Garrett's random pictures

 Garrett asked for a camera for his birthday, and got one from my mom.  He's forever taking random pictures around the house.  Enjoy!

Helicage (one of his favorite things)

 

Monster crafts

 On the way to the beach

 Lizard in the bug catcher

And Garrett letting that lizard go

Hurricane Weekend and more. . .

We here in SoFl celebrated the first week of back to school by hosting Tropical Storm Issac for a visit over the last weekend in August.  The kids got an extra day off school.  We spent the time before the storm outside enjoying the calm before the storm. Although really, the storm wasn't bad at all--just wind and lots of rain.  The worst part of it was that it canceled my plans to bike all weekend :-)  But alas, we still had fun.

Summer is obsessed  with these awesome letter mazes from 1+1+1=1

 We made sidewalk chalk paint to have some fun outside before the storm came.  1c corn starch + 1 c water, then add food coloring.

 Always a clown

 They worked great too!

 Since we don't have a basketball hoop, Garrett and Brady, one of our neighbors, tried to make a "basket" into the tree. Brady achieved many :-)

The second SHORTENED week of school was uneventful.  I went in to work on Tuesday and Brad held down the fort.  We baked/cleaned/did our usual things.  We spent this past weekend relaxing.  Garrett wanted to go fishing.  He FINALLY caught his first fish from our lake, a small large-mouth bass.  Unfortunately the only OTHER thing we caught all weekend was ducks.  Stupid, annoying Muscovite ducks, the bane of our lakeside existence . . . they actually tried to steal our bread and got caught on our hooks TWICE.  No one was impressed with that.  It was quite the disaster.  I would try to reel in the duck to cut the line under the bobber and Haylee would try to swim in the water to try and eat the duck.  We ended up losing the bobber the 2nd time and Haylee got lots of baths.  **Facepalm!**

Happy weekend!

Last bits of summer fun and the start of school

Long time, no post.  What can I say, we've been busy having fun.  Summer flew by too fast.  We went on a trip to Missouri in late July/early August with a detour at Mammoth Cave, KY.  Hopefully I'll find time to dedicate a post to that, because it was a really fun and noteworthy trip.  Here are some random shots of the kids enjoying the last bits of summer and of their first days of "school".

Angry birds printables from 1+1+1=1  = great rainy day play!

 

One of the may lego creations of the summer.

 Daddy and Garrett working on an electrical circuit

 Four legged babies enjoying their lives

 Rainbow fish project for school

 Summer sporting her stylish "headphones" that make her not freak out during fireworks and thunderstroms.

 Adorable Rapunzel bow crafted by our neighbor, Dapper Duckling Designs

 Garrett's trash robot, one of his many, MANY recycled creations.

 Summer was over way to soon.  Garrett started his first day of First Grade happy as ever.  We are loving our new routine of walking to school every day.  It gives us a chance to chat and stretch our legs.  Our lives just feel so less "rushed" than they did.  Traffic is a non-issue since our feet and our bikes are the prefered mode of transportation.  I still have some stress over the size of his school (650 K-5th graders), but its been a good fit.  He's in an accelerated program, something that wasn't available at our last school, and he is loving his teachers.  (Sorry for the poor photo quality, my flash failed and I didn't realize it till later so I had to doctor the photo).

 

Summer has started "school" too.  She isn't eligible for state-funded Pre-K yet so we started doing some Pre-K homeschooling.  Here she is doing some marble patterns.  It blows me away how big she is now--she definitely has her own little crazy personality.  She is so excited to go to school next year, but I'm really grateful to have this last year at home with her.  I know its the end of an era, I'll never have someone home with me every day once she starts school (summers notwithstanding).  She really misses her brother though, and has a hard time understanding why she doesn't go to school when almost everyone else she knows does.

 

 As we settle in to our school year routine, I hope I will get a little more consistent on the blogging front!