Another First Day



First Day

And they are off!

The Family that Golfs Together

Sometimes I wish that my kids were born with a little note attached that said, "These are your child's talents.  Work on developing these things and forget about all the other stuff."  Unfortunately, that is not the case so as parents we spend lots of time enrolling our kids in sports, lessons, or classes and slowly and costly eliminate what doesn't work for them.  The boys spent August taking golf lessons and they are really enjoying it and doing well. Now if we only had a couple hundred thousand dollars to join the country club. In the meantime we spent Labor Day at the driving range.

TGIS-Cookies in a jar

I am trying to avoid sweets as much as possible, but Sunday's are my cheat day. It is the one day of the week that I make dessert. One of my family's favorite desserts are cookies in a jar. To make these yummy things spray a small mason jar with Pam and fill it with your favorite cookie dough.

Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until the sides are golden brown and the middles are still a little gooey.

 

Top with ice cream.

 

Enjoy!

The Surprise Speaker at tonight's RNC is...

Harley Belle!! If you need a translation she says, "Shame on you Barack Obama. I'm Mitt Romney."  She later says, "I approved this message."

The Harvest

Our church congregation also known as our LDS Ward works closely with a charity called Food for Others.  Today we went to the USDA farm in Beltsville, Maryland to harvest corn for donation to the charity.  After what began with some groans and complaints, the kids managed to harvest lots of corn and I think they were pretty proud of themselves for all their hard work.

For the Boys

There is something about flying and space that excites every little boy, occasionally it excites little girls too.  The Smithsonian has two Air & Space Museums in the Washington D.C. area.  One is on the National Mall, the other is in Dulles Virginia. It is referred to as Hazy.  Scott has been working at Hazy for the past few weeks, so we paid him a visit today.  We have been there at least a dozen times but the boys never get tired of it.  They kept asking me to take a picture of this plane and that plane. So, most of this post is full of pictures for them.  I love to see how excited this museum makes them each time we visit and fortunately for me, there were some new things too.

For example the Space Shuttle Discovery arrived last Spring, replacing the Space Shuttle Endeavor. Unlike Endeavor, Discovery actually spent a lot of time in space and you can see the wear and tear.

 

The boys had a 30 minute-one-on-one demonstration on how the space shuttle takes-off, lands, and orbits the earth by one of the docents.

There is a new restoration wing at the museum, where you can watch the restoration of old planes take place. Honestly, it is a little like watching paint dry but what do I know.

 

Another highlight is the observation deck that overlooks Dulles International Airport. Not only can you see planes take off and land but you can even play air traffic controller.

 

 A fan favorite is the SR-71 Blackbird, made even more famous by the Transformers movie.

 

But mostly they just love seeing plane, after plane, after plane and distracting daddy while he tries to work.

 

 

 

 

Beds...

hardly an exciting blog post but beds are near and dear to my heart. Perhaps because I do not spend nearly enough time in them but most likely because I am a little OCD when it comes to beds especially unmade beds and pillow perfection. Regardless of what else I might be able to accomplish in a day if the beds do not get made I feel like a total failure. And yes, I am one of those people who goes over the top with pillows. There are 12 on my bed alone and if they are not perfectly aligned it drives me KooKoo!! Anyway, we got a new bed this weekend and moved our bed to Harley's room. That's right, no more crib. It was a little sad but mostly exciting. She is doing great in her "big puppy bed" as she calls it. Here is her new bed and the felt-flowered head board I made her.

And just for fun here are the other beds in our household.

 

The boy's bed.

 

Master Bedroom

 

The Guest Room.  Don't you want to come visit?