Say Hello To Our Little Friends

Today we added two new family members to our home. Please help us welcome Lightening and Guinea Pig Bob (yes, that's his full name). The boys have literally been praying for these pets for months and after much deliberation we went and got them today. We couldn't be more pleased. They did so well with them. I was afraid they were too young and that they wouldn't know how to handle them, but they did great. They sat still and were quiet and were so gentle. We're looking forward to many years of guinea pig happiness.

Wyatt looking at Lightening in the store.

The boys anxiously waiting as we check out at the store.
Waiting for daddy to get everything set up. Can you believe that grin on Reece's face?
Seth and his short haired Guinea Pig, Lightening
Wyatt and his long haired Guinea Pig, Guinea Pig Bob
Looking at the Guinea Pigs in their new home

My Favorite Halloween Costume

One of the blogs that I am subscribed to on my google reader is Caught Red Handed. I love the pendants that she makes. Check them out because they rock! She asked what some of our favorite costumes are and that got me to thinking. I think hands down my favorite costume has to be this one that Wyatt and Seth both wore (I only have a good shot of Wyatt in it). I made it for him using a large sheet of white craft foam cut into the shape of an egg and I tied it to the baby carrier. I cut another piece of white craft foam to look like the top of the cracked egg and glued feathers to it and then glued it to the baby hat. Then I cut out the feet from yellow craft foam and glued the feathers to them. We got stopped all night long at the church carnival that we went to.

Samantha's Birthday

We celebrated the one and only Samantha's 5th Birthday last week! This is the little girl that Wyatt has declared that he will marry (he says he knows it in his heart) although Seth has started saying that he loves her too. The boys had such a great time. The theme was "Teddy Bear Picnic" and they played at the park and had picnic lunch. Samantha's mom, Miss Laura, led them on a little hike and read them stories. Samantha awarded Wyatt the best listener and he won a new book, Stellaluna. It had a rained the day before so the park was a little wet and muddy which made it even more fun for the boys because they got absolutely soaking wet and dirty.

Doesn't Seth look like he's got the greatest admiration for Samantha?





Aren't the sweet?

Muffin Tin Monday

We had another fun Muffin Tin Monday. My boys just love these! They look forward to them every week.

Our muffin tins this week consisted of:

Tortilla Chips, Juice, Spoon for Cottage Cheese

Raisens, Turkey Bacon (I had it in the fridge and it needed to be cooked before it went bad: ), 1/2 a Kids Z-Bar, Cottage Cheese

Winnie the Pooh Animal Crackers, Blue Berries and a Plum Slice, Mozzerella Cheese, Strawberries

Reece loved his mini-muffin tin. His had tortilla chips, z-bar, blueberries, plums, strawberries, mozerrella cheese, and winnie the pooh animal crackers.
Seth would be happy if I only ever fed him fruit.
Wyatt went for the Turkey Bacon first and then requested humus for his chips.

Pumpkin Patch

This weekend we went to Sweetberry Farms in Marble Farms with our good friends, the Rankins, to pick some pumpkins. We had so much fun. We went on a VERY dusty hayride, had a picnic lunch, and found some great pumpkins.

Wyatt instisted on pulling his brothers all by himself.

Baby Sterling is as cute as a pumpkin : )
Seth loves Mr. Russell





Ready for our hayride

Grilled Bananas

Well, I guess in Texas and Australia we'll grill just about anything. We picked up a book at our YMCA a couple of weeks ago during "Healthy Kids Week" that had healthy foods from around the world. One of the recipes in it was for Bananas on the Barbie from Australia. I decided to give it a try because it was super easy and seemed like it would be pretty good. Basically, you mix two tablespoons of lime juice with one tablespoon of honey, split the bananas lengthwise down the center and brush them with mixture and then put them on the grill. I kept brushing the lime/honey mixture on them while I was grilling them. I thought they'd be good with some ice cream too, but in keeping with the "healthy" part we went with frozen yogurt instead. They were really good and everyone liked them except Wyatt, but he doesn't like bananas under normal conditions anyway. We'll definitely be making them again.

Happy Birthday Gram!

