Summer of Science!!!

Last year we did A to Z summer.  It was a blast.  This year we are doing a

SUMMER OF SCIENCE!

We made play clay from this recipe.  We shaped it into volcanoes and we let it dry.  I actually baked it at 350 degrees for a bit of time too, to help the process along. 

Then we added baking soda, food coloring, a little dish soap, and vinegar.  We tried all different mixtures.  Our favorite was all four together in large quantities.

I can't believe we didn't get any pics of their faces.  They were sooooo excited.  It was such a blast.  I'm so excited to do science project after science project.  And Cabe is excited too since science is kind of his thing. 

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Another thing.  Mr. M has been out of school for less than a week.  He has already moved up several reading levels.  I thought I was finding books he enjoyed but Cabe discovered a Spider-man book and Mr. M devoured it.  So I scored the library for Spider-man, Avengers, Wolverine, and X-Men books.  Some of them we thought were way above his level.  Nope.  He just took off and can pretty much read anything now.  Now he spends hours reading.  I love it!  The teacher in me gets heart paplitations just thinking about it.

Finally...A Day With Dad!

Many of you may not know that Cabe is our ward mission leader.  When he first started out, there were four sets of young missionaries and two sets of older.  We've since lost one set of older and a set of sisters (sniff, sniff).  Still when you have six Elders who need your help, it's quite the job.  He is gone a lot.  If he's not gone, we have missionaries and investigators over here (I'm not complaining, I love having them here). We're proud of him, and he is such a great mission leader, and we support him, but sometimes we miss his cute face.

This Monday we finally had him all to ourselves.  It was fantastic.  We took full advantage of the time.  We went to Palmetto State Park. 

I have always loved pics of kids just doing what they are doing.  Here's Mr. D on the steps.  So cute in real life to watch littles going down stairs.

I love how they all looked like they were looking at me, but when I blew the pic up the big littles were faking it.   

 This spider web was HUGE!

This state park has a splash pad.  How cool is that?! 

Mr. D and Miss L did not like it.  They hated the water in their faces.  Mr. M was in heaven.   

We have a ton of random pics of Cabe standing in front of signs.  He needs them for his geocaching (I think to prove he was there) and now they are just becoming a tradition for me.  

We love living so close to so many state parks.  There's so much to do.  Although it is HOT AND HUMID, so at this particular one we were very excited to ditch the hiking trail and cool off in the water. 

We also found a McDonalds that has a playground.  The only one I have seen since moving here.  We hung out there for awhile too.  Then we came home and did a science project.  We loved our day with Dad.

Creative Stations and Shy Miss L

I was trying to waste my life away playing on Facebook when Mr. M came in and asked if I would come do the stations in Miss L's room. So Dad and I both went in there and were sent from station to station.  There were many but I just chose a couple to post about.

The set-up:

My personal favorite, The Itch Yourself Station: 

My least favorite station, The Somersault Station.  Initially we were supposed to somersault on the twin bed, when we explained that just wasn't possible they gave us a bigger area.  Ha ha.  Not much bigger though. Daddy got out of it somehow. I did a very scary, I'm going to knock over the dresser, somersault.  It was not pretty and it was not fun.

Daddy and I danced together in the dancing station.  Then he spent the rest of the stations trying to steal kisses.  The kids didn't seem to mind.

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I had at least three people come up to talk to me about Lib's shyness at church today.  "Is there anything we can do to help her not be so shy?  She's so shy it's painful to watch."

I agree. I know she is.  I have no idea how to help her be more comfortable.  It is painful to watch.  She's so pretty people are always wanting to love on her and talk to her and she just hates it.  I talked to her about it on the way home.  She said simply, "I just don't like to talk to anyone but my friends."

I really think she has social anxiety.  I think if we tested her for it, she'd have it.  Still don't know what to do about it.  I hope it gets better for her.

I love this smirk. I love her sweet personality.  For now, I'll just enjoy the Little Miss L that I know.

She and baby Sha-la.

