Boy's artwork

This is a picture drawn by Boy about a month ago. It's the first anything he's ever drawn. I found it amongst all his scribbles and lines. Pretty impressive that this person has a body with legs coming out of it. My mom always told me that was important for kids to draw. Princess Sparkley just had heads with legs for awhile. And it has a smile... or at least a mouth.




Boy doesn't draw much. Not like Princess Sparkley. And when he does draw it's lots of lines. When he colors, it's all completely colored in. Like an entire green page in the coloring book. So when I gave this assignment at Joy School the other day, I sort of drew an example for the kids so the littler ones would actually draw a nature scene. I showed them grass, a tree, flowers, the sky and a sun. The point of the picture - from the unit the Joy of the Earth - was to create a beautiful world and then ruin it with "litter," hence all the garbage glued on. I was so impressed when I saw what Boy was drawing and that it actually resembled nature. There is zig sap grass, flowers and such a cute purple sun up in his sky. This is a huge step for him.

St. Louis Zoo

The St. Louis zoo is great because it's free. So if we are looking for something fun for our kids to do while visiting Grandma and Grandpa, we can cruise over to the zoo. It's free, so there isn't any pressure to see ALL the animals. We just visit the ones we want to see. Or the ones we didn't get to see last time. So we went to the zoo yesterday (10-12-07).

Here are Princess Sparkley andBoy with the gorilla statue outside the gorilla exhibit.
Notice Princess Sparkley's pose.

Daddy holding up both kids at the sea lion exhibit. We were just passing by when we noticed the crowd and saw that the sea lion feeding was in ten minutes. So we stuck around to watch.

Sea Lions. Not seals.

Boy during his impersonation of what a sea lion sounds like.


We saw this baby elephant a year ago. I thought it would have grown up a lot more in a year but it's still so tiny (yet probably a thousand pounds).

This is her a year ago when we first saw her.


Mommy and baby Oct. 2007.


The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Our kids both insisted on having their own zoo map to carry and stopped occasionally to look at it. Wonder where they got that from?

Climbing on a giant statue of some sort of beetle.


Princess Sparkley climbing.

Licking, MO

Two fun things about Licking, MO. Firstly, and obviously the name (hence the picture below of B trying to lick the city limit sign). Secondly, there is some sort of athletic apparrel company so they have a water tower painted to look like a baseball. Boy is all about sports, especially baseball. And a water tower is of course cool to any three year old. So here's the baseball water tower.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

B and Princess Sparkley (and Boy if the page has a picture or is about Jack, the dog) have been reading The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The Little House on the Prairie is about the time the Ingalls family lived in sort of southeastern Kansas, a city called Independence. We didn't quite go past their on our Fall Break trip to county gathering trip to St. Louis, but as one of our stops to let the kids walk around, etc. we stopped in Mansfield, MO which is where Laura lived after she was married, where she wrote the books, and where she died. So this is a picture of Princess Sparkley and Boy at the Laura Ingalls Wilder home and museum in Mansfield.

the entertaining straw

For B's Fall Break from school we took a trip to St. Louis to see the grandparents. But not just any trip, a county getting trip. So the four hour drive was more like twelve. But B is five counties away from finishing the state of Missouri. (Interesting fact: armadillos live in Missouri. We saw dead ones on the side of the road... so I guess we have no proof that they LIVE in Missouri, but at least that they died there. Armadillos are one of those animals like a kangaroo that seem sort of fictional in nature to me, so it was weird to see that they are in fact real.)

So it was a long drive. We stopped for lunch at Taco Bell and for the next two hours, Boy was completely entertained by this straw. Then he fell asleep. Then he played with it for another hour. It was a bridge, a tunnel, a crossing arm for a train, a crossing arm for a bridge, a steeple, an arch, etc. Who needs toys?

Doll Cakes

Princess Sparkley requested a doll cake for her birthday a few months ago. You know, the kind you see at the grocery store with a Barbie sticking out of them. That got changed when she decided to have her pretend sleepover party. But we'd already borrowed these mini doll cake pans from Grandma M so we made these the other night.

Princess Sparkley's princess cake.

Boy made a pink ghost.

Trying to eat that through all the icing.

Daddy's decorated doll cake.

Not Early Birds

Waking the kids up to take B to school on rainy mornings this is what they look like waiting to be carried out to the car.

Princess Sparkley can read

For Princess Sparkley's kindergarten Phonics lessons we've been learning all of the different sounds letters make. Yesterday she was introduced to her first three site words: the, is, and and. And she read her first sentence sounding it all out: "The cat is at the mat" (which she's since memorized.)

B had already taught her the word the when they read stories together at night. So she informed us that she knows that word, and that it's on the Lewis and Clark map hanging on the wall of her top bunk bed so she reads it all the time at night. Then she said, "It's like the, the, the having a party in my head." Funny. (She's been using the word "like" a lot lately when she talks.)

