Oh, boy.

You know you've been on the computer way too much lately if you mistake the orange square light on the dash board for an RSS feed icon.

Tuesday activities

This year all of our activities are in two days. So tonight we started with ballet. Jayla is a little nervous being the youngest and tiniest one, but she loves it! Nevermind the boots....she changed just before class began. :) This is her first year in a "real" ballet class, not a "little kid" ballet/tap class. We'll see how she handles it, but so far so good!

 

Next was Girl Scouts (Jayla is the only one wearing her blue tunic!)

 

and Cub Scouts. (Jonathan is on the right with no hat, Jacob is two to his right facing the camera....he was in and out a couple of times.)

 

These are both at the same time and same location! This is Jayla's first year for GS after trying American Heritage Girls last year (we loved it but it didn't work out well with our schedule) and Jonathan's 3rd year for CS.

Thankfully there is a nice playground outside for the two younger boys.

 

 

 

Jack decided grass really doesn't taste as good as it looks,

 

but the climbing was totally awesome!

 

And I just HAD to get some close-ups of their cute little faces before it got too dark. (I don't like to use the flash.) It's amazing what a little editing can do. Don't they just make you melt? :)

 

 

 

Superheroes of all kinds!

Jonathan has been playing on Marvel Kids lately, and these are all of his creations!

Another new pet

Myles found a little toad in our yard yesterday while it was raining. Jonathan loves all kinds of animals but especially reptiles and amphibians, so he begged to keep it. So the deal is that he needs to keep a notebook every day and jot down little thing about the toad like what he ate, if anything, his color, activity, etc. just to make sure he is staying healthy. If at any point we think he is getting sick, we will let him go in the yard, back in his natural environment.

But for now he is loving the aquarium he is in. We took some dry topsoil from our yard (it has a lot of small wood chips in it), and it is completely hidden in it! The first time it hid, we thought he had somehow escaped because he was so camoflauged!

Can you see him in the upper right corner? Try finding him when he is BURRIED in it!

 

 

 

Any guesses on what type of toad this is? Myles and Jonathan have narrowed it down. I haven't looked it up yet.

It rained yesterday.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wildflowers

I love wildflowers, and so do my kids! We were driving out in the country and I just had to pull over and let them pick some.

 

 

Jayla was pulling Jacob's hand back to protect him from getting pricked on the purple flowers!

 

 

 

These sunflowers at our house are around 11-12 feet tall now! The only problem with them is that they are not out in the country (along with us, of course). Someday!

 

S E P T E M B E R F E S T

Whew! Now that I've got a few "regular" readers, I've slowed down on blogging! HA! Well, I'll try to catch up tonight, or, um, this morning. I've got nearly 200 pictures from the weekend!

Septemberfest is an annual tradition in our family. We go every year and it keeps getting better and better! Which is why I think this year was kind of a let-down. We keep expecting bigger and better things, and there really wasn't anything bigger and better this year. In fact, the free pop the Boy Scouts served all day long, in two different stands, all tasted horrible, so I can honestly say that it really wasn't as fun or as memorable as last year. :( We did still have a good time though, don't get me wrong! Here are a few pictures of our day.

Here they are getting the opportunity to do something they rarely get to do since we homeschool.....wait in line!

Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy!

And this is what they waited in line for.....the EuroBungy Trampoline!!!!!! See Jonathan on the one in the background?

He's in the background here too!

Then I ran around to the other side and caught Jacob flying HIGH in the background! I was cracking up! He looks so tiny here!

Here is a close-up. He looks like he is bouncing higher than the rock-climbing wall!

And Jayla looks like she is standing on top of the tent. :)

Will she ever grow? :) Actually, she may be tiny, but she is quick and powerful!

I love it when Jonathan concentrates. The stick-out-the-tongue method always seems to help. He was twisting twine here to make a rope.

I will spare you the other 159 photos, but they did many other FREE activities such as milking a cow, playing on antique tractors and a very old steam engine, running through an obstacle course and other inflatables, listened to a storyteller, climb on a fire engine and played laser tag. Jacob actually got to play laser tag this year, but I had to go in with him. It was also Jayla's first time for this. They all loved it, even though they could barely hold up the gun!

We all got our fill of free food and drinks. The boys said that the hotdogs weren't really very good and even the ketchup was runny, but the whole wheat cinnamon rolls, chocolate milk, watermelon salsa and the peanuts (they usually make fresh peanut butter) were all delicious! We brought home all kinds of recipes, paper activities (coloring, crafts, etc.), advertisements for pumpkin patches, pick-your-own farms, etc. I've definitely got plenty of reading material to last a while!

Okay, here are a couple more pictures I just have to add. Jacob asked the man sitting by the steam engine how it worked. He very patiently told Jacob exactly how it worked, and Jacob listened politely to every word! Then later he asked the fireman if he could please ride on the fire fighter truck. :)