In the first panel, going clockwise from the upper-hand left photo:  1. The last of the glorious donuts from a Krispy Kreme run. 2. Through a combination of Pinterest and YouTube links, I began to learn to crochet on New Year’s Day; on this day, I was nearly done with my first project (a scarf). 3. The glorious coupon for a free dozen glorious donuts. 4. Neighborhood cat who likes to wander through our yard and watch the kids play.  Later in the day, this cat ran into our house, up the stairs, and darted underneath the daybed in the playroom. That darn cat! 5.  Silly boy posing by some wall ads during our glorious donuts run. 6. The husband and I donated blood and they gave us each a little soup mug. 7. Crazy weather day: 70 degrees in January?!  8. My boys sitting on the step down into our living room, having some clementines while watching football with their daddy.

Then, the final two photos (from top to bottom):   9. Stomp rockets are fun, especially when they end up on the roof of the house!  10. Boys like the strangest things; here I am shown details about the largest octupus with the most tentacles ever.  I knew they would like this edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.

It was a nice start to the new year for us; I hope y’all had an equally nice day. Now please go visit my friend Amy Ames with her Ten on Ten for this month!

Thanks again, y’all. Happy New Year!

1.  Mr. Blue Eyes.  This has too much blue in it…on purpose! I love those blue eyes of his.  I suspect I was practicing using a new lens I’d gotten for Christmas (35mm).

2. This was a rainy day in early Spring. It had been a long winter and we wanted out of the house! We didn’t care if it meant getting rained on; it was so nice to be outside again.  And, yes, there was puddle-jumping.

3. Oh I’m laughing just looking at this photo! This was at the end of a day we spent at a sort of a fair with the local moms’ group. The boys waited (not so) patiently in line for these balloon art creations (one had an alien, one had a ray gun) and were so overjoyed by them, they actually cooperated for a photo.  You will not be surprised to hear that the balloons did not last too long — maybe an hour? — before they popped.

4.  This was on Easter morning.  You might have guessed this was not the one we shared with the grandparents; this was the one I agreed to take if they would smile nicely for the camera for the grandparents’ photo.  But it’s them; it’s so very them!

5. The pool had just opened for the summer and they were ready to go swimming! For some reason, they were also willing to pose for me (and by pose, I mean not jump around like wildmen, making it an extra focusing challenge), and I took them up on it.  They put themselves into the inner tube, by the way, completely on their own.

6. Just before they started first grade, we went to the childrens’ museum for the afternoon.  They paused for a moment to allow me to get a photo before rushing off to swarm the shaved ice street cart (hence the semi-cooperative smile on one of the boys).

7. This was from our visit to the USS North Carolina (decommissioned Navy battleship as seen in this earlier post). They had to examine everything on-board, and usually that included touching everything, too–even when the sign said NO TOUCHING. Boys.

8.  The first of the Instagram bunch, this was taken when this boy was home sick with a little stomach bug.  He brought his Lambie with him to the bus stop to wait for his brother to get home from school.

9. We bought a house in Raleigh in the fall and this was taken on our new home’s front steps.  We are all crazy in love with our new home.  Just not the acorns.

10.  Another Instagram capture. Along with a new home comes the need to constantly “run” to Lowe’s to get this, that, or the other thing.  The boys usually found ways to amuse themselves while their father and I debated paint finishes or the merits of different door knob styles; on this particular day, they spent a significant amount of time switching these lights on and off, on and off, on and off.

11. They made faces when they opened the assortment of Mad Libs books we gave them for Christmas, but I knew they’d come around to the tons of fun you can find in the total silliness of doing Mad Libs with a friend (or your brother). And, after all the Legos had been assembled and video games been mastered, they grudgingly gave Mad Libs a whirl…and guess what? Mama was right.  But I didn’t gloat. Too much.

This post is part of the Top 11 of 2011 Link-Up.  Check out the others!

We enjoyed a family game night in the lull between Thanksgiving and busting out the Advent Calendar.  Once upon a time, in my Single Girl days, I lived in the metropolitan Washington DC area, and when I was moving away, was given a DC-themed Monopoly set to remember the town by.  After our recent move, the kids unearthed the board game and immediately became obsessed with it, and demanded that we have ourselves a little family game night and play some DC Monopoly. There were some temper tantrums when people landed on the White House (this version’s Boardwalk), but for the most part, we had a fun time. Here’s my 10 on 10: ten moments from that night.

It is rather outdated, as the Monopoly money is imprinted with a DC-area bank that is no more (well, it merged with another bank in 2005), one of the properties is US Air Arena (which was renamed in 1996 and demolished in 2002), and you can own the former Washington Bullets basketball team (they changed their name to the Wizards in 1995).  But it never fails to tickle me when I build hotels on the Lincoln Memorial or charge rent on the Pentagon.

Now please go check out the super-talented Nicki Griffith!

Thanks again for spending an afternoon with me, you two cuties!

My photos come from a day near the end of August. My family and I took a little mini-vacation to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Just after we left, Hurricane Irene showed up, so it seems we actually had good timing for once!  It was a quick little trip, but we got in a lot of good beach time and even got to see a decommissioned battleship in nearby Wilmington on our way back home.

We hit the beach right after breakfast.

Some of us are fearless and immediately wade right on in.

While others of us prefer to play a little closer in.

A boy and his trusty bucket

Hey seagull, what’s up?

Back to the surf

Then it was time to check out of the hotel and head home…with a little Battleship detour!

On the deck of the battleship is a WWII-era bomber. It turns out that my grandfather flew this kind of plane (among others) in his Navy pilot days.  The boys are very impressed.

Down deep in the (incredibly hot) innards of the battleship, there were dials and whatnot galore.

You will find lots of things to climb and windows (sorry, I mean portholes) to peer into on a battleship. Especially if you are a seven-year-old boy.

Talk about Seven-Year-Old Boy Heaven! Giant guns they let you sit on (no live ammunition, naturally).

I’m so very glad to have joined this group for this project and am excited to see everyone’s contributions for September.  Here’s a link to Faye Kingston’s Ten on Ten; I’m sure you’ll enjoy them a great deal.