A little summer TV

Okay, so I admit it. I watch waaayy too much television. I like it because I can relax and not have to actually do anything. And it can be pretty darned entertaining. I tend not to be able to watch shows as they're on, so I love my dvr where I can watch them later. Whoever invented that thing is a genius. They need it for the radio though, since it throws me off and I think I should rewind to hear what they just said. Maybe that will be the next invention.

Typically in the past, summer television hasn't been all that great. Reruns and reality tv. Great. The last couple of years have actually had some good summer series shows going on, so I'm getting pretty excited about some old favorites of mine starting their new seasons. That fun all starts this week.

On Thursday, the second season of Burn Notice starts. When it first came out last year, I wasn't sure it would be one I would be interested in. Much to my delight and surprise, I really like this one. Ex-spy (he got burned, which is why he's no longer a spy) who does spy-like jobs for people who are in jams, all the while trying to figure out why he got burned and how he can clear his name. Action and humor. What can be better?



On Friday, the new season of Stargate Atlantis starts. This one I can see it or miss it and it's not a big deal, but I do like to watch it. Usually it's watched a few days or weeks after it's originally aired when I finally get to watching it on my dvr. Still entertaining though.



Next Friday, the new season of Psych starts. This one has me laughing out loud on a regular basis. It comes on right after Monk, for those who are Monk fans. I've never quite gotten into Monk, but it's pretty popular. If you're not familiar with Psych, it's about a guy who basically has a photographic memory and whose dad taught him how to be hyper-observant who pretends to be psychic to work with the police department. He named his psychic p.i. office "Psych."




On the 29th, the new episode of Eureka starts. I was up until after 11 watching last season's finale since they were actually showing it again on SciFi. This is another one that has me laughing out loud on a regular basis.



Have you noticed the shows I like are all on USA or on SciFi? Interesting. Whatever the channel though, I'd say I'm in summer TV heaven.

Swimming lessons again

Today was the first day of Level 1 swimming lessons for Ben and Preschool swimming lessons for Alex. They both seemed to have a really good time.

Ben says he likes this class better than his last one because there's just one girl and the rest are boys. He was basically the only boy in his last class because the boy who was in it wouldn't go in the water and his mom stopped trying to get him to.

Alex impressed me with the way he paid attention to his teacher and would volunteer to be the first to try things. He said his favorite thing was floating on his back. He's very excited to go again tomorrow.

Here are some pictures I took today:

This is Alex floating on his back:


Alex on the stairs at the beginning of his class:


Alex playing with the boats in class:


Ben is doing a glide/dive thing here:


This is Ben's class. He's on the left. Sorry, it's a bit dark (this is the one the flash was on with the camera.)

Tagged - A Closer Look

De tagged me, so here goes:
1. My kitchen sink


2. Inside my fridge


3. My favorite shoes


4. Inside my closet (you can't see all of it from this view, so sorry.


5. My laundry pile (today is laundry day)


6. What my kids are doing now





7. My favorite room (you'll notice I left the pantry door open...I love my pantry


8. My recent purchase (we went to the dollar store and stocked up)


9. A dream vacation - it's nothing big or too exotic or exciting. I just really want to be able to take my husband and kids to my mission areas.


10: A self-portrait. The one on top is from today, the one on bottom is so you can see what I look like when I leave my hair down



Okay, now I tag Lisa, Jill (do a new post, Jill!), and whoever else wants to do it. :)

Our 4th of July

So I'm finally posting pictures and stuff about our 4th of July.

We had a fairly lazy day. The boys mostly played video games with their dad during the day. We did bbq some hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner, then did fireworks at about 8:00 that night. Bryce tends to go overboard when buying us fireworks, so they spent an hour and a half doing fireworks that night, followed by another hour on the next night.

Here's Bryce lighting fireworks for the boys. He would sit in the chair and light the fireworks (flowers and bombs) and throw them to the street.



Ben and Alex playing with sparklers:




Ben and Alex sitting in the grass watching the fireworks:




The only fireworks Chris really liked were the smoke bombs. They didn't make loud noises and just made pretty smoke. He of course especially liked the yellow ones.

Here are Ben and Alex (Chris wasn't that brave) playing in the smoke from the smoke bombs:




This is how Chris spent most of the time during the fireworks. He's a bit scared of them and sat on my lap shaking the whole time we were actually able to get him to go outside. He was a little braver the second night and watched a few from inside the garage.

Busy morning

I got up this morning thinking it would be a normal morning, but it ended up being a bit on the busy side. And a little stressful as I'd take the 4 boys with me places and have to try to get them to keep up or to listen or to calm down. I have to admit, I'm a bit on the cranky side now from having to do all that too.

I had been watching Daniel for a couple days because he's had a bit of a cold and started pulling on one of his ears. After his couple of ear infections and pneumonia since February, I'm a little more cautious about that with him. He is teething, so I thought there was a chance that it was all just related to that and would go away as soon as the tooth cut through. This morning he was coughing a bit and still pulling on the ear, only he would start to cry if I set him down on the ground and would take two steps away. I decided that I'd better take him in to see the doctor, especially with the holiday weekend. The appointment was at 9:15, and it was about 8:15 when I made the appointment, so I had to finish getting myself ready and had to tell Ben and Alex to get dressed so we could load up in the van at 8:45 to head down there. We did manage to get all loaded up and on our way to the doctor by about 8:55, so that was pretty good. Ben, Alex, and Chris all really liked the toys they had in the waiting room, so it took a bit to get them all into the examination room when they called us back. Then they decided it would be a good idea to yell in the little echoing room. I did get them to be quiet while the doctor was trying to listen to Daniel's lungs at least. Anyway, Daniel does indeed have an ear infection again. I scheduled a follow-up appointment in 2 weeks and then we got loaded back into the car.

After we were loaded into the car, we picked up some breakfast (the kids got to eat a little, but not much before we had to leave, so I picked us up some food) and then went to Costco to fill Daniel's prescription for Augmentin. Taking the 4 boys to the store by myself is never very fun, but at least at Costco they have the double-seater, so I could put Chris and Daniel in the front and make Ben and Alex in the basket so they were contained a bit. I did have to remind them to sit down a few times though.

We got home from picking up the prescription and had about a half hour to eat before we had to leave again to take Ben to swimming lessons. Of course when it was time to go, Chris decided he needed to go to the bathroom (rather slowly, I might add). So we were running a little late to begin with, then it took 15 minutes (literally) to get from the van into the rec center because of Chris. I had to pick him up a couple of times to get him moving. So Ben was about 5 minutes late to his last day of this session of swimming lessons. He had a good time though. He got to go down the slide a couple times, they rode in a canoe in the big pool, got to play with little squirty balls, and finally got their certificates of completion. He's really excited to start the next session on Monday, and Alex is very excited to be able to start lessons too. Of course, it did take another 5 minutes to get ready to go back to the van because Alex had decided to take off his shoes while we were waiting for Ben's lesson to finish and it took him a bit to be able to get them back on.

Now we're finally home and the boys are getting lunch and hopefully I can go hide in my room for a few minutes so I can stop being cranky. :)