Successful Sunday! Go, Dyl and Ash!

 Yesterday was a big day (a double big day!).  Not only did another Steg kid learn to ride a bike, but TWO did!   It's been a long time coming for our oldest boy.  Dylan has had NO interest in bike riding.  I mean ZERO!  Which is interesting b/c he really does like challenges and both his older sisters like to ride bikes.  But he just never had any interest and honestly yesterday he was less than thrilled that this was our "plan" for the afternoon.  Ash on the otherhand was happy to know she was gonna learn at the same time as her bro (who is 3 years her senior). She's all about competition. :)  So....out we went on our lazy Sunday afternoon to our fav. bike learning area at Hailey's old school down the street (Batchelor Middle).  Shelb and Hays have both learned here so we figured we'd keep the tradition alive.  Dylan had a great attitude.  He was ready to go. I was surprised.  He was the first to try, but he's a lot bigger than Ash and I think that made it harder initially to coordinate everything.  Ash was her usual independent self...she wanted NO help and was actually mad at us for trying to help her.  She wanted to do it on her OWN!  Finally she gave in and let me help. And guess what...she was got it on her FIRST try!  Not a prob at all!  So just imagine the above pic is me (not Kev)...b/c this was not her first try above...it was a few tries later.  I am sure you can imagine her happiness knowing she accomplished this all before her big brother. 

 There she goes!  Go, Ash!  Riding her bike right before Kindergarten.....didn't I learn then too, mom?  I remember being all skinned up in the face for my Kinder picture at FLCS b/c I fell off my first pink Huffy learning to ride on my own in the street.

 And not too much later, D figured it out....with the help of daddy :)

 Off he goes too!  YAY!  He really rose to the challenge and had a great attitude!
                                           
 There's my two new cyclists!  My 5 and 8 year olds!  They were racing here and D won!  I think this put Ash in a bad mood b/c her attitude went downhill fast after this.  We'll also blame it on very little sleep in the tent the nigh before :)

 A triple race (only wish our ballerina was here to join in the fun of the sib race!)  Shelby ended up winning but I can see why now...she had an obvious lead!

 Logan sat and watched the fun from his speedster :)  He then got in our van and put pennies in our a/c vents.  That was a "nice" surprise.....and below is him at lunch....the tent sleepover obviously wore him out.  He feel asleep eating his mac n cheese!

Soooooo very proud of my two newest bicyclists.  Go, Ash and Dyl!  They can't wait to go on bike rides with us now.  It'll be our number one thing to do when Hays gets home!

Our lazy Saturday...

 A few "snaps" from our awesomely lazy Saturday yesterday.  There is nothing like a 3 day weekend....b/c it just seems to go by sooo much slower.  And we love when time seems to slow down!  We had a yummy grilled chix dinner out on the deck.  I think Ashley said, "this is the BEST chicken ever!".  It was super yumm!  Though you wouldn't know it by the reaction of Logan who was needing a nap.

 Our "fancy" homemade red, white and blue 4th of July popsicles that we didn't eat til the 5th.  I didn't realize that colored sticks turn the liquid that color...AND...even worse...they turn your hands that color!  Most of us had blue hands last night!  Dylan did the star ice and it was our fav!  This all looks especially nice on my Christmas plate, huh?! :)

 He cried over the chix, but he LOVED the popsicle!

 Wishin' our Hays was chillin' with us on the deck eating koolaid ice!

 Can you guess what's going on here?  We can't all share with baby, right?  We have to fight over everything lately!

 After dinner we threw "Pops" (little exploding poppers) on the deck...Logan loved these!

 We also had some good games of marshmallow bow n arrow...can you see the "mellow" in this pic as it shoots through the air! (and can you tell who's coming to eat it!)

 D was excited b/c he hit the center of the target!  Little Man is excited b/c he's gonna eat some "mellow".  Love this bow and arrow from Auntie Sue!

 So, yes, you guessed right...we "backyard camped" for the first time last night.  Shelb helped dad with most of the set-up as seen by yesterday's pic.  Here's our first time in the tents......it was the perfect day/night!  Temps in the 60's!

 Logan's first time camping...he's all ready with his flashlight!  We were very unsure how he'd do out there all night in the Steg Wilderness!

