Field Trip Fun

On November 30 we went on this fabulous field trip with Myka's preschool to a place called Earth Works. They had all kinds of animals for the kids to hold and experience. The teachers were excellent with the kids and doing things on the kids level. Myka had soooo much fun and was very proud that she was not afraid to hold anything. Here she is holding the little spider craft she made.

 

Myka insisted on having a turn with the milksnake around her neck too.

 

The kids are petting the legless lizard, kind of a strange animal.

 

Myka had her hands full with this bearded dragon. It was amazing how calm the lizards were.

 

This is my favorite! Doesn't she just look so comfortable and natural. I asked her if he was nice or pokey. She said "He is nice and pokey". They WERE really pokey and it was easy to get scratched. Really, I am super suprised she was such a good sport. Myka is usually very tender or what I would say, whimpy. Guess she was in the right mood today.

 

She even got to shake hands with Rosealla the Tarantula. The lady didn't offer to let them hold it. I think she was afraid it might get dropped.

 

Eli was a pretty good sport and got handed around a lot. Here he met his match in Speedy the Tortosie. It was fun to watch Eli chase after Speedy, a pretty good competition. When Eli caught up, Speedy decided he didn't like Eli's grabby hands. I really want to take the older girls back there. I think they would enjoy it even more than Myka and Eli did. They are all so crazy about animals, especially the creep crawly kind.

 

Guess what I can do Mom!!! He can pull himself up and does such a good job of it.

 

Hooray for Halloween!

We had such a fun October and great Halloween. I am not much of fan of this holiday. It seems so selfish to go out begging the neighbors for candy, dressing up as creepy things, plus what are we celebrating anyways??? Well after doing the Halloween thing with kids for a few years I am getting to have a little bit more fun with the holiday and not despise it so much. A lot of my change of attitude I am sure has to do with all the fun fall activities that are so abundant out here.

 

The kids on the porch before going to a party.

 

Nora was a stylin' spider witch, we borrowed the costume from some friends. She had fun with it but really wanted to be a grizzly bear. Unfortunately, grizzly bear costumes for 7 year olds are hard to come by and I was not about to make one. Nora got to go the the "Zoo Boo" with friends in the ward.

 

 

Kyla's costume stole the show this year. She told us that she wanted to be an animal resucer but kind of ended up more with a zookeeper. I bought a hat and pin from the zoo, a shirt and backpack from thrift stores and the rest was out of her closet. We decided she got the prize for having the costumes with the most accessories. We put a brown belt on her and pouches to keep her rescuing supplies plus a box of animal crackers to tame the animals. Her costume was topped off with some makeup on her face, we couldn't decide what to do so I ended up putting some marks looking like dirt smudges. At the ward party everyone thought they were tiger scratches so we did some more obvious for Halloween night.

 

 

Myka was the cutest little lion ever. I just wanted to eat her up every time I saw her. She was hoping to be a unicorn/pegasus but we couldn't find anything in the stores and she was quite excited when I showed her this costume. She actually wore the hood most of the time and with a whiskers and nose she was just irresistible.

 

Eli carried on the tradition in the bunny costume. He made such a darling little chubby bunny and was a good sport about letting us dress him up, although he didn't like the hood too much he would wear it when we needed him to. We spent a good part of the day at our good friends for a Halloween party and then had fun trick-or-treating with them before heading back to our neighborhood.

They had a great time going through their candy and counting and sorting it. Eli thought this activity was especially fun and had a great time crawling around in it. Next year we are going to put a curfew on trick-or-treating so we have time to come home and go through candy afterwards.

 

 

Our Week - Eli Turns 8 months

This week Eli turned 8 months old! He is scooting around the house, clapping, laughing, and being a kook. This picture was taken a couple of days before he turned 8 months. Daniel has started letting him take baths without the baby seat. He LOVES to splash in the water (and has for several months), so giving him a bath is quite the adventure. As Daniel sees it less water means less mess.

 

Kyla had fun at girl scouts and made this cute flower arrangement. Mormor wanted us to take a picture of and send it to her.

