Welcome Lucy!

My childhood friend, Melanie, just had her second baby- a little girl named Lucy! Such a sweet name for a sweet little girl. Mel is one of THOSE friends- smart, beautiful, talented, skinny (even after two kids!), and funny, but easy to love. I miss her lots and am sad that it will probably be quite a while before I get to meet Lucy in person, but I'll love her through pictures! Congratulations Mel, Tim, and Connor!

The Happy Couple

So this is Mr. and Mrs. Tock! My Mom and John were married on the 24th in a little private ceremony in Escondido, California. Doesn't my mom look so cute and stylish?
Congratulations Mom and John! We are so happy for you and we love you! Looking forward to seeing you next week.

Anyone up for a swap???

Ok, so here it is, 1:00 in the morning and I have been laying in bed NOT sleeping. I don't know what the problem is, but I just can't seem to fall asleep. So here I sit at my trusty computer killing time until my eyelids start to droop. I've been reading all sorts of other blogs and came across a fun thing to do. I'd like to try to do a stationery swap...Basically, it would work like this. Participants would be paired up with a partner and then they send each other some cute, fun stationery- you could buy it, or make it, or both...whatever! I know I love getting things in the mail and I love pretty much all paper products, so if there is anyone else out there like me, drop me a note in the comments and we'll get it going. We'd probably have to put a limit on the amount of money spent, just to keep it sort of fair for everyone- maybe $20 or something like that. And feel free to pass this on to any of your friends and fellow blog readers and invite them to join in too. It would be fun to make new friends through the mail. I'll wait a week or so to see if there is any interest (like I said, if interested, post a comment at the bottom of this post or you can e-mail me) and then I'll post again with all the details.

It's been a hot one...

The last week has been soooo hot here- at least in the 90's most days and very humid too. I almost thought I was back in Florida for a little while, except for the lack of rain. We've been in the midst of a drought around here too, which has been wreaking havoc on the crops in the area. But last night, we finally had some rain for the first time since early June and I could just imagine the dances that all the farmers were doing. Hopefully there will be more to come, but we'll take what we can get. The rain also brought with it some cooler weather today too! To beat the heat, we've spent the last couple of days at the pool. If it's that hot, you may as well just go with it and be in the water at least.

Jackson checking out the ladies at the pool...

In between two days at the pool, we spent an afternoon at Julia's house playing in her pool and eating bubbles.

And this just cracked me up. I found Jackson here the other day. This is the cabinet that we keep all of his toys in in the living room. It's easy for him to open it up and get to his things on his own so it's kinda nice. Apparently he decided it would also make a fun hiding spot. He pulled ALL of his toys out and then got in. He was quite content to stay in there and play for about ten minutes.

Work=Fun

It's not very often that I really equate work with fun, but I really do enjoy my job at the flower shop. I enjoy the creative outlet and I think it makes it more enjoyable knowing it's not somewhere I have to go every day! I worked by myself today and had to do some arrangements for a funeral coming up so it was a busy day, but it made the time pass quickly. So I thought I'd show you a little bit of what I did today...

Only in a small town...

can you walk to the park on a Thursday night and eat dinner for free. That's what we did the other night. The city utility companies got together and had "Customer Appreciation Night" so we had ribeye sandwiches, hot dogs, chips, watermelon, drinks, and ice cream....FREE! I tried to get some pictures from our picnic evening but forgot to check the batteries in the camera before we left-oops. But if I had taken pictures (use your imagination here) you would have seen a picture of Jackson eating watermelon which meant that there was pink water ALL over him. We ended up having to take his pants off of him for the walk home because he was so wet. You also would have seen a picture of Todd getting pooped on by a bird while he was eating his dinner. Funny.

I also worked today at the flower shop and will work again tomorrow so things have been a bit busy. And the other big news is that my mom left St. Louis yesterday for her new home in Glendale, AZ. She and John are getting married on the 24th in California in a little tiny ceremony. I'm hoping that they'll send us some pictures so that I can post a picture of the happy couple-hint hint!

These are some pictures I took of my sweet boy playing outside the other day. He is such a boy-loves to play with sticks and rocks! So that's all for now.

