Family pictures

We got our pictures taken on the hottest night of the summer - 103 degrees.  Thankfully the pictures don't show how hot we all were.  The pictures turned out great. 

Summer pictures

Every other year my extended family (my mom and my sister's family) get family pictures together.  This year our family was complete with Lukie!  I'll post those pictures very soon.  We got the pictures taken last night which was the hottest day of the summer - 103 degrees.  Crazy.  My sister picked the outfits.  All the boys wore the matching swim trunks and Lauren wore a matching dress.  They were pretty darn cute.  Kim topped the evening off in true teacher style with sparklers!  ThanksAunt Mimi. 

Summer, Summer, Summer time

I love summer and all it has to offer!   I love seeing my boys relaxed, sun-kissed, just having fun.  Summer, does however, have some challenges and every summer I learn something - especially as my boys age.  I'm a full time working mom and when the boys were small I found a rock-star daycare provider and the boys went to daycare.  But as they have aged I've had to get more creative.  All my friends tell me I need to check out Pinterest!  I've found it especially tricky during the summer because I work from home.  Last summer I learned I could not have a sitter in my house everyday - for my sanity, the sitter's sanity and the boys.  This summer I have a sitter come to my house two days a week.  The other three days the boys participate in various activities outside the home - with Friday being their favorite.........they get to go to a friends house.  Thank you, Amy Neal!  Certainly the daily schedule I've created is working a lot better than last summer - Hallejah!  What I have learned for next summer is Jay needs to be involved in some kind of organized sport.  He was approached to play baseball this summer but declined and Mike and I supported that decision.  I would have also supported him had he decided to play baseball.  I gently encouraged him to participate in swim team (the kid is like a dart in the water) and he very quickly and stubbornly said NO!  The thing about Jay is he'd be happy staying at home riding his four wheeler (constantly), swimming and getting out to see a movie every now and then.  It's not that he's lazy.  The kid is filled with energy - hence why I want him to be involved in a structured summer sport so he can "filter" that energy.  Next summer I'm going to give him a choice of two different summer sporting activities he can participate in and he'll need to pick.  It won't be pretty.  He'll fight me tooth and nail but I've found that once Jay gets over that initial hump and begins an activity he likes it and learns from it - even if he'd never admit it!

Our fun Saturday

I invited my good friend, Tracy and her boys, out to the country on Saturday.  Tracy is my childhood friend.  Kim and I hung out with her and her sister, Lindsay all the time especially since for many years we were neighbors.  

The picture above is of Nick and Lauren.  Lauren is always nice to Nick - with Nick it's touch and go. 

The four boys in the lake.  They loved it!

Even Lukie joined in on the fun.

Tracy & I

Everywhere we went yesterday Jay drove us!  The boys loved being carted around in the trailer and Tracy and I liked relaxing on the back of the four wheeler.  Thanks Jay.
It was such a fun day - hanging with Tracy and her boys!  I'm so glad we got the opportunity to do it and that my sister and mom were able to join us too.  And thank you to my good friend, Laura, for inviting us to her backyard pool!

Today

*My husband began his work day at 2:45 a.m. (which is pretty typical)
*Jay got up for the fourth day in a row at 6 a.m. (keep in mind I have to wake him for school)
*Jay got bored and decided to wake his brother at 7:15 a.m.
*My sitter arrived at 8:30 a.m.
*Jay races into my office, frantic, because something is wrong with Copper
*The sitter and I spend some time discussing about what is wrong with Copper.  I make a vet appointment which is set for tomorrow
*Nick cut himself with his pocket knife.  There are bloody Kleenex's everywhere.
*The boys fight during their morning walk with Copper and the sitter.
*Because it rained, the boys stayed inside most of the day with the sitter and at times I thought I had a pretty good idea what the bombing of Pearl Harbor sounded like.
*Jay writes me a letter about how mean I am.  It was such a great parenting moment (hear the sarcasm in that statement).
*The sitter looks frazzled and wishes me good luck at the end of the day.
*Nick has a crying fit after the sitter leaves because he thinks he has dirty underwear.
*Someone did not shut the fridge all the way and everything is starting to melt. 
*I take Jay, Nick and a friend of Nick's to the pool during the evening.  I get to listen to talk about balls, testicles and farts during the car ride.
*Everything at the pool goes smoothly - a miracle!
*The boys eat a hearty dinner at the pool and when we get home.....Jay says, "What's for dinner?" 
*Right before leaving the pool, Jay says, "So, what are we going to do when we get home?"
*Nick got goat poop on his flip flop (Don't ask) and got it all over the back seat of my car.
*Jay found a MOLDY cup in my car.
*We took Copper for an evening walk.  During the walk, Nick tripped, Copper dragged him and he broke his flip flop.
*Oh Yeah, Mike is on a business trip. 

On that note, folks, I'm calling it a day.

