beach, cars, crackers, and poop...yes, I said poop.

Summer arrived late here in B.C.  We had a cold and rainy June and about half of July.  I was ready for some sun and actually thankful when I was able to head to South Dakota for a bit and enjoy some super hot weather.  The past few weeks here have been gorgeous, and that, combined with my reality that I am going back to work in a few months has made me game for squeezing every last drop of good times with my boys out of these last few days.

Rusty is growing up.  It is like he hit that three year old milestone and has suddenly become such a little man.  He is funny, his reasoning skills are amazing us, he no longer naps, he tells jokes, and he is so, so sweet.  I really enjoy my time with him.  Rocky has better days when Rusty is around.  This fall Rusty started up daycare two days a week again, in lieu of preschool and in order to keep his spot at our daycare.  He loves it and enjoys seeing his friends but Rocky and I?  We miss him.  Kev was saying how I would probably get a lot done and such on those days and I do, but man, the house seems quiet.  I never realized how much I actually talk to him and he talks to me, and how well he keeps Rocky entertained.  Those days when Rusty walks in the door after school Rocky gets the BIGGEST smile on his face.  They are so cute together, those two.  Rusty is so sweet to Rocky and always is his champion.  It is wonderful, truly.  We constantly and consistently pray that their bond will just continue to grow and they will be the best of friends.  The other day we were driving in the car and Rusty piped up and said, "I LOVE Rocky, he is my BEST friend."  It just totally melted my heart.

Anyway, I digress.  With these two beautiful boys around I just want to soak up the time with them before I go back to work in February.  I feel like the hours are ticking away, so I'm trying to do as many fun adventures and activities with them as I can.  With that in mind, yesterday we packed up and went to the beach, and today was spent making some yummy snacks and playing fun games at home.

I love living around here.  There are many beautiful places to visit, and we hit up one of those incredible places yesterday.  I was so excited that one of my very best and dearest friends and her sweet little girl were able to meet up with us.  We had a delicious picnic on the beach, the kids played in the sand-or rather Rocky crawled around in it, ate it, smeared it all over his face and Rusty and Sweet Pea played in it-and we just enjoyed the incredible, God-breathed scenery and the sun beating down upon us.  Rusty loves the beach, and I look forward to many more times there with he and his little brother.

Yes, Rocky IS trying to eat a rock...we promptly moved to the sand!

Which he ALSO ate a lot of!

Love little Sweet Pea!

And I love her pretty mama quite a lot too!

Of COURSE I can't get enough of this boy!

Today was an at home day, of sorts, but probably one of my best days with my little guys in a long time.  Rusty and I made homemade goldfish crackers, we painted, we played cars, we built block roads, we met Daddy for lunch at McDonald's, and we went to the dollar store for a very special reason!

First of all, the goldfish crackers.  I came across the recipe on Twitter and then sent it to my friend Lindsay Dianne.  She is a great chef and cook, and I knew that she would try out the recipe and make any changes that needed to be made.  I wasn't disappointed..she did and the results were amazing!  I took the reworked recipe off of her post about it, and we went to work.  This recipe is incredibly easy, and if you try it, you will love it!

First off, it takes butter, cheese-we used old cheddar, flour, a teensy bit of salt, and water.  That's it.  Five ingredients.  I looked at the actual goldfish label, and even the whole grain ones have 10 ingredients.  That's double, in case your math skills stink.  We are always trying to be more healthy in this house, and this is a recipe I will most definitely be making again.

Before we assembled the ingredients, first I had to make mini "cracker cutters."  They have to be tiny, and the recipe suggested using a pop can.  I cut one into strips and then fashioned four cutters-a heart, a circle, a triangle and, of course, a fish!  I just bent them into shape and then taped them with masking tape along the top.

This morning I coarsely chopped up the cheese and cut the butter into thin strips.  We then threw all of the ingredients into the food processor and we were ready to go.  I'm not sure you could do this in a blender.  I use my blender in lieu of my food processor a lot when I don't want to have to wash the processor, because it is more difficult, but this one, I think, would need a food processor.

Rusty was in charge of pushing the pulse button, and he did great.  After the ingredients got crumbly we slowly added in the water and it was perfect.  We put it in a ball on the table and then rolled it out.

It was SOOOO easy to roll out, and easy to cut with the cracker cutters.  Rusty loved this part!  He cut so many of the pieces and helped me lay them all out on the cookie sheet.  At first I was tempted to double the recipe, but I'm glad I didn't!  This one recipe alone makes a TON of the crackers!

After we got them all cut and laid out on the cookie sheets, I baked them at 350 for fifteen minutes...perfect!  They puffed up nicely and are so crispy and cheesy.  They taste SO much better than the regular crackers, and I think it would be incredibly easy to adjust them.  You could use pepper jack cheese, or add some random spices to change the flavor a bit.  I think they are also a wonderful snack for your children, and are pretty wholesome!  Once Rusty starts daycare full time again, I plan to make them for snacks for his lunch on a pretty regular basis.

Speaking of Rusty, he loves them!  He kept eating the dough raw, which was fine I guess, since there were no raw eggs!  Once they were baked he was crazy for them.  He tried his first one and said, "Mommy, I LOVE them!"  He gave them his famous Rusty Thumbs Up.  It was a fun time together.

We finished our day with lunch with Daddy, playing cars and building block roads while his brother slept.  It was truly an awesome afternoon.

One of the best parts of our day?  Rusty pooped in the potty!  He did it!  He was soooo proud of himself.  He rocked it and we were so excited that I took him to the dollar store to pick out a prize for himself.  He picked a Roberto Luongo goalie stick and we then went home and played hockey in the basement.

I don't mean for this to be all about Rusty by any means.  Our little Rocky is rocking our world these days.  Even though he doesn't talk, he babbles, and babbles!  He is a little jabberbox these days.  He is also EVERYWHERE.  He is a super speedy crawling machine.  He never even did the backwards crawl, just went straight to crawling and is now into everything.  My days consist of hearing his little hands and legs moving on the laminate as he follows me from room to room.  He is a pretty content little guy, and will sit in the living room taking his toys out of the boxes we keep them in for a long time.  He also loves to follow his big brother all over the house, and Rusty is uber patient with his little buddy.

Rocky is crazy for his daddy.  Every morning Kev goes in and gets Rocky up and is always greeted with a huge smile.  Any time that Rocky sees his daddy it is all smiles, in fact.  We stop at Kev's work to see him and it is huge smiles.  Kev comes home from work and Rocky stands holding himself up at the top of the stairs and smiles down at Kevin until he comes up and picks Rocky up.  It is wonderful!

Yep, at the end of the day I had a messy house and two giggling boys.  I would say that is a sign of a successful day!