No Heat Curls

 I saw this tutorial and thought I would give it a try. So here are my results.  I have to admit I was pretty sick of the headband fairly early and probably took it out a little sooner than I should have.  I think I took it out at 11:30am and should have done 1 or 2.

It did make big curls especially up front where it was totally dry. 

They were pretty.  However, I already have curly hair so I'm not sure I liked the curls any better than my natural ones.  I think this would work the best for people with thicker hair too.  I am going to do it again and actually leave it on longer.  I kind of liked the look with the headband on anway.  I did get a lot of weird looks while I was grocery shopping with it though.  It certainly didn't fit in to my LA surroundings. :)

Summer is A-Coming

It's getting hotter here.  The kids are already tending to stay inside more.  Bummer.  I love watching them play outside as well as enjoying the quiet inside.  I've been bribing them with popscicles.  If you go outside for a half-hour and play you can have a popscicle.  So they do:

 Yesterday I just happened to glance out the window and see all three of them sitting there like that and it was so adorable.  They are so lucky to have one another.

For memories sake:

My Lil' D give the best hugs.  He gives his best hugs at bedtime when he's trying to keep me from putting him in his bed.  He wraps both arms around my neck and buries his head in my "nook" and wraps his tiny fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck.  Then sometimes he'll lean back and give me a big grin and some gibberish and then snuggle right back up.  I savor those moments. Other times he'll lick me up the face to try to french kiss me...not quite as enjoyable.

It's still, by far, my favorite time of day with him.

Also before bedtime we usually sing, "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear," and act it out.  If I can ever get my videos downloaded I will post it because I swear it is the cutest thing on earth to watch the kiddos do this.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear touch the ground.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear spin around.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear jump so high.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear touch the sky.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear walk along.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear sing a song, 'la, la, la, la, la."

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear tie your shoe.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear I love you. (If all three kids are in the room, we run around poking each other and yelling, "And you! And you! And you!)

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear go upstairs.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear say your prayers.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear turn out the light.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear say, 'night, night.'

Miss Lib has decided she is D's mom.  She argues with me sometimes that she is the mom and I am not.  She wants the next baby (no, not announcing anything, she referring to the distant future) to sleep with her.  She gets D out of his crib and gets him breakfast sometimes.  When I can't figure out what the kid wants and he keeps crying and crying (which is rather often, he really needs to learn to talk) Miss L will take over and try to figure it out too, without much success, but she tries.  I am constantly remind her, as well, that he can walk and feed himself.  She is most helpful.

Mr. M is still my cuddle boy.  He loves to just have me lay by him at night and sing or talk.  He begs for me to stay.  He is also extremely hyper.  He bounces around constantly.  I'm amazed he does so well in school.  I guess he holds all the energy in for at home.  He loves to read and spends hours reading.  He also loves his super-heros.  I miss the educational shows he used to enjoy but super-heroes rule the roost.

Remember last year we did A to Z summer?  I have a new plan for this summer and I am sooooo excited.  I have been planning it off and on for months.  I will tell you all about when I start it next week.  It's going to be a blast!

Kindergarten Graduation!

Mr. M's Kindergarten graduation was today. 

This is a horrible pic of his teacher but it's the only one I could get.  They had us rushing out of the room before I could get up front. No wasting school time in these parts!

Anyway, I love her.  She is so sweet and so kind.  All business.  But still sweet.

Look!  He participated!  I was so happy. 

He won the following awards:

Math Achievement - 100% in Math

High Reading Achievement - Level E (Beginning first grade is Level C)

Outstanding Conduct and Exemplary Behavior

I love his shy, dimply little face:

The guy blocking the way took up the entire time snapping pics.  I'm not sure why he needed three hundred pics but this was the best I could get with his head in the way.  At least I'm tall and he was short so I could hold the camera way up and get something. 

And here's the three of us.  I left the littles with a sitter because I wasn't sure how long it would be.  It was done in about ten minutes.  So I went shopping.  Shopping without kids is amazing.  I should do it more often..but I digress...

We are proud of our Big Boy. He's so sweet and such a good kid. 

Good Job, Mr M!