 Finally by 11pm we settled down (after chasing and catching fireflies and doing sparklers and having smores done by broiler in the oven...sorry I didn't take pics!...but it was all very fun and yummy!).  We settled down in the big tent and watched the Lego movie.  Logan and I fell fast asleep (as did daddy, I think), but the other kids made it til almost 1am watching the movie!. 

 And we all slept through the whole night...even lil' Logster!  Isn't he sweet this morning at 6:45...still snoozin!  We all woke up around 7am.  Went in the house and had monkey bread and hot choc!

 Here's a pic this morning of the girls in their tent (the Pooh tent that Dylan won for Easter when he was 1).  It was perfect for two kiddos. 

 And our Aldi bargain from last year...where me and the boys slept.  It also was nice, but daddy said it was not near big enough for him to stretch out.  We might need to invest in a bigger tent...and also some blow up mattresses!   I was the only one with a mattress and it was from the dollar general and didn't really help.  That ground was hard!

 But, all in all it was a successful first backyard campout!  We even got up early enough to cook breakfast (usually we don't do this on a Sunday) AND we made it to church. We were not planning on this.  YAY for us!

 Hailey missed out, but she had a wonderful night at the ballet in Lincoln Center watching Coppelia.

 Isn't this a cool view looking out onto the fountain area?! I haven't seen this before since I've never been inside the building.  It's beautiful!  And apparently you can eat in there?  I don't know. I  haven't talked to Hays in a few days.

Hopefully we'll be talking to her tonight. She's out in Lincoln center taking pics. 
So glad for a restful weekend....our Sunday has been lovely too. I'd better get up and help take down the tent stuff!

A Steg First!

Can you guess what we're doing tonight?!  More pics later....wish us luck! :)

Happy 4th!

 Happy Independence Day from the House of 7 Stegs (well, 6 right now)!  We had a wonderful, eventful 4th here in ol' Bloomy!  Dylan and daddy started off the day bright and early in the parade.  I met my bestie and her girls there and took my lil' guy and my 2 lil' girls.  Sorry no iphone pics b/c I don't own one :)  But we had a grand ol' time!  Logan waved to his heart's content and he just sat in the road near the curb and people threw candy at him...he was in dum dum, tootsie roll heaven!  Maybe that's why he's smiling so contently above! 
                         (ok, I snagged my Bestie, Heather's, fb pic of us after the parade with our babies :))

 I didn't go hog wild with festive treats this year.  I am plum tuckered out honestly and this past week was nutso with swim lessons and friend time!  Our "special" bfast was simply Walmart star 4th of July donuts. And b/c I had had no time to go to the store til today, we didn't eat our fancy smancy lunch til 2pm.  But it was worth the wait.  This flag nacho/taco treat was super yum!

 My one treat of the day was a cookie cake!  I finally made my own regular sized one (first one!)...and it was sugar/white choc (so approved by Kevin)!  Super easy and turned out perfect! The frosting on the otherhand was a hot mess.  I should have known to use my own recipe that was fool proof!  Grr! 

 This is to show the fun we have trying to get a pic of all the kids...and this was minus one!  Logan had too much fun banging his flag on the table.  He is all boy!

 Yep, can't ever get them all looking...or looking "normal" :)

 We'll take it!  I am sure Hailey missed all these shenagins!

 Then it was off to our Best Bud's house for dinner and hanging out!  Perfect weather and fun times....eating good food, playing outside...I think they were doing nerf wars here!

 The best I could get of the crazy toddlers.  They are busy babies this year!

 A serious game of nerf gun!

 Swinging on the swing....so fun!  It was a great day...and we loved spending most of it with our STY fam!  We ended it by driving by our speedway fireworks just as they started at 10pm.  Perfect timing.  Now it's beddy by time and a very down day tomorrow...hurray!

My Hays spent her morning eating Magnolia Bakery surprise deliveries from Nina and Poppy Stegs!  Yummers!!  I am not sure she did much else?  Fireworks were on Brooklyn Bridge side this year so she couldn't see them from her dorm....and all her tvs in the dorm don't work apparently so she couldn't even watch them on tv.  We sure missed her here in town...but I hope she had a good day.  We miss you, Hays!!  Love you sooo much!

Another busy summer day!

I love summer, but I am beginning to feel like it's a continuation of the school year just minus school...