Last week we celebrated my mom's birthday. Somehow I didn't manage to get a good picture of what the boys made for her. Below is a tiny glimpse of it (it is sitting on the counter on the right hand side). She loves plants so we got a potted plant in fall colors and then a pot and I painted the palm of their hand orange and then their middle finger up to their first nuckle green. So, it looked like a pumpkin. They each did two pumpkins on the pot. I labeled each one with their name so she would know which pumpkin belonged to which grandson. I had a little cut out scene of a fence and pumpkins on orange cardstock that I wrote "Happy Birthday Gram! From all the Pumpkins in your patch." I stuck it on a wooden stick and put it in the plant. I think it turned out pretty cute. I have to say that I came up with idea totally on my own and I'm pretty proud of it. : )

The Elusive Hummingbird

We have a couple of hummingbirds that eat from our feeder on the back porch and I've been trying to get a picture of them for months. Unfortunately I never have my camera around when they're feeding. However, I finally got lucky and had it at just the right time! I was so excited. I was even able to open the door and get this shot before the little guy flew away.

Wyatt's Castle

Wyatt has been talking about castles a lot lately and he drew this one on the magna doodle. I wish he would have drawn it on paper so I could have saved it.
I love the details. There's a queen on top of the castle and the king is on the ground. There's a sun and the moon is over by the tree on the right. Do you see all the M shaped birds? This boy is drawn to art (pun intended). It's no wonder though, Jerad's mom painted a lot, and my dad and a lot of people in his family are very artistic. I can't wait to see what he does with any talents God might have given him.

Color Arranging

I've seen this color arranging activity on several blogs and I've been wanting to do it with the boys for a while. I finally made a trip to Home Depot and got the supplies and made it.

First I picked out which colors I wanted to use. I chose purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and pink (I would have chosen red instead of pink, but they didn't have red).

Then I used my paper cuter to cut them all into 1.5 inch strips and cut the paint descriptions off the end.
Then I cut them apart and cut off the little white segments in between.
Then I numbered the backs so that the boys could self check once they arranged them.
I explained to the boys that I would let them pick which color they wanted to work with and that they would arrange them from darkest to lightest. I showed them once with the pink color and then chose a color (Seth chose blue and Wyatt chose yellow) and they got to work.
Wyatt got them all right except the last two and honestly the last two are almost identical. I told him he did a fantastic job. After that he chose orange and he got them all right. Wyatt did a great job with the self check so I didn't have to help him to see if he got it all correct.
I had to help Seth by reminding him what they object was. I would say, "which one is the darkest?" and he would say, "this one," and so I would tell him to take it and he would. Then I would say, "which one is the next darkest," and he would say, "this one" and I'd have to tell him to take it and he would. We worked like that to get the project done, but he got them all right and then did it again with purple and got them all right, but two.

I'm really happy with this project and we'll definitely be adding it to our "school" work rotation. I also love that I was able to make it on my own for FREE!!

I've Been Linked

I've had my first official "link" from another blog : )
There is a blog that I read called The Write Start and I think it's great because she's always coming up with great ways to get words, letters, etc into kid's everyday life in creative ways. Well, I have it in my Google Reader so everytime she posts something new it just pops right up and I can go read it. A few days ago she had a new post about how she wanted to put letters in her son's food and how she had found a good post about using pancakes. I thought, "Hey, I did that," and I clicked on the link she provided. Low and behold it went to my blog about when I put our initials in our pancakes!! I was so excited I ran downstairs and made Jerad quit watching tv to come up and look. Anyway, I know it's not a big deal, but I really like what she does on her blog and was honored that she would like what I did.

A Boy and His Bugs

Wyatt loves bugs. He's constantly on the look out for rollie pollies, catapillars, ants, etc. He seriously LOVES them.

On this particular morning there was a bug on our back door window. He told me he thought it was part beetle and part grasshopper. He probably sat looking it over for at least 45 minutes before I made him get dressed because we had to go somewhere.

At Aunt Tamara's birthday he found some sort of worm that he name "Hermie", from our "Hermie the Catapillar" movies. He carried it around all night while we were outside and then had to find the PERFECT leaf to put it on when we went inside for dinner.