BTW

It's hard for me to believe this is the same little guy! 

My arms ache to hold him when he was this little again.  It's cliche, I know, but it goes by so fast.

Tortilla Making

 My kiddos love tortillas.  They want them all the time but I feel guilt because they are a processed, white flour food.  The kids like most (all except tortillas) whole grains, but they have not come to love whole grain tortillas and neither have I.

My brother mentioned a month or so ago that he makes tortillas with his kids all the time.  I figured if he can do it, so can I!

So, now we do.  So far we are still using white tortilla flour but we are just getting used to making them and at least they are not processed.  Next goal is to work in some whole grain flour and make corn tortillas.

Suprisingly Mr. D was my biggest helper.  He was amazing! 

He stuck with me the whole time and just kept kneading the dough and rolling it into balls. 

Miss L and Mr M kept getting distracted.  Mr M kept feeding his tortillas to his play dino and Miss L snapped pics of it.  See Mr D just working away.  So cute. 

We still have some work to do on getting them perfectly round (although we did much better on our latest batch) but for our first try I thought these were great. 

A Traditional Mother's Day

Happy Belated Mother's Day to all my mom's and grandma's.  I love you.

My Mother's Day was interesting.  Miss L had a stomach bug.  She and I stayed home from church and watched church movies while we cuddled on the couch.  Then we took a nap.  It was a nice, you know, other than the barfing moments.   Those were not so great.

We'll call it a traditional Mother's Day. Some sweet, with some sour, all mixed together. Just like normal. 

Mr. M made me a beautiful picture at school.  I framed it and put in on my bedroom dresser.  It makes me smile.  Friday I went to his school where he very shyly and akwardly gave me a manicure and slathered my arms in lotion (he grimaced at the whole time).  He drew the line at a massage though.  I think he has my same problem with public displays of affection.  He tried though, and it was sweet.

Step Outside Day Louisiana

Step Outside Day Louisiana is fantastic and it's FREE! Even the food was free!  It seemed like nothing in TX was free so this made me soooo happy.

Atchafalaya Refuge

 Boat Rides:

Mr. D had a minor meltdown about the life jacket but he calmed down and enjoyed himself. 

Miss L has become quite the little mom.  This pic is typical of her usual "help."  

The kids wanted a turn with the camera.  Mr. M got this pic and I love it!  My sweet babies and me.

Miss L got this one:

And I think she took this one: 

And this one: 

And this one of Mr. D doing what he does best, completely ignoring mommy and gathering rocks. 

They were able to fish!  A few weeks ago we were at a river-side and Mr. M said, "Mom, I sure wish I was old enough to fish."

I had to tell him he is, his parents have just deprived him.  I was excited for him to fish without me doing much work.  The wildlife worker's provided and baited.  I actually do enjoy fishing and I think I will take them again soon, you know, after we buy some fishing poles.

But I'm thinking I may take them one at a time.  This was a little overwhelming since Daddy couldn't be there with us.  You see in their faces below that the fun started to seep out after awhile.

Mr. M said, "Urg!  I'm not good at fishing!"

He was frustrated because he had a hard time throwing the line.  I had a hard time as a kid too and, if I'm honest, I still have a hard time. It seems so simple but I often let go either too early or too late.  Mr. M did not have the best teacher.

 There as also an alligator in this pond but I didn't realize it until after we had fished.  I may have been a little more careful about how close they were to that water!

Duck calling: 

Talking with trappers and gator hunters: 

There were people there from "Swamp People." But it was a busy booth so we skipped it. 

 They were able to inspect a firetruck and play with the hoses.

Mr. D tried it too but it scared him.

Bow target practice: 

They also had a skeet shooting practice, a jump house, and several other things.

They served free jumbalaya, hot dogs, and soda.

At the end they had a huge raffle give away.  They gave away BB guns, bows, toys, etc.  Mr. D won a bird watching book and all three kids spend hours looking at that book. 

Now I have ANOTHER reason to love Louisiana.  Thanks to my friend, Whitni, for telling me about it and helping me manage the chaos.