Playoff Game - 1 More To Go

Let the Games Begin





Jacob being bored




We Won!

Palmer won their playoff game today against East Side. It was a close game and they worked hard, but in the end they one 7-0. On to the championship game next week. Good Luck Palmer!

Halloween Food

Thank God for the internet. We could easily access some fun foods to make for a Halloween dinner.


Jacob made this on his own. No internet help here. Made out of breadsticks.


Sloppy Joe's.


A few edible fingers.


Bones & Blood


Fingers always taste better with dip!

Halloween 2009

Well they never cease to amaze me with what they choose to be for Halloween. Alex wanted to be a Cheerleader and Jacob a nun. Go Figure! This year life got away with us. We never made it to the pumpkin patch, the first year we've missed since we started taking them. I'm a little bummed, I always love the pictures from the pumpkin patch. But between rain, football and the social life of a 10 & 12 year old, it never happened. So we made a cake.

Alex's favorite network is the "Food Channel" we still aren't sure where that came from but he watches it every night. Ace of Cakes is one of his favorites. Needless to say we had to take a stab at "fondant". I can see why they use it, because you could really make some cool things. But I think for the first attempt and not having the right equipment, they did an awesome job with their cake. I didn't do much, slightly assisted in the rolling of the fondant. Alex said it had to have layers like a wedding cake. We also made some edible halloween treats.

Enjoy!


The Cheerleader & The Nun


A Nun...Go Figure!


He's a much better looking boy.


The First Fondant Cake

Weight Training!

Well....I took the dog for a run and came home to a new bench. We needed a bench for the weights. Time for weight training. Each day it becomes more like an official gym! A.K.A. "The Man Cave". Who needs a place to park the cars....not that we ever parked our cars in the garage anyway! ; )

A Blast from the past

This is how I feel some days. To give you some insight to this video, we went to a dinner show when we were in Disney World. We have one son, who wanted to do everything right, and the other who was doing it because we forced him. It just goes to show, that we are pre-wired with certain character traits that are beyond our control. If this doesn't make you chuckle, you must really be having a bad day. Enjoy!

40th Birthday!

Carlos' 40th birthday is approaching quickly, it's officially the 21st of September. But for years I've heard Carlos say things about surprise birthday parties. Mostly why have them, I don't ever want one. So of course, that was all I needed to turn an already planned labor day picnic into a "Surprise Party". It was last minute, but it came together.

You know the "Murphy's Law" Theory, what can go wrong will. Well up until Sunday morning, I couldn't have asked for more, everything was falling into place perfectly. Until.....I was trying to get Carlos out of the house with his brother. As I was sitting in the kitchen talking to Tara & Jose, scheming our plan for the day. I hear Champ bang on the door.( I had forgotten he was outside, that was my first mistake). On a normal day I just open the door and in comes Champ, and on a normal day I cover the new "off-white" sofa and chair, just in case there was a mishap. Today I was going to uncover the sofa's and since we just closed up the sofa bed, I told Jose don't worry about covering it. (Second mistake).

As I opened the door to let Champ in, he came barreling in, faster than my brain registered that the area at the bottom of the steps was flooded with water, mud and mulch. I turned and screamed, but it was to late. Across the couch at least twice and around the house in a circle until Jose could catch him. Under normal circumstances I probably would have taken pictures, but I took one after the couch was half cleaned. Thank God for Tara, she cleaned the whole couch. But if there was any hope of Sammy having a Dog, it is long gone.

What had happened was, Champ likes the new welcome mat. He was playing with it. (tearing it apart). And then he goes a little wacky, running back and forth like a mad man. He bumped the faucet in the front of the house. Since Carlos was in the shower, I didn't recognize that the water was running. I think it took three days for the water to dry up. It was obviously running for quite awhile.

Even with the little setback in the morning, the day was a success. Carlos was surprised!

The dog helped the day start out great!


Everybody has to bring something to their party!


Inger put together a great picture display of Carlos. It was a hit, everyone loved it. - Thanks Inger!


Kira is always happy to have Chloe around. She's always surrounded by Boys!


It was a beautiful day to spend with family and friends.

