Science mom

 

I know Sarah, you hate when I put spider close-ups on the blog, but here goes. We caught a wolf spider in the house last week. Yes, I am still a whimp, yes I did squeel and scream the whole time, but I caught it!

 
I mostly caught it to prove to Al that we really do have spiders of that magnitude in the house. Yes, i am the fierce jungle queen. Well I caught a little house spider the next day and the girls decided we should throw them togehter and see what happens. Well "wolfy," like it's little snack, so we got adventurous. We tried a beastie grasshopper form the garden. No beans, to big. So we set it free, and caught a few more little guys for our spider. The girls still loved having the spider around, but we decided we couldn't keep feeding it through the winter so Albert set it free. It was a fun observation though. It sure taught Tenna about what it really means for somehting to eat something else. She was a little sad for the little spiders.

More excited...

 

...than she looks. Todays was Tenna's first day at her new dance class. She was so excited to really work her moves. Andi was jealous, so I will have to figure out a mommy and me class or something!

Sweet moments, or manipulation?

 

Andi loves playing in the garden, and they both love the sand box. I caught this little moment after Andi had helped me pick some tomato and zucchini for our dinner. Andi was picking cherry tomatoes for herself and Tenna. Such sweet girls!

Summer fun

 
The girls loved shucking their own corn, but cornsilk is yucky.

Flying princess

 
This pic is from Andi's birthday, adorned with pretties! Oh she is a spoiled little girl! The "flying," part comes from a BBQ yesterday at a friends house. Andi was playing upstairs in the baby's room while some boys were running down the hall and jumping into the hosts arms. It was way fun for 4 year old boys! I went down to check on Tenna in the back yard. Upon returning into the house I was greeted by a thud and a wailing that I instantly recognized as Andi. I ran upstairs (it's a 3-split level home) to find on of the other moms trying to comfort Andi, her lips beginning to swell and bleeding. Oh great...It made me think of Katie's story. Anywho, she thought the flying jump thing looked like fun, and apparently didn't notice that there had been someone there to catch the boys. She just went for it. Luckily they have carpet! So she is a bit banged up, but (thankfully) still has all of her teeth!

Fishing!

 

WE had to do some fishing! Actually the men took the kids down to the lake while we ladies broke camp. I am sad to have missed it, but we were sure glad to get home!
 
 
 

Roughin' it

 

Camping

 

Ok, so camping with 5 adults and 5 children 3 and under isn't a stellar idea, but it was a lot of fun. We all fit in out 7 man tent and had a crazy night. I think next time we will find a more remote location, Tenna was quite dissapointed that she wasn't able to pee in a bush.

 
 
 

Zebra

 

Camping, visitors, etc

 

Well, our house is offically empty! We are so sad that all of our visitors are gone, but we all need some sleep and I need to do some deeo cleaning. Andi had a great B-day party, though her real Birthday is tomorrow. I promise to post more in a bit, but I have so much cleaning and canning and planting to catch up on I just can't bring myself to spend the time to write it all up! Thanks to all of our fun guests! Let's do it again soon!

Camping!

 

Sorry that the first parts of this post took so long! Busy day! It was a perfect trip. We had some light rain and a lot of cloud cover. We had a wonderful time with Grandma and Grandpa Noyes, Velden and three dogs! Tenna even learned to evacuate her bladder in a bush!

 

Andi's camping experience

 

Andi had a very different experience than Tenna. She was most content pantless and playing in the car.

 

Attack of the Butterfly

 

Andi was enthralled with the bugs when we got situated to camp. She was always on the look-out for butterflies. A large yellow one started to head right for us, to her delight, until it got to about 3 inches of Andi! That was a bit too much for her!

More fishing

 
We may have finally found something that Tenna likes enough to sit still to do.

Family pictures

 

Albert made us take a family picture, and I am so glad! We haven't had a family pic in ages! Good job babe!
 

Last Good-bye

 

This little Cat-face spider didn't want us to leave. He had a very hard time saying good-bye.

Time at the Aquarium

 

AKA the fish park, according to Tenna. BTW the reason I don't have more pics of Tenna is because I couldn't keep up with her! I think I need to get a double leash!

 
 
 

The aftermath

 

The kids were all a bit high strung this afternoon, so there were a few skirmishes. Amazingly Clark jumped into the brawl...once. I went to get my camera and take a picture of Andi and Clark on this little stool. The pictures are of the scene when I got back. Andi got her revenge in no time. Poor Clark, maybe some day he will even up.