She also told me yesterday, while drawing a long line of brown circles for Rapunzel's braid that sometimes when she's drawing (which she loves and does constantly) that she wishes she had a machine that could draw for her.

B's new bike

Here's B's actual new bike, rather than the fancy schmancy picture from the bike company's website that I posted before.

*note: he's just ridden home from work like 5 miles on a hot afternoon when we met him outside to take his picture.

Princess Sparkley "dressed like a mom"

Or more specifically, her mom. Here she is wearing my new shoes I just bought on ebay and carrying my bag.

B's new glasses

B recently bought two new pairs of glasses online to replace the ones (well, two pairs that are identical) he's had forever. The ones on the bottom are indestructible. One of the pannier bags on his new bike fell off while he was riding and got run over by a car. All that was in the bag were these glasses in a case. The one arm is a little tweaked. And if you look through them closely you can see some stress lines in the lens from having been run over. But they still work. And they didn't cost us a billion dollars. He bought them online because they were cheaper than elsewhere.

Prego Update

Here I am at 24 weeks.

B's new bike

He doesn't get home until dinner time, and after we've eaten, it's too dark to take his picture on it. I'll try to remember to take his picture as he is riding home tomorrow, nice and sweaty.

Father/Son Camp Out

We finally got to use the new tent we got for Christmas. There was a church Father/Son Camp Out last weekend. Princess Sparkley was quite devastated. But we stayed home and painted toenails and watched Princess movies while eating popcorn, etc. Daddy and Boy roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and tried out our new tent.

Boy next to our new tent.
(He just saw me post this picture and said to Princess Sparkley,
"You want to see our new tent? It's beautiful.")

Boy in the tent. He just said to me, "And when we were walking in it it went "crunch crunch crunch crunch." They were set up on some really tall grass.

Daddy spent 15 minutes rubbing Boy's head trying to wake him up the next morning.

Breakfast in the back of the car... a banana and a cereal bar.

Apparently our tent has a doggy door. This was perfect because Boy's newest comfort object (added to his two baby burp rags turned blankeys) is a black lab stuffed puppy that we bought before Princess Sparkley was born and named Pork Chop. So here are Boy and Pork Chop peeking out our tents doggy door.


This picture is from Boy's first Father/Son Camp Out in California when he was probably just over a year old.

Fingerpainting in Pudding

I'm not sure if I'm sold on this Joy School preschool curriculum. We'll see. Last week was my first time teaching. We were learning about our senses which involved making pudding, and finger painting with it while we licked our fingers, etc. It was so funny to watch the difference in a the kid's comfortableness with getting dirty. Some only dipped in one finger and painted dots. Others basically had chocolate covered saliva left on their wax paper square.

The group. Princess Sparkley is included on the days that I teach.

E. 4 months younger than Boy. Chocolate colored saliva.

E. 4 months older than Boy. One fingered polka dots.

Boy. Chocolate polka dots. He got a tiny bit messier later on.

Princess Sparkley. 20 1/2 months older than Boy. Somewhere in the middle finger painting-wise.

E. Or Big E as I've heard the little kids call her. She's a few months younger than Princess Sparkley and thus, more than a year older than the other girl E of the same name. Everyone here except Boy has a name that starts with "E." Interesting.

Who do YOU think this looks like?

Who does this look like?

I missed my exit in Topeka the other day on the way to the library and ended up a few streets further north than usual where I saw this billboard. I had to circle back by to get another look. Then the next time we were in Topeka I drove B past it. And finally I remembered to bring my camera with me.


Up close, not so much. But from about a block away, I could have sworn it was Hannah Smith.

First Day of School

This is Boy's first day of Joy School preschool. Princess Sparkley started her homeschool curriculum through Lawrence Virtual School and K12 a few days earlier but we dressed her up and took her picture as well.

The cousins have puppies

We went to the cousin's for Labor Day to see our newest nephew blessed with the added bonus of getting to play with their new puppies. Here's Princess Sparkley holding one of them, Spots.

Princess Sparkley's 5th Un-Party

So, I was trying to do the every other year birthday party thing with our kids. Princess Sparkley had family parties for birthdays one and two. At three I figured she was old enough that she had friends, etc. So we had a Strawberry Shortcake party with a few friends from church. That was in California. Then for number four we were in Kansas and a friend had a July birthday party just before her. So I talked her into an art party, figuring it would be easy and inexpensive, which it was. Then five rolled around and I told her we could have her friends over for a play date and cake, but no presents. This turned into a pretend slumber party. At least no one brought gifts. All the girls came in PJS and brought sleeping bags and pillows. We watched Cinderella III and ate popcorn. Then we had a sleepover themed cake and sent them home. Not too overly party. I hope.

The invitations were pillows.

The table.

The table... alternate view.

The door.

The slumber party cake.

Watching the movie. That's boy at the top right in his Thomas sleeping bag.
He was a guest as well. :)

Princess Sparkley is five.

Blowing out the candles.

The party guests awaiting their cake.