First Day of School

So I'm late on posting this, since we started August 27th. But school has started for everyone, and seems to be going well. Alex's first day was a little crazy. They switched his teams, so he was a little upset the first day, but all is going well now. 5th & 6th grade. Time flies.

2012

It was the day that PA got hit with rain, rain and more rain. Flooding, etc. We thought we were going to get kicked off of the beach early, but the rain didn't roll in until dinner time. But when it did, it was the weirdest cloud I've ever seen. It reminded me of something that should be in the upcoming movie "2012".

Eagles Training Camp

ON OUR WAY TO EAGLES TRAINING CAMP



We went to the Eagles Training Camp this morning. Can't say it would have been my pick to do at 7am Saturday morning. But it was the worth the effort. Those of you who don't know, the Eagles run their training camp out of Lehigh University. It's a free thing, so if your kids are into football its good cheap fun. When you enter into the area, they hand you a ticket. It's basically a lottery system. Between 7-9am they hand you a ticket on the way in. Then they basically pick 200 numbers to go to an autograph tent. We went with the "Zuromski's", Not one of us had a winning ticket. Then....there was a guy that basically looked at the boys and said, what's this number say. Is it a winner? I was looking at the guy, thinking what kind of guy is this. He has a winning ticket and he's rubbing it in to 4 boys who desperately want to go to the autograph tent. When Stephen looked at him and said yes you have a winning number. He handed him the ticket!!! I thought they were going to jump out of their skin. One ticket got all 4 boys and one adult through the line. They line you up like cattle and shuffle you through. But they ended up with about 13 signatures all together. They got a few afterwards as well. They said it was the best day of their lives. ; )


It's gonna be a great day!


The beginning of practice.


Signatures.


Signatures.


Signatures.


And more signatures.


It was a successful day!

Trampoline

Jacob and Alex have outgrown their swing set and off to the neighbors house it has moved. It actually is sitting between our properties, but it is on its way to their side. We had some areas of dirt to fix. Notice all the green patches. Up went the trampoline. If I jumped a quarter of the time that they did today I would be skinny.

On To The Kitchen

This apparently is the year for home renovations. We no sooner accomplished finishing the garage and up went the mats and now it is acting as my kitchen work space. When we bought the house, there were no kids and we were smaller. ; ) It didn't seem as though a small kitchen would be an issue. Two growing boys, a dog the size of a small horse, and a galley kitchen didn't make a great combination. So.....down came the wall. 

The project has had ongoing issues. Down came the wall and off came all the drywall, which I wasn't expecting. But I'm not sure what I was expecting. We originally thought we had to keep the soffit that ran above the sink. But....we didn't need it. Good news it will help open up the space. Bad news, we had already ordered shorter cabinets so they won't go to the ceiling. 

Carlos and a co-worker laid the tile. I had small panic attacks before it was installed. Just wondering if I made the right color choice.  But I really do love the floor. 

Electrical work...electrical work..... and more electrical work. Thanks Pop Pop for all your expertise. 

Drywall, cabinets and then granite. Another small panic attack that the granite would look good with the tile. Looks good. We have to wait 48 hrs, before attempting any plumbing. So we are temporarily without a sink and dishwasher. I can wait a few more days. We have some things to finish up yet, but we see the light. And I'm allowed to show pictures.

After trying to figure out what pictures to show, we decided to create a slide show. Hope you enjoy. Some of you have seen it in progress like us, but it was still fun to go back and see how far we've come.

Thanks to everyone who's helped along the way.....Carlos, Jacob, Alex, PopPop, Nan, Uncle Mark & Titi Chrissy. And our subcontractors Mike, Ted, Brad &  Rommy.

ENJOY!

IT'S FINISHED

The final product!

Let's Get Ready To Wrestle!

I can honestly say there was a point in my life where I thought manual labor was fun. But I must be getting old and tired, after an exhausting weekend of finishing the garage, I could barely function this morning. But it's done! Almost...we have some minor things. Some enhancement painting on the wall as well as a "Gym Logo". I've yet to be told exactly what they wanted, but I know there has been a request put in. But the hard part is over. For those of you who know us, Family, Close Friends, Neighbors....the beginning pictures don't even come close to representing the mess we started with. So accomplishing the garage seemed like an almost unimaginable task. 

