Brains are good

We borrowed a science project book from a friend just started working through it. It's all sorts of cool things about the human body for kids. We watched a video about the brain, read a a great book and then made brain hats. Hank actually remembered quite a bit.

I made Shane's hat only because I knew he'd want one but he'd never sit still to color or glue...and I certainly wouldn't hand him a pair of scissors! Ella liked the coloring part. She picked out the colors for the different sections of the brain and when she goofed up, she asked for another copy so she could start over. She's such a little artist and so patient while she's creating.

Here they are with their hats.
The side view. It shows where different functions reside, speech, motor controls, sight, hearing, taste, smell, etc. It also shows the 3 major parts, cerebrum, cerebellum and brain stem. Ella remembered those pretty easily. I'm always struck by just how much information they retain. They're little sponges for sure.

A milestone

His tooth has been wiggly for a while now but I ask him every now and then if it has fallen out yet. Thursday on our way home from playgroup I asked him and to my surprise he said it fell out. I asked him if he pulled it and he said no, it just fell out. His permanent tooth has been growing up behind so I was glad to see it has a little better chance to come in straight (fingers crossed!).

He called Dee (same conversation as the ants) and told her all about it. Very exciting.
He gave it to me to hold and it must have fallen out of my pocket. I was worried he'd really be upset, but I told him we could just write a note to the Tooth Fairy and it would be ok. He told me what to write "Dear Tooth Fairy, My tooth fell out, but my mom lost it. Love, Hank" He signed his name and drew a big heart next to it. Under the pillow it went.

He crawled into our bed at some point in the night but when he woke up the next morning, he bolted out of our bed, ran to his room and grabbed his pillow up.

"Look mom it's paper with a president's head on it! It's George Washington, he was alive a long time ago but he's dead now." We're still working on learning our money denominations. :)
He has 3 more that are just a little bit loose. He's going to be so cute when they all start falling out. :)

Ants

Hank loves all creatures, big, little, furry, scaley so we got him an ant farm for his birthday. Bill mailed the certificate for our supply of live ants while we were at the beach and they just arrived a couple of days ago. I guess they grew us our own special ants from babies??

They're really cool to watch and they've already dug a couple of tunnels. Hank was so excited that they came, he kissed the tube they came in. The instructions told us to put them in the fridge to slow them down so you can put them in their habitat without being bitten or having them escape. I set the timer and he watched it very closely. He was so worried they were going to die in our fridge. They also told us the ants are Harvester ants and their bite is very painful which I explained to Ella and Hank. It also said folks who are allergic to insect bites in general shouldn't be around them while making the transfer into their new home. Hank was very serious when he told Jake to wait in the other room until we were done. Later he called Dee to tell her his news and remembered their name and the painful bite info.

Of course with Shane in the house, Priority Number One is keeping them away from him. He's just as in love as Hank, but he really is a bull in a china shop. The lid is pretty hard to open but we taped it also just to give us those few extra seconds should he get his hands on them unsupervised!

Picking with all the kids

So we realized if I pick with the kids, they can eat what I pick and leave Daddy to fill bigger bowls, faster. So there are the little vultures just waiting for their treasure. I have no idea what Hank is doing. Maybe the berry dance? Ever the cheeseball, my Shane. It was really humid out so the lens kept fogging.

And I found this cute one of Shane and Poppa checking out the scenery from the stairs at DeeDee's.

Definitely not Big Foot

The hill on the edge of the field next to our house is *covered* in raspberries and blackberries...and sumac trees, honeysuckle vines and poison ivy. Ella and Shane could eat their weight in berries (any kind) every day. That would get a bit expensive so we're very grateful to have such an abundant supply nearby.

I mowed a little path to the hill but Daddy was on his own to make his way through the tangle of vines and trees to actually get the berries.

Shane can/will eat them as fast as you put them in the bowl so Daddy woke up early one morning to pick a bunch hoping they'd last at least for breakfast. Ella somehow sensed her daddy was up so she put on her flip flops and joined him while still in her jammies.

I woke up and realized they were both gone but didn't know where to. I saw the front door was unlocked so I figured they were down the hill and grabbed the camera.

