Random collection of pictures from our life.

School started this year. Yes, we are virtual schooling again. Here are Collin's assignments for the first week. Oh my heck!!!The top two squares are all language arts assignments... he had handwriting, literature and composition, writing skills, vocabulary, and spelling. Then the other subjects of course. Those are just language arts!

Playing in the rain!!!

Start of school ice cream party. Banana splits!!!

Paul and I were sword fighting with vegetables as we were preparing dinner. I won!! (I had the carrot ;)

After speech and occupational therapy we always go on a walk around the pond. This week we found baby ducks!! The mother let the kids walk right up to them. When we left, two of the baby ducklings followed us to the parking lot so we walked back to the pond and they followed us back to the pond. We waited until they were playing happily with their siblings again and then ran for the van! LOL! The kids thought it was awesome!

Ryanne's math assignment was to make a puppet with shapes. She loved it. Collin wanted to do that instead of his 2nd grade math. haha! Kindergarten math just looks so much better than 2nd grade.

Mismatched and barefoot. It's a great example of how my kids look for school everyday.

I still can't believe she's in kindergarten and I have no idea why she was wearing a sweater in SC in August. 

I just thought this was a cute picture. They were laughing at each other and Collin had a piece of sassafras candy stuffed in his cheek so it only added to the humor.

How do you practice spelling? Collin likes Spelling Baseball. I drew this and laminated it last year. He's writing "lock". If he gets it right then he gets to move the pennies another run. If he gets it wrong then he gets a strike. After three strikes the pennies and nickels trade spots.

Wednesday was quite exciting. Ryanne and Baker were playing outside and Baker got into a hissing fight with a baby snake. Ryanne and I caught it (scooped it up with a shovel) and put it in an empty trashcan. Then, we started searching the area and found 2 more. Three total. I caught them b/c if they were venomous, I needed to kill them. However, if they were good snakes then I didn't want to kill them. So, Ryanne and I waited until Paul and Collin got home and we found out they were just rat snakes. Juvenile Black Rat snakes to be exact. We found them a new home with lots of grass and woods to hide in instead of on our .25 acre lot. 

Ryanne started girlscouts this year!! Isn't she such a cute daisy? Unfortunately, it's 6:30-8:30 pm so she gets home an hour after her bedtime and it's dark and she needs to go to bed but she's all excited about it. She came home last night with a birdbath and had to wait until today to put it out. LOL! 

So, we put it out this morning. However, we have a cat who goes outside so this may just be his water dish b/c not many birds will feel comfortable bathing in this with him around. haha!

And then I had to include this picture. Poor Baker. haha!

Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam!

Since I was released from primary, last Sunday was the first Sunday I was going to go to an adult class since before Collin was born. I was really nervous about it. I mean, what do you do when there are no hand motions to the songs or games to play or *gasp* everyone is quietly listening to the lesson or maturely discussing the topic with one another. LOL! Luckily, I was saved from all that and asked to substitute teach the Sunbeam class (the 3 year olds). There were only 6 of them so it was the perfect size class and I love teaching this age group.

They were learning about temples so I took them on an "open house" of the church to see things that are in both churches and temples and talked about the differences and similarities. They thought going to the baptismal font was cool! I let them walk down inside of it. ;) Anyways, after we finished the lesson part, we made temples out of marshmallows and toothpicks. It was so fun and I loved watching the kids. None of them were 3-D so they made their temples really big! One little girl had me laughing so hard. She made a dinosaur eating squirrel food. I mean, who thinks of these things? Well, 3 year olds, of course! It was soooo fun! My kids ran in when they were finished with their class and saw the temples and had to build some of their own.

After we got home my kids started working on their own. They snatched my phone and took their own pictures of their temples. So, here are a few of their shots. Now, I am always careful not to get pictures of the background mess but my kids are not so... yeah..... There are also a few fingers in the shots but I think they're cute!

This is a little random but.... do you think I'm wearing flip flops in this picture?

Paul is allergic to grass so I am the mower. This is what happens when you mow the lawn in flip flops. You get dirt flops? haha!

TaeKwonDo Testing

Collin is now a purple belt!! He gets to break boards again. Yes, he broke boards as a tiny tiger when he was a purple belt but then he moved up to the big kid class and they sent him back to camo belt. Here are some videos and pictures from our night. :)

There were a lot of other videos but I don't want to bore you too much. Collin did well! I was so proud of him. ;)

Phone Purge

So... what have we been up to?

