Will Plays Soccer

I signed him up for a youth soccer league this fall through the community center.  It is for 5 Saturdays at 9am, starting today.  They practice for a little before and then have the game for 40 minutes. His team is called the Stars and they have gray colored t-shirts.  It brings back a lot of memories from my childhood because all the sport teams I was on were call Shooting Stars.  Aah - that was so long ago!  Anyways,Will was so excited to go!  He had an absolute blast out there!

Ready to go!

 Lining up to get their Uniforms

 Watching big brother play!

 

 Practice first

 Game time! Go Stars!

 Being good sports with the other team

Lake Waconia

Our good friends decided to send the summer out with style and rent a boat at Lake Waconia for the afternoon yesterday. They were kind enough to invite my crew along too!  It was a blast.  We weren't sure the weather would be awesome but the heat held out for us.  We learned that we liked anchoring in deeper water so that the sea-weed didn't touch us as we swam - that is an icky feeling!  The kids enjoyed jumping in the water and swimming all around.  Super fun for all!

 

Canning Canning Canning!

My garden finally exploded with tomatoes after such a slow start!  I decided I would can them since there is no way we can eat that much.  I have never done this before so we shall see if I make my family sick - hahaha.  Let's hope not!  Yesterday was my first day and i made 4 jars of whole peeled tomatoes and a jar of fridge pickles.  So far so good!  I used over 3 lbs of roma's and I have about 15 more lbs of tomatoes to go sitting on my countertop.  That doesn't even include the cherry tomatoes or the ones that are ready for me to pick still on the plant that I haven't harvested.  I am going to attempt to make some tomato jam and some salsa too.  I also made 2 more jars of fridge pickles this morning.  The cucumbers that I have are super duper big (like 20" long) so I get a little more than a quart size jar for 1 cucumber.  I better get busy on the rest of the tomatoes!

Keeping the jars and lids warm before filling

 Weighing the tomatoes

 Blanching the tomatoes

Ice bath before peeling

  Stuffing the jars

Ready to be lowered in!

 Boiling away!

Pickle time!

 

Out of boiling and cooling off!

A Conversation with Will

Today I finally got asked how a baby comes out by Will.  I am of the mindset that the simplest answer is best so I tried that first.  This is the conversation;

W:  Mom, how do babies get out of the mommy?
Me: The mommy goes to the hospital and the doctors help them.
W:  But how, how do they get out of the mom? What do the doctors do?
Me:  Well, a mommy pushes the baby and it comes out of the mommy's vagina
W:  (starts laughing) You are funny mom, that is a lie.  They do not come from a vagina.
Me:  Yes, Will, they do.
W: Nu-uh Mom.
Me:  Okay. So then where do they come from then Will?
W: The belly button

So, the moral of the story is that even when I tell him the truth he thinks it isn't true - hahaha. Can't wait for the "How does a baby get in the belly" question!  This little guy keeps me on my toes!

My Laundry Room is DONE!!

When they built this house, they included absolutely nothing in the laundry room for storage.  Nuts right!  Well it took me a while to figure out what I wanted and then to execute it but after a year and a half, we finally did it and it is DONE! I absolutely love it!  I had gone to Home Depot and Lowes to get quotes for cabinets from them.  It was crazy expensive so I nixed that and decided to get some unfinished ones to paint myself.  I did not want the white plastic coated ones or wood colored ones so this was the best options.  I ended up painting them a light gray color by Sherwin Williams called" Mindful Gray".  I am happy with the way they turned out too!  For the wall, I picked a color called "Hazel".  I picked up some cute knobs from Hobby Lobby (well I bought them online because we don't have Hobby Lobby) and Jacob hung the cabinets.  We are done and now have lots of storage!  So nice to not have everything on top of my dryer and in the linen closet.   Eventually I would like a countertop over the washer and dryer and for Jake to make a drying rack for the wall but it will be a while for that stuff.

BEFORE:

 My helper hanging the cabinets!  So handy!

 DONE!!