My 10,000 steps a day

Copper is clearly Jay's dog.  But she's my walking dog!  Jay and Nick walk her too but I make it a point to walk her daily.  She helps me take a short break during my work day to walk her.  My company provided me with a step counter.  I attach it to my pants and every day I try to take more steps than I did the day before.  Some days I'm more successful than others.  But if it weren't for Copper I may not taking those 10,000 steps a day!

Happy Father's Day

Sunday got away from me.  We all slept in LATE and didn't go to church (shame shame).  The boys and I went swimming at my friend, Laura's house while Mike spent some much needed (and quiet) time in his shop.  The boys got him an UnderArmor shirt and a new pocket knife. 

My favorite niece

I took Lauren out for a girls night tonight and I had such a great time with her.  I am never able to give Lauren my full attention because of my boys.  Plus she has a big dislike of my dog so she's not crazy about coming to my house anymore - bo hoo.  But all those reasons gave me a perfect reason to take her out - just the two of us.  We started with with a mani for Lauren.  Isn't the picture of her so cute?

Getting her nails dried before we went to our next activity.  We chatted the entire time and she took her baby with her.  Girls are so different than boys but I guess that's what makes the world go round. 

Check out the polka dot mani.  We loved it!

I took her to Windy City Wieners for hot dogs!  Yummy!  We ended our time together by visiting my dad and playing at the park.  I so enjoyed the time I spent with her and made a mental note to start planning our next girls night out - just Lauren and I.  Love that little girl.

Timing is everything

I have worked from home for just about a year now.  My official start date with my new company was May 31 but I didn't go "live" until June 13.  Last June 14 I was a little stressed out.  My kids were adjusting to having me at home and trying to understand that I was working!  I was trying to learn a new system in addition to a new company's philosophy.  It was overwhelming but I knew once everyone adjusted it would be worth the stress (in the beginning).  I mention to my husband and my mom almost weekly how much I love working from home.  I love everything about it and I can tell you I take it very seriously.  I am good at organizing my time and I make it all work.   Sometimes that I means I'm up and working at 5am but then it means I don't have to stress about how I'm going to get one of my boys to their doctor's appointment in the afternoon.  It's wonderful and I feel truly blessed.  I love the company I work for, I love working from home and I love my co-workers.  Recently my sister asked me if I wished I had this job when the boys were babies.  My response was No.  I believe this job came along at exactly the right time in my life.  I'm not sure I would have appreciated quite as much as I do had I not struggled with making it to an office day in and day out for 16 years and 7 of those years were done with kids and a 35 minute commute one way.  The Lord opened doors for me and I walked through them.  I am so very thankful. 

Life Skills 101

Every Monday my boys go to "camp."  Nick started his first summer of State Farm daycamp.  I love SF daycamp and was so glad Nick could go this year.  When I signed Jay up all those years ago I signed him up with a friend but I didn't know of any friends (whose parents work for SF) I could sign Nick up with but I wasn't worried.  Nick can make friends with a brick wall and sure enough he has. 
I signed Jay up for a sports camp and again I want to stress it's only 1 day a week.  Jay gets to play football, basketball, soccer and dodge ball (his favorite).  I knew it would be an adjustment for Jay.  He is my introverted child who loves the comforts of home.  His first Monday was last week and it wasn't such a great day.  Last night when I was putting him to bed he complained about going to camp the next day.  I asked him point blank to give me a really good reason why he didn't want to go and he explained he didn't know anyone.  I acknowledged his feelings.  It is hard to go somewhere and be around a bunch of people you don't know but at the same time it's a life skill.  As you grow older and become an adult this is part of life.  You're going to be thrown into groups and situations where you don't know a soul and guess what......you adapt, you socialize and you make the best of it and who knows.....sometimes those situations produce life long friends.  But try explaining that to a 10 year old boy.  I told Jay it was good to get out of his comfort zone.  His response, "But I don't like getting out of my comfort zone."  Being a parent is hard and his words tugged at my heart.  I was a lot like Jay when I was a kid.  My mom forced me to do things out of my comfort zone and as an adult I thank her for that - as a child, not so much.  I have a hard time acknowledging things that I do well but getting to know people and taking chances are things I'm pretty good at and the gentle encouragement I got from my mom all contributed to that - which is exactly what I'm trying to do for Jay.  I admit, I almost caved last night but I held firm and I'm glad I did.  We prayed together that at least one child would reach out to him and guess what........that's exactly what happened.  Jay said he had a good time and made friends.  His one complaint......"Mom, next week pack me more drinks!"  Happily noted my dear boy!

Sick

Well whatever the boys had first and then passed to me finally got to Mike.  Mike actually got sick really late on Sunday night (June 3) and missed work on Monday.  Mike has to be practically DYING to miss work and trust me, he was.  Whatever this nasty thing was it hit Mike and Jay the hardest.  Jenny and Curtis were spared from the Ausili clan.  We don't know where everyone picked it up at but we are glad it's gone.  We think our dog, Copper, even got it as she had bad diarhea for a few days.  Ewwww!  Again, I am just thankful it has left the Siebert family household. 