 

This is actually the only picture that we took of Eli on his 8 month birthday. He and Myka got sick this week and he was quite miserable. We had actually forgot that it was his 8 month day and Daniel was just taking a picture of him because he was so cute being miserable. As soon as Eli saw the camera he perked right up, sat up, and gave us a huge smile. So much for trying to get the miserable, cuddly boy caught on camera; He is such a HAM.

 

Saturday was a super beautiful fall day. We spent the whole day outside trying to conquer the brambles. Kyla was a great help and enjoyed pulling the Jerusalem Artichoke. She was especially proud of this 8 ft long one.

 

We kept the guinea pigs out most of the day and the girls played with them in the leaf pile. The piggies really enjoyed burrowing in. Then we made a house for them, with rooms and hallways. All the piggies wanted to do was burrow in the leaves. Luckily we didn't loose either of them!

 

We are so enjoying the great Michigan fall weather, still no snow!

Who's the Bunny?

Let's play a game called "Who's the Bunny?" Here is each of my kids wearing the same costume can you tell who is who? Leave a comment with your answers.
Bunny #1

 

Bunny #2

 

Bunny #3

 

Bunny #4

 

Good Luck!
I made this costume 8 years ago! Can you believe it has gone by that fast? We have got to figure out how to slow down this clock that keeps ticking and making my babies grow.

And So It Begins . . .

So this week Eli learned to move forward and the freedom that comes with it.

 

The very first time he ventured into the kitchen he managed to get the cupboard open for the pots and pans and pull them out hurting himself. I can't believe how quickly he is growing up.

 

You can see how proud of himself he is.

 

So tonight he figured out how to open the cupboard of the microwave cart and find all kids of entertainment.

 

With three sisters sitting around him laughing at him and mom in the bathroom, he managed to take the lid off the cream of wheat and spill it all over the floor. Good thing my vacuum was out and handy. He was quite enthralled with the process of getting vacuumed off also. Some of his other favorite spots are the video shelf and the magazine rack (until it mysteriously disappeared). Oh the joy! It is so much fun to watch him explore and discover but it also comes with its downside.

Voting Day

Today the girls had the day off and so we went to the museum with friends (The Henry Ford of course). They have a new Lego castle exhibit that we hadn't seen yet. We got there a little bit later than everyone else (if only I didn't have to shower every once in awhile).

 

Here are the vicious monsters swimming in the moat of the castle. Yep, all those kids were with us.

 

They had a fun building area with oversized soft lego blocks. The kids loved building and especially the little ones.

 

Eli loved playing with the blocks.

 

And his sisters loved playing with him, and made him a fun little house that he thought was fun to destroy. He is definately our favorite toy to play with.

 

 

The five princesses of the castle! They had a fun dress up area that the girls enjoyed. Too bad it was quite busy or we would have let them keep wearing them the whole time we were there. I tried to take a few more pictures but found out that my card was full and so I promptly emptied the camera and erased all the pictures off the camera when we got home. We had a lot of fun playing with Summer and Birgitte's kids and then when they were ready to go we found some fun friends from school to play with. The kids enjoyed working the assembly line building Model T's and testing out their flight design skills in paper airplanes.

 

When we got home the girls decided that it was time to rake leaves. They played with it for awhile until Daniel got home and he could really help them. I spaced taking a picture until it got pretty late and they were ready to go in. Eli had fun sitting in the wagon watching us all work.

 

Daniel couldn't resist taking some pictures of this incredibly cute chubby baby after his bath. They are just so irresistable after the bath.

 

Today Eli did something I hadn't seen him do before and managed to sit back up after being on his stomach. He did it several times tonight.

 

So Daniel was trying to get his picture and everytime he would go to take his picture Eli would give hime this funny cheesy smile. It was really funny I had to go in and watch. It was because when Daniel would push down the button to focus the camera the little red eye light would flash and that would make Eli do this funny cheesy smile. He is such a riot!

Just let me clarity, yes you heard me right this was today. All these pictures were taken today and I am blogging about them today!!! Can you believe it?! Well I'd better get it posted or it won't be today anymore, it is almost midnight.