In the picture below, it appears I've captured a little seen forest creature known as Little Foot. If you're lucky enough to spot her yourself, you will likely find her in a tutu with a tiara.

Out of order as always! Below is before I was spotted. Above is after...

More dress up fun

Not great pictures but they're a snapshot of a day in the life here...

King Peter

Dee Dee got Hank a King Peter costume and crossbow for his birthday. He loved it so much that he wanted to sleep in it.
He has Aslan, Lucy, Prince Caspian and the Stone Table on his cake. He took one look at Lucy, "that's a girl! Here you take it Elwa; I don't like girl cakes."

Aunt Honey found a left handed little kid baseball glove so he was really happy about that. We went to a Keys game and all we had were right handed glovess. He was so confused trying to catch and throw with the same hand while wearing a glove needless to say the new glove is perfect.

Aunt Cindy got him a cool big boy watch. He's learning to tell time so this will help him out. He can read numbers up to 100, but he gets a little confused sometimes when they're side by side - like 8:32...he knows 8 and he knows 32 but putting them together is tricky so we're still practicing!

Uncle Mark stopped in Savannah on his way back from Florida and got him a real life Yankee (which was surprising) Civil War hat and a spy glass that came with a map of different battles. Ever the dork, I was excited since we'll be covering the Civil War in school this coming year. Now we have a big, detailed map to follow the war and stuff to dress up in so we can re-enact scenes from books.

CarGrammy and Car Grampy sent money for outer space stuff. Hank has the 9 planets hanging from his ceiling. They're big and really cool because they have a lot of detail painted on them and they glow in the dark. And they came with a ton of stick on stars so Daddy patiently, painstakingly put up Orion and the Little Dipper. After his arms fell asleep from being over his head, he let the kids just put the rest of the stars wherever they wanted. We have some interesting designs in there now. He also got a great book about the planets. Big colorful pictures and lots of information.

All in all it was a great day

Slip and Slide

Our side yard is really steep which is perfect for a slip and slide. Since this year, we are far from drought conditions (we're on a well) Bill let us enjoy some watery fun.

I found a roll of plastic in the basement, add some dish soap and water, and wahoo!
Hank normally wears a rash shirt with his swim trunks. It's not called a rash shirt for nuttin' The grass scratched him all up and down his tummy and back. He had his 6 year check up the next day so I had to explain that he really hadn't been attacked by a band of ferral cats despite what he looked like.

Shane preferred swinging. But being all soapy made it a little tough to get on the swing.

Summer Celebration

Summer Celebration is a daycamp our old church does for 6-10 year olds. They invited the kids from our church to attend as well and Hank made the cutoff by less than a week! They were also very gracious and allowed Jake to be a helper on Hank's team. I don't think Hank would have had as much fun if he hadn't been there. It's *a lot* of kids and a lot of noise and of course, a lot of fun.

The helpers (Jake, etc) had to arrive at 7 AM...my thoughts exactly. Very thankfully Bill and Mrs. B were able to work out a carpool so I didn't need to leave the house until a more reasonable hour. Here's Hank on Day 1 in the monring. A little "nerbus" but excited, too.
In the church lobby at the end of Day 1. I think it was a success.

Continuing on...

I am so far behind it's scary, but my primary reason for blogging is to capture the memories. Here are the rest of the pictures from our Broomes Island trip last month.

As usual, they're out of order so bear with me...

The boys playing on the second beach we found at Jefferson Patterson Park. There were *tons* of dead little crabs along this beach. We stopped at the Visitor's Center on our way out to see if they knew why. They said it could be any number of things but that they would check with the rangers to see.
That's my size 8 next to this dead Horseshoe crab. Since it's so big, it was probably a female (learned that at the Maritime Museum we visited earlier in the week)
Jeff Pat is also an archeological (can you hear me sounding that out and typing real sloooow) research center so they have a bunch of big buildings on the site. One of them sports this big chimney where an Osprey built her nest. We parked just across from it so after our beach adventure, we got our bird stuff and watched her for a while.

More beachy fun


Muscle Beach here Hank comes!
I don't know if Shane is eating sand or just lying there.