Misc. TN photos

Love this picture of Mike and Nick - relaxing in the morning sunshine.

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Mike, Jay and Nick are so into guns!  It's ridiculous but they love it.  Nick got his first rifle in TN.  He was one happy boy.

Leave it to Jay to hunt down a tiny lizard.

Nick and daddy.

Jenny got a kick out of his photo.  My boys sat down on the front porch, put their hats over their heads and sat still for just a second.  Like Jenny said.........."I don't think I've ever seen the Siebert boys sit......ever."

                                              Proof that Nick had had too much TN and perhaps TN had too much of Nick.  LOL!

Our last day in TN - The Aquarium

Finally.........our last day in TN.  We had such a nice vacation and I had mentioned to Mike what a difference 2 years makes.  We went to TN 2 years earlier and traveling there and back wasn't horrible (it is a 10 hour drive) but it was somewhat challenging.  This trip, the boys travelled  there and back without so much as a hiccup and no threats were made from mom and dad - even better!  I finally feel that we can travel easily and really enjoy ourselves.  Anyway, on our last day we went to breakfast at the Pancake Pantry.  Check Nick's big smile out over his bear pancakes with M & M's.  I got pancakes with bananas wrapped in them and pineapple syrup and Jay got peanut butter syrup with his - yummy!

All smiles after their tummies were full of pancakes.

Anyone who has kids and is in Gatlinburg should go check out "Ripleys Aquarium of the Smokies."  It was amazing.  It's not a huge aquarium.  In fact we went through it in about 90 minutes but it was so cool.  It had a hug horseshoe with fish above you and you literally walked underneath them. 

Petting some kind of crab. 

This is the "horseshoe" I was talking about.  You looked up and you saw all kinds of fish.

The highlight of Nick's day was the penguin playhouse.  It had a tube that you climbed into to actually get into the playhouse and they it had a tube you put your head into and it felt like you were actually with the penguins.  Like Mike said you couldn't have gotten any closer unless you were actually in the cage with them. Nick spent a good 15 minutes in that tube. All the penguins had name tags and he was delighted when he found a penguin with the name Nick!

Nick saved his birthday money and bought this outrageously expensive giant turtle.  He named him Crush and Crush has been a constant companion of Nick's since his purchase.  Nick so reminds me of my sister on vacation.  She would get that kind of stuff on vacation and would love it!  I remember when we went to Disney and she got a Goofy hat.  She wore that hat day and night!  She loved it.  It's so much like Nick - it makes me smile.

Love this silly picture of my boys.  We went for a quick bite to eat after the aquarium.  The waitress made the boys these hats.  Nick's says: will trade brother for video game and Jay's says: kisses girls with cooties.  Love it. 

And that pretty much wraps up our vacation.  I have a few misc. pictures I'll post later this week.  The only bad thing is the boys got violently ill about 8 pm on our last night.  Nick started throwing up first and Jay followed 20 minutes later.  Nick threw up consistently until 1am and Jay threw up throughout the drive home the next day.  It was awful!  Mike Ausili got it and so did Faith.  Clearly they picked it up somewhere when they were all together.  I said it was such a great vacation with a really bad ending and it was a vacation no one would forget - for a variety of reasons.  LOL!  I got the flu 1 day later after we returned home.  Ugh!  I'm just glad we had fun, got home safely and everyone recovered.  Now I have to start planning our vacation next summer.........ummmm where shall we go?

Zip lining over the Smokies

Love this family picture.  We went zip lining on Memorial Day!  The weather was beautiful and HOT, HOT, HOT!  Zip lining was another activity I wasn't thrilled about but my boys would never let me live it down if I didn't go & I have to say it was fun and unlike tubing I will do it again. 

Our group photo.  Everyone went except Mike Ausili. 

                                                      Yup, that's me, coming down the line, hanging on for dear life!

Tubing in TN

As part of our traditions in TN - we go tubing!  However, this is not my idea of fun.  I'm just saying.  My 2 boys like me to participate in everything they like and I try, I really try.  I did tell them that after tubing this year I would not be doing it again.  I always get my legs scratched up, I fall out of my tube and it's just not an enjoyable expereince for me.  But just the same, the boys love it!

Jenny's dad works at the tubing place.  The picture above is of the boys getting the tubes off the "assembly line."

Ready to tube

If you look carefully all the way in back you'll see a kid with a life jacket on.  That is Nick.  I'm probably somewhere under water - trying to get back on my tube while Nick screams hysterically.....Mom, Mom, where are you:?

Here's Nick and I again.  I think I'm actually on the tube in this picture.  Mike loved to get shots of me falling off my tube!  Gotta love him.

I had to put this picture in because after we tubed Nick came back to our cabin and wanted to take a bath in the jacuzzi.  He said it was the best day ever - tubing and taking a bath in the jacuzzi.  What a day!