Arr! Me Hearties!

Dancing Pirate: just kidding...
Draw yer weapons!

M bent over to see what I was bending over to look at!

The friendly, blanket-carrying type of pirate....

Fun Stuff!

Sunday Snippet

“For nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own,”
Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

Our First Family Movie Night

We celebrated our acquisition of The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything movie by having our first movie night. L got to stay up after bedtime and we turned the couch to face the TV and turned out all the lights to make it more like the movie theatre.

It was a great time, and we look forward to doing it again when Wall-E comes out!

L posing with the leaves he's collected...

And M just being adorable...

Fun Moments

USA Best Book Awards

Hip, hip, hooray! I placed as a Finalist in the Fiction-Young Adult category! You can see the full awards listing here! Everything is alphabetical, so scroll way down to Fiction, and then to Young Adult! The Finalists are listed alphabetically by title!

Here's hoping that if they noticed The Pillar of Light, then some of the other awards may find it note-worthy as well!

Sunday Snippet

Mama: "Finish your green beans before the bell rings and you can have a little ice-cream."

L (in a small, thoughtful voice): "Nooo... I don't want a little ice-cream, I want a big ice-cream."

From the Nana Cam

I have recently aquired a copy of Nana's photos, so I'm going to pic out some of the really cute ones and post them occasionally, as some of them are too sweet not to be shown off!

Runners and Wrigglers

Zoom, zoom, zoom!

For some reason our boys love playing with potatoes.

At least once a week! They are too funny!

M's first experience with paint! We would have done it sooner, but our paints were still packed up from when we boxed up everything back in May!


And we found a Giant Leopard Moth caterpillar in the yard today. L is on the phone, telling Nana all about the thing!We will have to let it go soon, as this kind of pillar hibernates all winter, then wakes up in the spring and starts eating before it does its turn-into-a-moth miracle trick.

Apple Pie

So we set up shop in the living room, at a table M could reach and peeled tons of apples. One of my favorite bloggers had passed on some recipes for apple butter and freezer apple pies. I made a big batch of apple butter, and 4 bags of

ready-to-throw-into-the-crust apple pie filling!

And here's a picture of one of the finished pies...yummy!

(Sorry the pic is crooked, blogger keeps flipping it for some reason)

Having Fun

We now have pictures of both boys hiding in here...

L's latest Lego creation.

Taking Bunny to bed. Sweet dreams Bunny.

Learning lots! Both of us!

Christmas is Coming...

Well, having just celebrated Aunt Lindsay's birthday, that means it is the time of year I officially have to start thinking about Christmas! As the Mama it is my duty to be ready when friends and family ask if there's anything special we're looking for, and then be sure to coordinate stuff so we don't get 4 copies of the same gift!

So, in answer to this I've started a second blog, the Travis Family Wish List. There are no photos, but plenty of links and it organizes the whole thing rather well.

I especially love the label feature! In the left hand column there are labels you can click on. If you want to look for educational gifts, click the label and it will display all the gift ideas for that category. Whether you're looking for something for the whole family, for both boys, or books we'd like to own, simply click on the label and it will bring up the right items for you!

If you decide to get something for our family from the Wish List, please leave a comment under that gift's post, or email me to let me know. I will then mark the item as being taken, to avoid duplicates.

I will be maintaining the list, so that family can check it for other occasions, such as birthdays.

100th Post!

Tada! This is my 100th post, and I thought it would be the perfect time to share the pics we got from Nana of the boys' first trip to Disney!

Nana, L, M and I all went up to Orlando and had a great time playing in the hotel pool.

Here's L chilling a bit after our fun time swimming. He had so much fun in the pool, and had drained so much energy in his excitement of going to Disney that wanted to go to bed before 6pm!

The next day we got up and met Ronnie (brother of my bestest friend in high school) at a McD's on Disney property. We had breakfast and then followed Ronnie's car past the parking booths for Animal Kingdom, and then Ronnie got us Park Hopper Passes for free (he works for Disney)! He swiped his ID, told a guy he wanted 3 passes and they popped out of machine seconds later.

Let me tell you something, Disney is truly magical when your tickets print out for free! We were able to spend money on some treats and souvenirs without worrying about it!

Here we are on a train in Animal Kingdom...

Waiting to see the Lion King Show! As L put it "....wow..."

Riding the flying dinos!

We had such a great time!

Even More Fun in Ft. Pierce

M followed the road Pappy was making all over! It was hysterical!