To fill you guys in, it probably took us three weeks to actually start. I think every time we made it to the garage with the intentions of starting, the task seemed very overwhelming, and the tension mounted. Carlos and I don't really ever fight....ok an occasional heated debate. But for whatever reason, the garage brought out the best in us. ; )

Our first step was to insulate the top of the garage. That was a task and a half. And talk about a dirty job, covered from head to toe. I only participated for a day and a half on that job, that was enough. Then on to cleaning house. We've been in this house for awhile and have our fair share of unused and uneeded items. OK JUNK! The trash guys, are glad the cleaning is finished. It was a lengthy process. We were moving in  a slow steady pace with the garage, until we received our Friday call that the mats were coming today! It was a whirlwind weekend of spakling, sanding, painting. My D&D coffee we purchased to help me make it through Friday night's spakling session, ended up on the driveway (thanks to Champ) and in his stomach. Let me tell you coffee effects dogs the same way it does people. RUSH RUSH RUSH.....CRASH! But in the end its finished, looks great and I think Carlos is still in amazement that it actually came to fruition. 

ON TO THE KITCHEN! YEAH...More manual labor. ; ) Yes we are doing that labor ourselves, three estimates at 27,000+ each, pushed me right into liking manual labor once again. We'll keep you posted, labor begins this weekend, warranted that I can get the rest of the house under control first.

It Wasn't Me!

I really wish I could say I was quick enough to pull the phone out and take a picture in the middle of Lowe's, but I wasn't it. It was such a classic picture I don't think I will ever forget the look on his face. But when it initially happened, I wasn't thinking how much I would look back on this and find total humor. I was furious with what we saw standing in the middle of the paint isle.

Imagine Alex, standing with hands covered in white paint(not a little...a lot), a upside down gallon of paint with every ounce of paint that once was housed inside, covering Lowe's floor. As we approached he tried desperately to pick up the lid only covering him in more paint, as well as allowing him to step in the paint and track it everywhere.

The gentleman that worked there was very kind, and thanked us for not just leaving it and walking away. My response to him was that he could have followed the shoe prints to the culprit. Yes, Alex made his way to the bathroom shoeless to wash his hands, while I tackled the shoes in the woman's bathroom. I really think there should be a reality book you read before you even consider becoming a parent. Not that it would matter, because you know... "Those things will never happen to me!"

Why Is He Cujo?

There is only one reason that Champ occasionally seems as though he's possessed... Their names are Jacob and Alex.  Alex learned early on, to ignore the Dog. He would run to his room and didn't want anything to do with the dog (even though he begged for him). Although recently he has been doing his fair share as well. Jacob teases, chases, wrestles and whatever else he can think of and then wonders why the dog is out of control. So who really needs the training. We were gone most of the day Easter Sunday so we needed to help Champ expend some energy and in the process Jacob wanted to take pictures.




Alex has learned to tease also, with the electric fence. He knows Champ won't cross the line....need I say more. He better hope Champ doesn't get faster.



Maybe this will be the accessory to Champ's costume next Halloween.



I love tormenting the dog!





No privacy. Jacob found this to be the most hysterical thing to take a picture of. Why do they find these things so humorous. I just don't understand.

Coloring Eggs!

What would Easter be without coloring Easter Eggs. Every year on Good Friday we color Easter Eggs at Nan & Pop Pops. It's funny to watch what evolves during the creative process. This year Jacob decided that he was going to put the egg in every color and try and create the color of a "Turd"? Yes folks, this is what 10 & 11 year old boys love to talk about turds, farts, poop. It's almost as though we've gone back in time to when they were 5 and everything they found hysterical involved the word...POOP! Soon the turds will be gone and the it will be girls! YIKES! I'll stick with turds for now.

Also for those of you who have befriended me on Facebook, watch out for a mysterious instant message from me that says....I farted. Yes folks, I showed Jacob the Instant Message feature on facebook and he thinks it's funny to pretend he's me, telling family and friends that I just farted! Like I would ever do anything like that....Please! ; )

Alex taking count of his eggs.



Jacob concentrating on the creation of the "Turd Egg"



The first color....

After all the efforts of dipping in every color to get to the final product. He dropped it. He thought the cracks added some character.