Summer is over and we've been in first grade for over a month now. School is going very well but the new schedule has been an adjustment. Our summer was busy but pretty quiet. We did manage to take a couple of trips in July after Paul and I realized in June that our summer was so scheduled that there was only a few days left where we could fit in a vacation. So in July we flew to Chicago for a few days on the boys' first plane trip. The next week we headed to south Missouri to a YMCA resort called Trout Lodge. There are more pictures on Flickr.
'We had a great time at the lake. I'm not sure what Nathaniel was digging for in this picture but he had a great time doing it.
Paul loves being out in the sun about as much as I do. Never fear, we were using our SPF 500 sunscreen.
That's it for now. I'd promised to blog more frequently but at this point, I don't know why anyone would believe me.
Gosh, it's almost summer. How'd THAT happen? Here are a few pictures that I've been meaning to post since Christmas. You see that I got right on it.
This is the cover of a book Gregory created at school. The title is My Family by Gregory. As you can see there's always a rainbow over our family.
Last but not least, spring school pictures. Evidently one school picture a year is not good enough for this generation.
During our little community's recent crime wave, we have been reminded that it's prudent to be cautious and we have started locking our doors during the day again. Locked doors also has helped to keep the cold drafts down and we've had a lot of those here also (woke up -2 degrees one morning, yikes). But all bad guys need to be warned, my guys are on the case!
They are supposed to look mean. It's hard to look mean with marshmallow guns. Not only did we get marshmallow guns for Christmas; we got four! Two for the big marshmallows and two for the mini-marshmallows (for more targeted sharp-shooting).
Hope everyone had a good Christmas. We made a quick trip to Kansas and were pleased that no fire engines or trips to the ER were involved. We did have a kid throwing up one night and we understand that we shared the bug with a few people (sorry Ashley, Angie). Today we are enjoying the MLK holiday but have nothing planned except maybe for tacos tonight. I understand the MLK loved tacos (who knows, maybe he did).
Check out the November and December pictures in Flickr (over to the side).
We've gotten our annual visit from the Big-Headed Scarecrow family and guess what, Big-Head has decided to run for president. I think he got the idea from all the blue election signs in our neighborhood; pretty much every lawn has one. That is; except for ours...we have a WHITE sign!
Here's another view.
My brother asked me if the scarecrow is liberal and I'd have to say yes; you can see that he's leaning to the left here in the picture.
In other news, the milk-jug igloo is no more.
I'm working on updating Flickr with pictures from the end of summer and this fall. We've been busy - birthdays, new bicycles; missing teeth and visitors so take a look. Happy Halloween Everyone!
And the boys kinda like it too.
Here they are; dressed in their super-hero finest.
The most recent thing to have happen (just now actually) is that Nathaniel lost a tooth...his front, bottom one. He was sneaking a cookie that was evidently a bit stale and the tooth came out. He won't let me take a picture of him and he didn't want me to tell anyone. So, keep this news to yourself...you didn't hear it from me.
The boys have been in church camp this week and are pretty wiped out. Those Presbyterians sure know how to throw a church camp. Yesterday, when I went to pick them up there was a fire engine in the parking lot hosing all the kids off. Of course, I forgot to take the camera.
Are you wondering how our igloo is coming along? All I can say is that it's a good thing we don't build igloos for a living because we are not very good at it. I underestimated the effect that 90 plus degree Missouri heat would have on the glue that's holding the whole thing together. I also underestimated how many milk jugs we would need. At one point our garage attic was full of them and I was sure we had plenty but we ran out. But we're going through three to four gallons a week so we're building up our supply again.
Doesn't it look like it's going to fall in at any minute? Here's a view from the top.
Oh well, maybe we'll be done by Halloween.
The other big news that I'm actually permitted to tell is the boys can now ride a bike without training wheels. The other night they were outside playing with Paul when Nathaniel came running in yelling...come see what Gregory can do. When I went outside, Gregory was riding the neighbor's bike in circles and going pretty fast. This bike is a girl's bike and just a little bit smaller than their bikes. I guess that made the difference.
First, Gregory...
Then Nathaniel. Of course, Gregory contends that he can ride faster.
While downloading photos, we discovered some interesting, random shots of the inside of our pantry. Hmm, wonder how THAT happened?
I won't make you look at all the pantry shots. There are a few new pictures on Flickr from June. I am going to go review July pictures right now then I need to research how much the tooth fairy is forking out these days.
Oh...school starts August 19th.....YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We've been busy with vacation bible school, swimming lessons (big, big hit) and tumbling classes (not such a big hit but it's growing on them). We bought a season pass to the city pool and have managed to get burned pretty bad already. We are now proud owners of two SPF 50 swim shirts and an old lady straw hat and many, many pool toys. We are also making use of various memberships that we've always felt the need to own but never really used. We've gone to the local children's museum a lot...I'm rather sick of it myself. Oh and we went on a field trip with Nathaniel's old preschool class to the transportation museum. The boys had been really looking forward to it but as soon as we saw the class, two of us got extremely shy all of a sudden. I don't think we ever really talked to any of the class.
A friend of mine recently retired from ma bell too and we've been discussing which is worse; being at home with two five-year old boys or a 14-year old girl. Close call. Somehow we need to get the 14-year old girl to take care of the two five-year olds and the two of us can go have a nice lunch somewhere.
Here's how our summer project is coming -
Now that I'm retired, I have more time to read the paper (well supposedly, I seem to be spending most of my time during laundry). Anyway, one of our favorite items in the little local paper is the police report. This is an item taken from a recent issue - word for word.
A resident of the 100 block of Cornelia Avenue reported at 5:32 p.m. May 1 persons unknown moved a piece of lawn furniture from her rear yard to the east side of her house without her permission or knowledge. She was unsure how long the furniture had been moved.
A crime wave.
Can you tell? Can you pick out just by looking at these pictures which boy gives me more grief? Which child wakes me up at 3:00 a.m. just to tell me he's bored. The child that recently and repeatedly announced that he was a genius. The child that instead of saying I need to go to the bathroom, says I need to go Eurasia (he meant urinate - we have his father to thank for that word).
What, you're not sure? Maybe now.
Go ahead, guess.
Thanks for the comments. I haven't blogged in awhile. Too busy iglooing, bowling and swimming (well the boys swim, I... read more
on June 25th - Here's what we did today