing hydrangea which i'm in love with and cannot wait for it to flower!!
we were really surprised when the outlaws showed interest in ROCKING OUT! it was so much fun we had TONS of laughs and fun for hours. literally~hours!

boomer got his training wheels taken off this weekend!!! he was off on his own later that day! really only like 30 minutes total of us running along with him until he got how to balance. sharp turns trip him up still and he has a hard time with balancing enough to start or stop himself yet. but before we know it, he'll be a pro and we'll have to live up to our end of the bargain and repaint jax's bike to green and add some "bells and whistles" so he can take over that bike and we can get our little giant, jax a bigger bike since he thinks he has to go and grow like a freakin' weed all the time!! isn't 3 1/2 really young to learn that trick?! he's a prodigy!!!

yesterday was the boys' last gymnastics class. they have really loved going. it has really been a great way for the boys to burn energy and to learn the dynamics of student/teacher and paying attention and following direction. all the things we've been worried about jax getting the hang of before going into kindergarten in september.
here is an after picture of all my boys' haircuts. they look so cute now. for some reason, though, boomer looks like a big boy to me and jax looks younger?? boomer says his isn't short enough... he wants to look like grandpa, who currently has a buzz cut!
the boys decided this morning to be pirates with their stretchy toys. the green around jax's belly is a snake. sillies.

tonight will be our first tee-ball practice. we are all so excited for that to start. i'm sure we will be blogging about that a lot!

it's decided...

~we are 7weeks 5days along which means the newest little dahlstrom is due november 14th. i hope boomer is gracious if he ends up sharing a birthday (his is the very next day). poor kid. as if being thrust into middle-child-dom isn't bad enough!!

~we ARE for sure going to be going with a midwife, and having baby in our home is not out of the running. we had a consultation appt today at the birth center . honestly i was almost scared off by the pics from the website, but after talking to a midwife we had all of our reservations about it worked through, and now we're stoked for it! the best part (so far) is that they are totally into letting our boys be part of it, something that is UNHEARD of at the hospital.

~just about everyone who's known us through our last 2 pregnancies will tell you we are very much anti-name telling. we have a girl's name 99% chosen. i will tell you that if it's a little girl, her middle name will be anne. it is my middle name and my mom's and my grandma's-each of us the first daughter. if it's a boy, we have a short list, but it's definitely harder to keep thinking up good boy names!! cross your fingers that we won't have to ;)

~this baby is surely a blessing to us. we tried for a long time to get pregnant this time around. for a year and a half we've kept it a secret from our family and friends. which was hard because it felt like we were lying to them all whenever the subject came up. (they of course all forgave us). it only took us exactly 4 months each with jax and boomer, so it was hard to think that even though we felt our family wasn't complete yet, we could possibly done. i had taken my temp every morning for only 5 days, so i'd have information to give a specialist in a few months, when we popped up pregnant! i think it's true when they say that you can try "too hard"!

it's an emotional subject around here....

TOINS, PENS & DIAMONDS

for the longest time, the boys would call any change they received "COINS". which is just the absolute cutest when boomer says it because his Cs come out as Ts. "TOINS." too funny!

then everything turned to pennies, which boomer calls "PENS."

jax has gotten really good at what's what when it comes to money . i haven't officially taught them yet all the proper terms, even though i've had giant paper money bought from the learning store, for like ever. anyway...

a few weeks ago my grandpa pulled out his change wallet. which, by the way, is something grandpa does with all his grandkids. i think he was the first to teach us all our first lesson on money and he has a really great coin wallet that is all twisty like a puzzle. i remember trying to figure out how to open it when i was little. okay... i'm rambling....

so anyway, grandpa pulls out his change wallet and lets boomer pick between a quarter and a dime. boomer chooses the dime.

gpa:"what'd ya pick boomer?"

b:"a pen."

gpa:"a pen? no boomer, that's not a pen! what is that coin you chose?"

b:"it's a PEN, drampa!!!" (getting a bit annoyed)

me to gpa:"we haven't taught him the correct terms, yet. he calls everything coins or pennies."

gpa:"boomer, that one is a dime and this one is a quarter! you want them both?"

b:"YEAH!!!!!"

fast forward a few days. we are on a short trip to the supermarket, so the boys get to walk with me. while i'm busy deciding on what kind of tissues to buy, my boys are hiding in the TP racks, jumping out in front of people's carts, hissing like velocoraptors . i'm more than a little annoyed, so i quick pick out a tissue box, and drag my boys up to the register. they throw fits, of course. what's a trip to the store without a meltdown, right?! so i don't pay them any attention (as decided since the day jax was born.) so we get to the car and i'm lecturing them on why scary dinosaurs giving little old ladies heart attacks is NOT okay, and boomer just can't stop crying. not fit-like, but sad, like his little heart had been broken.

me:"why are you crying, boomer?" (still annoyed, i admit)

b:"i lost my diamond!!"

me:"huh?!"

b:"my diamond!! it's lost!!!" (still SO upset)

me:"boomer, calm down. i have no idea what you're talking about."

he calms down a bit, but still talks about this diamond the whole way home. all the while i'm racking my brain, trying to figure out what the whoozie a diamond is.

we get home, i send the boys to their room to play while i unload the groceries. a few minutes later, boomer runs down the stairs and shows me his dime from grandpa. "look, mama!!! i didn't lose THIS diamond!!!!" so proud of himself.

time to break out the GIANT paper money props!

Secret Agent Boomer

Man I love having boys. Last night, totally out of nowhere, Boomer comes sneaking around the stairs corner and comes up to me and says, "Shhhh, I'm a secret agent, I have a mission." He then spends the next 20 minutes peaking his head around every corner before he goes around, and ducking behind the couch to hide. I have no idea where he learned his tactical skills, but he's already a budding spy. Now he just needs to master his accents.