1.  We tried something new today...got up at 6am so Logan could get a nap in before swim lessons and not have a repeat scream-fest like yesterday.  He was NOT happy with me waking him up early (I was honestly not happy with me either...I don't like mornings!)...but he gladly went to bed at 8am and took a nice lil' nappy. 

2.  He had his best swim lesson yet!  He hardly screamed at all and this was on a day it was 60 degrees out.  YES, that is WAAAY too cold to swim in a pool!  We all had blue lips after for about an hour!  At least Log and I were in the heated pool. What awesome July weather...just NOT for swim lessons! :)

3.  We raced off to our sweet teacher friend's new house to see her renovations.  Loved seeing them and the kids had a ball with theirs!  Got me itching to have a better space to live in again, but then I remember how stressful it would be to move and the itch went away!  But it was fun to see old friends and catch up!  I did feel awful b/c Loggy was super duper tired and at one point he playfully hit his buddy, Elijah on the head with a ball and hurt him.  This is like last time when he scared him with his screams.  I felt awful.  Thankfully Eli is a laid back kid!

4.  We raced to another friend's house to pick up Shelby's friend to come over to play...

5.  My sweet neighbor friend came over to share about her awesome mission trip to Africa!  You rock, Maddie girl!

6.  We raced Shelby off to a farewell bday party for a school friend...

7.  We went to fireworks at a nearby church (since we might not see any tomorrow).  It was fun and Logan loved it. He just ate his dum dum and kept pointing and saying "what's that?"!  Finally he fell asleep on my shoulder.  It was a quick, easy way to see fireworks close to home. It made me miss 4th of July at the cabin though. 

8.  And now it's a late night and we have to get up early so my oldest boy and hubby can be in the Bloomy parade for cub scouts.  It was fun to watch them last year, so I'm excited to do it again...but not excited about the early morning.

9.  Wish my Hays was here.  She said she was going to bed at 8 something tonight...she was exhausted.  Not sure she has ever done this!  Tomorrow she is nixing Bronx Zoo holiday outing and staying with friends near Lincoln Center. She won't see any fireworks this year (last year she had an awesome view!)...but they moved them to Brooklyn Bridge this year.  We'll miss her at our STY get-together!

Happy Almost 4th everyone! Sorry, no pics. Kev didn't get to see the fireworks tonight so no iphone pics...he had to pick up Shelb from her party....

Question of the day...

When is the best time to take a nap?

Logan would say "during swim lessons!":)

Yes, the lil' Logster fell fast asleep today at the tail end of his swim lessons. :) 

It was quite a sight!

He had his "screamiest" lesson ever and I should have guessed why.  He really screams his loudest when he's tired. 

We were on our final round of "wheels on the bus" and sure enough...I look down in my arms and my lil' guy and he's fast asleep. 

God love that kid.  

A Happy/Sad Day :(

 I'm trying to focus on the "happies" of today, but let's just say I'm not doing my best mama job of being optimistic.  But I will say first off that we did have some fun today out in the ol' backyard just playing water balloons and slippin' on the old slip n slide.  Check out Logan's cheeks flapping in the wind/water! LOL!  Love that funny boy.  If you remember, last summer he pretty much despised the slip n slide.  This year, he LOVED it!  Even when he ran...

 ...and slipped...and slid on his tushy!

 Dylan had a grand ol' time as well! Shelb and her bud, Audrey, and Ash had a great time too, but I didn't capture them on iphone.  They grew bored once the water balloons were gone...and those things just don't last long enough!

 The sad news is that our kitty, Samantha (Sam), is sick...with early stages of renal failure.  I am sad.  She is 16 years old and we kinda had a feeling something was off when we discovered one of our two twin girls was peeing in our basement a few months ago.  She can still live a long life, but she will need to be on a special potassium high diet (icky soft food!).  She might also need to get special sub q fluids often like she did today.  Being and old geriatric cat is no fun :(  That's what Sam's thinking in this pic :(  She's also prob. thinking, "I need my Hailey right now!" (Hailey is her best bud!)

And our poor Sydney (Syd)...she went ballistic when her sister was gone for 4 hours today.  She howled at the backdoor for her.  They are glad to be reunited and I hope they both have each other for many years to come.

So, a happy/sad sorta day.  Also say a lil' prayer for our Hays...her blisters are quite painful and I know she's trying her best to fight through the pain, but it's gotta be tough :(  I hope she can find the blister bandaids she needs in NYC :(  Love you, Hays!