You know your 5,oops scratch that!, 6 year old is skinny when

he can wear his two year old brother's clothes...

Kind of reminds me of Uncle Potty when he was that age.

It also reminds me to do a load or two of laundry.

And you know mommy needs a nap when she forgets her 6 year old is *not* a 5 year old anymore!

A little gem I just had to record.

Ella was sitting at the dining room table singing Bon Jour - ala Beauty and the Beast - when Jake had his fill.

--Ella please stop singing! You are *not* French.

--You're right Jake; I'm Chinese and I sing in French!

What a smart cookie...did I mention she's homeschooled? (:-P

Little treasures

I love opening doors, looking under the bed, etc to find little treasures like the one below. Ella and Shane play in her closet all the time with their babies. Here are their little ones taking a nap.

Pumpkin contest

I won't even pretend I understand how to load pictures in any kind of order!

That said..below is Shane's nose. For some reason he felt like I needed to take a picture of his nose hairs. He's very silly...must take after daddy.
As usual...the pix are out of order. Our library is wonderful, and I love our librarians; they are so friendly and just love seeing my herd of kids come tearing through the door to find books to take home. Of course the kids love going to the library because I let them bring home as many books as they can carry.

Right now they have a pumpkin decorating contest running. You just have to decorate a pumpkin as your favorite book character and drop it off. The librarians vote on the best one(s) on Halloween. We aren't fans of halloween but we are fans of reading and doing crafts so that's what I emphasized with Ella.

She rocked her schoolwork today finishing sooper fast so she and I painted pumpkins while the boys slaved away moaning and groaning about all the work their mean teacher (me!) makes them do.

Can you guess the characters? The book?

The finished products

The girlie with her masterpieces

Working hard sewing

More hard work

The characters are bear, rabbit and hedgehog from The Mitten, one of my favorite books illustrated by one of my favorite authors! We found a plastic grasshopper to put on top of the mitten to complete our library display.

When we got there, the librarian took Ella's picture next to her entry. She was so proud of herself!

As for how much of it she actually did...almost all of it. She and I talked about some ideas and she picked which animals from the story to do. She did most of the painting and all of the glueing. I did the cutting only because we'd still be working on it if we waited for her to cut it all out! :)

She did an excellent job and worked very hard! Way to go Ella Kat!

Corn Maze Madness

We went with Mr and Mrs P to a local corn maze under the guise of doing research for the high school youth group. I need to report whether or not this maze will be fun for the older kids. In the end, I have to vote no only because there's no real rhyme or reason to the maze. They literally dropped us off at the entrance and that was it. They didn't even tell us if the exit was seperate from the entrance or what.

Other mazes in the area give you little clues along the way...trivia questions, etc and your answer determines which route to take. In this maze, Mrs P and I started leaving marks along our way. We realized we were passing the same turns over and over. The men laughed at us, but in the end, I'm sure they were very grateful to not walk past the same empty box of Spiderman Nerds again.

I will say we got a bit discouraged by all the walking in circles...with two little kids who wanted to be carried. But in the end we rallied and were determined to beat the maze. And beat it we did!

In the beginning...was a happy, rested, energetic family

You begin to see signs of tiredness even in Hank which is almost unheard of
Nevermind her devil-eyes. She was rolling her eyes at her brother who was practicing his best "yea, man I'm cool" pose

A boy and his corn stalk walking stick

Running like a monkey because, well, he can
YES!
A cute pooch named Zoe and her owners took our picture.
We ddin't see many others behind us so we think a bunch of people just gave up and went out through the entrance. Then we headed to the pumpkin patch where Hank chose a really big pumpkin. Jake still had some umph so he carried it to the hay wagon for Hank. What a nice big brother. :)

Musicians....

I've heard those artsy types can be tempermental. The one boot cracks me up.
What is so amazing though is that in this shot he looks almost angelic...same tantrum, and miliseconds later we all enjoyed screaming and a very crabby face. Photographs are incredible...capturing a split second of a person's life. I guess the trick is capturing the right split second!

John Denver?

Uncle Nacho said Shane looks just like John Denver; I'm not a huge fan but we decided to capitalize on his resemblence for the 2nd Annual Fall Fest party.

To say that he was a hit, is a huge understatement. Shane is one of those kids who makes friends wherever he goes and everyone seems to know him. To be as popular as my two year old...

Warming up in the butterfly lawn chair. He calls the guitar his "now now." He plays the air guitar saying "now now now"

I wanted to leave his case open to see if people would toss in their loose change
I'm saving this picture for always; he's just so stinkin' cute here and the sky was so pretty.

And when he's famous, everyone will want to see how it all began.
And a beautiful princess for good measure

Ft. McHenry2

This picture just seems to say...O Say! Can you see??

The boys checking out the bombshelter

Shane being cute

Peeking out the window

Shane really got into the whole shooting thing. He started blasting this very nice couple. They thought he was so cute, they started taking pictures of him. His cuteness really bails his buns out of trouble more often than I care to think about!
Such a cute little guy


Hanging out with daddio

The boys up on the wall

Field trip to Ft McHenry

We've tried to do a field trip each Friday for as long as the weather holds out. We've gone some pretty cool places and I have learned quite a bit too!
Ft McHenry was a great trip. Perfect weather and fun times to be had.

Very thankfully, Bill was able to join us and be Shane's keeper. I don't think I could have kept up with him and the other kids too. Here he is shooting someone. You'll see a theme in his pictures...

Being a cheeseball. Daddy let him have Cherry flavored Jones soda. Cane juice instead of corn syrup so it is a guilty pleasure that he can have.

Following the big kids

Hank awaiting his orders

Ella's very big gun

Going to get a gun for daddy. He would not follow the kids until daddy had his own gun.

Daddy and his boy

The kids preparing for battle

Hank being goofy...so surprising

Pumpkin Patch 4

I can't believe I forgot to post about the Maze. Here's the motley crew (sans moms) that did the "easy" maze. Ha! They said it would take 15 minutes. It took us 30 and we cheated a little (broke through the corn to another path that led out). It really was a lot of fun!

I love these "getting ready for a group shot" shots

Hank and his buddies J and A
The famous jumping pillow
Jumping girlie!

More of the group
I don't think any of us got even 1 shot of all of them looking in the same direction, nonetheless, they're all adorable.

Pumpkin Patch 3

They have these cool tubs set up with pumps and pipes for duck races. Shane could barely reach into the tub to get ducks for his race.

Pump!
Go duckie!
Big kids racing
Cute baby buns
Hank and his friend A. I'm working with her mom on an arranged marriage
Hank in the big bin of corn kernels. Cool shadows