Cooking Lesson

Tony's dad is here from Florida for a visit for about a week and a half. Today, he was giving Tony a little cooking lesson on how to make "real" meatballs and pasta sauce. Now, the little secret is that I really DO know how to make it from scratch, but Prego and frozen meatballs are just so much easier and Hannah has grown quite fond of that form. Now I'm guessing my sauce (if I were to make it), might not be as good, so I'm glad that Tony's learning. And the other part of the good news is that Hannah and Nicholas both did like the little bites of meatballs, so the real test will be the spaghetti for dinner tonight!

I think I also did quite well with seeing the mess they made and am also happy to report they did manage to clean up after themselves just fine!!!

Here are a couple pics of the lesson

And then Nicholas had to join the guys too

First Haircut

Nicholas got his first haircut last week. He was a little overdue as he was usually styling some serious wings on the side of his head! He was getting a little slight curl in the back of his head, but the top still seemed pretty straight. So anyway, we headed over to the barbershop last Saturday. The barber is our neighbor across the street. As soon as he set up the little stool for the barber chair and I sat Nicholas down, it all went south from there! Then Jack tried to strap the cape on him and told him he was like Superman - yeah, Nicholas didn't buy that one bit! And then Jack came at him with clippers............oh, boy, Nicholas was pretty much done!

So I offered to sit him in my lap and eventually minus the cape and that worked slightly better, but it was still not going so well.

Then we discovered the ashtray in the side of the chair. That provided a bit of a distraction and allowed Jack to get some cutting done.

I was a little surprised how short he went, but I absolutely LOVE it! It's so super cute! He looks like such a little boy now and not so much a baby anymore. Jack tried shaving his sides and around the back of his neck and ears, but he realized when enough was enough, so he stopped. He offered Nicholas a pretzel stick and after we brushed off most of the hair from our shirts, things were much better.

Here is the little boy all clean cut!

He's dodging the camera pretty good these days, so there isn't a great picture, but, boy, is he cute!

They're off, now she's off

Hannah asked for her training wheels to come off this past Friday night. So we reminded her that once they came off, we wouldn't be putting them back on this time. She wanted them off and wanted to learn to ride without them. So Tony took them off.

He practiced with her for a while. He did the hold on to the back of her approach. She did pretty good, but I don't think she was getting the real feel of how to balance herself.

I'm not sure who seemed more frustrated, Tony or Hannah, so after he went in for the night, I stayed out with her and practiced. I helped her feel how it felt to balance and had her try to start the bike herself from a stopped position. When she'd fall, I made her pick the bike up herself and try again. She took a couple pretty good tumbles, but we practiced until it got dark.

Saturday morning after breakfast, she wanted to go out again, so we did. We did more of the start from a stop and I did a few runs with her down the sidewalk. She again, took several good tumbles and has a gigantic bruise on her left shin, but she was getting so close. It was super hot, so I hosed her and Nicholas down outside and we stopped for the day.

After I cleaned the house Sunday morning, she wanted to go again. I helped her get started and literally had my finger on the middle of her back and gave her a little push and off she went.....down the driveway, turned onto the sidewalk and up the neighbor's driveway all my herself!!!!!!!!!! I ran over to her and screamed for joy! I was so proud of her!!!! She got it on the first try!!!

She was still a bit wobbly, but could go herself! Tonight, she really started perfecting her turns and isn't so wobbly. We got her a new helmet that actually fits, a bell and a kickstand and now we have an official two-wheeler rider! Way to go Hannah!

June wrap up

So safety town ended a couple weeks ago. That was a really busy, hectic week! I was glad I did the evening session, but it did make that week a bit crazy! That Friday after work, we dropped the girls off at safety town and went to dinner with the Hardins and then over to the graduation. Here's Hannah getting her certificate.

And here are the girls after at the fire truck

Nicholas learned the hard way how not to snap the elastic string that goes around your chin on her fire hat!!! OUCH!

I chopped my hair - no pictures though yet - need to do that! I was getting tired of the long same old hair and it was starting to get where it wouldn't iron straight anymore, so I figured I'd start over. I got a bob, with it just a little shorter in the back than in the front, but nothing drastic at all. In fact, Tony complains that it's not that different than it was, just shorter. He's right kind of - it seems I always end up styling it the same. We'll see if I get more bold next cut!

