Summer Is Here!

I have decided that summer is here, even if it's not hot every day (or even warm for that matter)! My kids don't care - being kids they have that play-in-the-water-till-your-lips-turn-blue thing going on. L has been given the job of filling up the kiddie pool (we'll break out the bigger one when the heat really kicks in), and I pointed the slide into it. That was quite a hit!
M at the sandbox...

King of the camera! Remember when he was hiding from it?

After all that awesome, energy-burning fun, this is where they ended up for the last bit of their day..

Pappy missed the memo...

Yeah... I think they forgot to send Pappy the memo about getting "old." Either that or they decided he could have a few extra decades. As you can see, he can still fly. And I have walked the crazy trail he rides that bike on. Or should say hiked. Honestly, my daddy is in better shape than anyone I know - including myself! It's a blessing he's married to my moma, I don't think anyone else could keep up with him!

No dogs were harmed in the jumping of this bike (as if you could harm Dixie. She's like a brown version of the Hulk).

Another Video Clip

My own personal Evil Knievil (how is that spelled?). M is definately related to his Pappy. I don't try to encourage this stuff, but as I had finally convinced him to hold on with his hands, I thought it was safe to sneak a little camera time in!

G for George

Daddy snuck a shot of story time. I've been pulling out Curious George books from my hidden library stash all week. George is great, isn't he?!

We practiced our campfire safety this morning (not pictured, as I was busy monitoring the safety-ness). It was really, really, really fun. The boys both stayed seated as they were told, and enjoyed roasting a marshmallow for snack time over our little tin-can-fire-pit. After we put out the fire they got up and ran their sillies out...

Then I surprised them with another book, Curious George Goes Camping, and that was a real hit. L wanted to read through it twice (he is just getting to where he can sit through a book two times!) and found the fires interesting. Like how the people sat around the fire, and how they can be fun, but we must be careful. Course he also likes it when the skunk gets George. Poor George, he really does get himself into situations!

On a monetary note, some of you may have noticed some ads in the left hand column. I started an AdSense account. Anytime you click on the ad link my account will be credited a small amount (whether you buy anything or not), and I get a little check once a month. The ads should be filtered in comparison for content, so while you might see some for solar power or crafts or homeschool supplies or feeding the poor, you shouldn't see any rated R links (Google has policies against that). So if you have a minute (or ten seconds), please check out a link (I'm not allowed to, or they'll shut down my account, and rightly so)!

Boys will be boys

I'm fairly certain these pics speak for themselves...

Our Egg Safari

So here we are hunting for dinosaur eggs. I went and hid them in the back edge of the yard (we intentionally leave it pretty natural back there), and then we teamed up to explore the yard. Here's their little "nest."

Discovery!

Anybody in there?

"Helping" the baby dinosaur hatch. Funny how my son firmly believed that there would be a dinosaur in that egg, rather than the empty balloon we built it around.

Tada! (I say that a lot, don't I? Maybe that's why M says it...anyways) Here's our busted eggs with one of the dinosaurs. The other one had already stomped off through the "woods."

We put the eggs in the recyling. Oh, and our dinosaurs were a simple dino shape cut out in three layers. The middle (white) layer was taller than the others and had spikes. I laid them all together and blanket-stitched around the edges.

Happy hunting!

So happy together...

Man, we have been having fun! These pics are all from the Nana Cam! M freaked out when Nana let L use it to take a couple of pictures. Man, was he mad!

He got to sit on her lap and take a picture. Of himself. Isn't that hysterical?

And this is us having some fun with sword practice! M likes to hold out his sword and yell "Aaaagghhh..." as he charges.

Two against one.

Getting ready to go see the fish at Bass Pro Shop. They have a massive tank, and it's a real fun trip, because the mall also has a Medieval Times, so we get to check out the castle too!

Moose alert! Bass Pro is always full of strollers. That's what happens when your store is decorated with life-size bears, moose, raccoons, fish, airplanes and mannequin men running over rickety bridges.

Fort Fun

So we had a fort this weekend, which was lots of fun. Which we needed, as M has been rather cranky. He's normally loud anyways, but he has been ultra-loud the last 3 or 4 days. So we needed something fun and different for a bit (which is why we played hide-n-seek in the (semi) dark for an hour Saturday). Anyways, here's some shots of our fort. We built it over the tepee tent and the couch, using some frames from a baby playmat for structure (we use them for many, many, many things).

This week we are studying the Letter E. I can't wait, there are so many fun E things!

January Outdoor Fun

These pics are from January 27th, when we got our first snow this winter. This was M's first time of playing in the snow (last winter he was still crawling and had zero interest). When we first stepped out the door he was uncertain and refusing to wear his gloves. A few minutes later he was shuffling along through the fluffy, very, very powdery stuff with a priceless look of curiosity on his face. What did God do to our yard last night? After all, his big brother ran around that morning shouting, "Mama, God made snow!" Shortly after that he discovered the unpleasant sensation produced when mixing snow with bare, baby hands, and was willing to put on his gloves. He literally squealed with joy when he realized they meant he could touch the white stuff!

L and I had so much fun! No snowballs (way too fluffy), but the stuff is still really fun to throw at your Mama! We ran, threw snow, threw more snow, ran some more, and followed some bunny tracks (we've got some that live in the way back of the yard)!

It was awesome!!!

We're Starting a Band

We went downstairs to visit the boys for a few minutes, and Mr. David broke out some of their toys. M has never played with drums before, but he grabbed the sticks and went right at it. They had a ton of fun!