This was the kids' fort that Paul built them before he left for scout camp and I think it stayed until he got back. The kids loved it. Collin was often in there. He likes quiet, alone time and this gave it to him. :)

When Paul returned from scout camp the tires on the van looked like this. That meant I was home bound until pay day!

Well, I went to church in Paul's car one night and participated in the Daddy Daughter Fiesta the activity day girls had. That was tons of fun!! :) 

Being home bound meant that Ryanne and I went on lots of walks and bike rides.

Unfortunately there was a lot of rain as well so we were inside a lot during our home bound time. Collin and I were fine. Ryanne was, well, a little stir crazy.

This past Sunday I was called as the cubscout master at church. I have been serving in primary since 2008 and young women's before that. I haven't been to an adult class at church since before Collin was born so I am kind of excited. However, I'm a little worried I'll be bored... where are the hand motions to the songs? Where are the games? Where is the acting out of stories? We need more music!! LOL! I'll have to get over it and act like a mature adult. Will I be able to do it? This is a picture Ryanne took of me reading one of my cubscout books I brought home with me to look over.

We were invited to a friend's house for a hamburger potluck. It wasn't planned but it turned into a "water day" for the children. That's why some are in undies and others are wearing their clothes. However, it turned out to be tons of fun! This was a tarp with the sprinkler and dish soap. haha!

This is the trampoline with shaving cream! Good thing they had the net around it because those kids were slipping and sliding everywhere!

He looks evil in this picture but he was really just laughing and running and happened to fall down in front of me so I snapped a photo quickly. :)

I woke up to this one morning. Aren't they cute?

I had to take a picture of this. Ryanne loves Bieber and plans to marry him. She has two t-shirts with his face plastered on the front of them and she happened to wear this one to a meeting I had at Chickfila. She and Collin played in the play area while I talked with the other parents. (It was a meeting with the parents in the kids' school.) After we got home she said, "A little girl walked up to me and yelled, 'you stole Justin Bieber from me!' Then she hissed at me like this..." *insert Ryanne hissing*. I laughed so hard. These little girls fighting over Justin. haha!! Crazy-ness!

I complained to Paul of cramps (if any men are reading this, get over, it's life!) and he came home with flowers and pastries!!! I really married the best guy ever!!!! :)

I took the kids to a real candy store. They had never been to one so I gave them each $2 and turned them loose. So fun! Then we walked around downtown and looked at murals painted on the side of buildings, made wishes in the well and threw in a penny each, smelled the wonderful smells from the shops and restaurants and peeked into every window. Really, Ryanne walked right up to them, cupped her hands around her face and looked in while smiling or waving at anyone inside staring at her. So funny!

We've had quite a few play dates too. This is just one of them we've had with a friend down the street from us and their little chihuahua. Too cute! 

My Dream Family Adventure

The timing of things is just creepy sometimes. This morning, I happened to see a post a friend shared about an RV giveaway. :) So, I started exploring the site and saw this trailer and fell in love! :) It's on sale for $25,000 which is certainly no pocket change so not a realistic short term dream here.

Isn't it awesome?

Then, later when I was checking one of the blogs I check often I ran across this story.

http://screen.yahoo.com/family-road-174616910.html

So, now I have a dream family adventure. However, it won't be achievable for quite some time. I think it'd be awesome though! We've been saying we wanted to work on becoming the minimalist lifestyle (practical though) and this would be awesome and would totally help us achieve that goal because it would be part of that goal. Love it! :)

Oh! If you want to follow the family's blog then check it out here http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/

Hair Experiments

I am trying to grow my hair out but living in South Carolina has always made me give up on that dream as the sweat drips down my neck and I am forced to hold my hair up or throw it up into a ponytail... again. I just get so bored with the ponytail sometimes. So, I have been experimenting with up-dos. YAY!!! Here are just a few I have done.

This one and the one below are the same one... just different angles. I had a hard time taking a picture of my own hair. This is one of my FAVORITES!!!

Look!! I finally figured out an easy way to take a picture of the back of my head in the mirror. Ignore the hole in the wall, we're painting the bathroom and I took the vent cover off. :) This is a fun hairstyle to do on a frizzy, need to wash my hair type of day. :) I just braid a scarf into my hair and then twist it up. :)

Hopefully I'll make it through this summer without chopping off all my hair. :)