We went to Reese's 3rd birthday party last weekend. I forgot my camera that day, so no pictures from there - boo! Speaking of camera, mine is acting up. It shuts off when I try to use the zoom. I'm not sure if it's the battery or the camera taking a dump on me, but I need to do something - it's really annoying!

Then we went to the Brunswick Home Days fair last Sunday. Hannah got to enjoy riding rides and poor Nicholas just hung out in his stroller.

This is the hardest age for summer. Too little to really do stuff, but big enough that he wants to go. He did good though.

And this is what he had for dinner that night

Wonder where get got this gene???

Fathers Day - better late than never

I'm trying to play a little catch up with the old neglected blog here, and before I can post our 4th of July weekend happenings, I need to be sure to get in the recap of Father's Day.

I had a little outside get away planned, but I needed good weather, so Saturday looked liked the nicer of the two weekend days of Father's day weekend, so we all headed out Saturday morning. I did the driving since only Hannah and I knew where we were going - she's a good secret keeper! I drove towards Port Clinton and Tony realized we were going to go to Put-N-Bay as we got nearer to the marina. My fun surprise didn't get off to a very good start when I explained that we needed to carry Nicholas' car seat with us so we could strap it to the golf cart. We got on the ferry to go over and that went fine - Hannah loved the boat ride. We got off the ferry and got to the first golf cart rental place and managed to get the very last cart they had available for rent - how lucky......(read on)

We got the car seat on, all of stuff situated and everyone buckeled on and off we went, trying to figure out which way to go. Other carts were passing us since our cart was going a bit slow. We got quite a ways down and I was questioning whether we were heading the right way or not, so we pulled over to take a look at the map (everyone was starving by now and we needed to find a restaurant fast). I then confirmed we were going the right direction so we were ready to get going again, until the cart was DEAD! Like didn't just go slow - it didn't go at all!!!! OH, boy.....my "wonderful plan" just got better. So here we are, on an dead golf cart maybe 1/2 mile or more from the rental place with two kids and a hungry dad - what to do? So I called the golf cart rental place - busy, busy, busy. I was worried that they took the phone off since they were out of carts. Do you think anyone stopped to help - no, that would have been too nice! Finally, I got through to the place and the guy said he'd bring us a new cart (not sure where it was coming from, but didn't care at that point). He got there after about 10 more minutes and we switched all the stuff to the new cart and off we went - to find some food!

We finally got to the strip of bars and restaurants and ate at Mr. Ed's outside. It was a perfect weather day and we had a decent lunch. Finally remembered to take a few pictures then....not that there were many photo ops up until then!

Here are Tony and the kids at lunch:

After lunch, we were headed off to find something to do. As we drove around, I looked at Nicholas and wondered where his hat went............guess he didn't want to wear it anymore and threw it off as we drove off. We drove arond and found it sitting on the grass in the park! From everything I read, there is a ton of family stuff to do, but it was just not that lucky of a day for us I guess. The Perry's Monument was closed for construction, so then we headed to the Butterfly House and Perry's Cave. There were tons of cool butterflies, but it was small and didn't take up much time.

Then we went to Perry's Cave. That was neat, but I held Nicholas the entire time, which was fine, but could have been more enjoyable if he was older. It was neat though - no good pictures from there though.

Then we headed back to the main area and the kids rode the carousel.

And then we played in the park for a while.

Then Tony gave me the high sign that he was done, so we headed back. I guess Nicholas had fun!

Check out his golf cart hair!

He actually stayed asleep after taking him out of the car seat and putting him in the stroller. We had a quick snack waiting for the ferry.

Nick finally woke back up just before the ferry ride back over. We got back to the car and headed home. We stopped for dinner on the way home and then everyone pretty much crashed when we got home.

So my trip didn't go as I had hoped, but we had a beautiful weather day and enjoyed some more of what Ohio has to offer and celebrated Tony's special day as a family, so it was great!

Sunday morning, we got up and got ready to go to breakfast with my dad, Julia, Susan & Will and Rachael. It was a nice breakfast. Nicholas was in a great mood, which was nice so everyone could enjoy him! He was being buddies with Grandpa.

And of course Hannah stopped playing puzzle books with Grandma when it was time to open presents!!!

Then we went back home and Tony opened a couple gifts too.

He's been wanting a new tatoo of the kids footprints from when they were born, so now he has to go get it done.

And Hannah made this special paper and a craft for him.

And then we just hung out the rest of the day.

Thanks for being a great Daddy to Hannah and Nicholas Tony! We love you!!!