Cheap Entertainment

So, the budget has been reinstated at the Vogel house which means we are having to practice a little restraint and creativity to entertain ourselves these days. Last night, we had the best night for the low, low price of about $7. After dinner, we decided to head out to the golf course and hit some balls at the driving range. Todd loves to golf, and I'm interested in learning so we loaded Jackson up and headed out. Bonus that it was a beautiful evening so it was very pleasant being outside. We just put Jackson in his stroller and he sat and watched as we hit golf balls. Surprisingly, he was very entertained. Of course, I probably would be entertained by watching my mother swing a stick at a little white ball over and over and the ball always staying in the same spot, while she jumped up and down and made funny noises. But I did finally get the hang of it after a few pointers from my very patient husband and started doing pretty well. I'm looking forward to doing it again sometime soon and maybe even playing 9 holes some morning with Todd. On the way home, we stopped at Hardies to get a yummy chocolate milk shake for dessert. Those are my favorite! And then after Jackson went to bed, Todd and I sat outside on the deck and got a fire going in the fire pit and spent the rest of the evening outside talking and enjoying each other's company. It was the best date we've had in a while. And the fun carried over to this morning, at least for me. Todd wanted to get the oil changed in the van, so he took Jackson with him and the boys spent the morning at Wal-Mart while I spent the morning reading and sleeping. It was quite heavenly. So we'll see what sort of other cheap adventures we can find in the next couple weeks. If anyone has any other fun, cheap ideas, please pass them on!

Summer projects

One of the projects on my list can finally be crossed off. We finished painting the kitchen cabinets, or at least are 95% done. A moth flew into two of the doors before they were still dry so they have to be repainted. Stupid moth. But I really like the way it looks. The kitchen is tiny and the dark cabinets really closed it in, so the white brightens it up and makes it feel not so claustrophobic. There are still some things I don't like about the cabinets, like the the little decorative wood ruffle above the sink, but we've decided that we aren't going to put a ton of time, effort, and money into this house because it really is only a starter house since it just has two bedrooms. Fine for us now, but when another baby comes along, could be a little crowded. But I do love our little house and it definitely feels like home. As for the rest of the things on the list of summer projects, we'll see what happens. It took us a lot longer to get this done than we thought, so maybe we'll just quit while we are ahead!

The fake cry

Only 9 months old and the attempts at manipulation have begun...Jackson has figured out the fake cry. Unfortunately for him, so have his parents. For example, he always wants whatever mom has. I was drinking some water the other day and he came over and started moaning for some out of my straw. I obliged him happily, but after a few minutes, it was getting a little tiring, so I stopped.


And fake meltdown begins with some whining and screwy faces...

Full fake meltdown consists of dropping to the floor and closing eyes just enough so that he can still peak out to see if we are buying it and then scrunching up the rest of his face to make it look real, and then some really fake crying that sounds sort of like "ahhhhhhh, ahhhh"...you get the idea.

Boat Ride

Part of the fun of the Lakes is taking the boat out for a spin every day. There are HUGE, gorgeous houses all along the water that are so fun to look at from the boat and you can see a great sunset in the evenings too. I even went skiing one day! Boy, have I forgotten how hard that is! I definitely had some sore muscles. Here is Jackson on his first boat trip.

















Max helping Uncle Todd drive the boat.







Jackson really didn't like it when we tried to put his life jacket on him for the trip.

Vogel Family Vacation

We had a great time at the Lakes and are back and busier than ever. We had great weather so the guys enjoyed playing golf every day and the girls enjoyed the pool as much as you can with kids! This was my first "vacation" experience with a child so it was definitely interesting. Jackson was great though, despite his first teeth making their appearance. These are my wonderful sisters-in-law, Ally and Lizzie, with Max and Ella.
Jackson enjoying the sun and water. We were very thankful for the little sun canopy over his floaty as he seems to have fairer skin.
This is Cousin Lilly, who is 6 weeks old! It was fun for her other cousins to meet her. They were very curious of such a little one. Jackson just wanted to poke her in the eyes.