Good friends

Sometimes I really wish I had my camera in my hands. All I had available was my phone which means you get the tiny thumbnail. Anyway, the boys were waiting to ride a 'train' made of 20 gallon barrels. I think these guys are going to be good friends for a long time. It made me smile so I had to take their picture.

Let me eat cake!

Here is Melanie's most recent cake achievement. She made this beautiful fruit and veggie truck on a dirt road for Noah's birthday party. The bed of the truck is filled with fruit and veggie shaped gummy candies. It was a yummy cake!

Scream like a girl

Wy completely freaks out when an ant comes near him, or a fly, or any other of God's small creatures. We will be outside when suddenly he starts screaming like a girl. I dash over to see what has gone wrong. Wy is frozen in fear holding his hand completely still. There is a fly on his finger. This happens frequently so I didn't pay much attention to the screamign like a girl thing the other day when I was buckling him into the car seat outside the grocery store. I told him everything was fine and it was just a little fly. Then he starts screaming about his shoe. I looked down to see a Praying Mantis the size of Wyatt's foot just hanging out on his shoe. It jumped on me. I screamed like a girl then it jumped out of the car. I know this picture is really small - I took it with my phone - but that thing was the biggest damn bug I have ever seen.

Nummer 1

Wy and I were on our way to pick up Devon the other morning. Wy pipes up and says "Mommy - Nummer 1: I want you to bump vat car in front of us. Nummer 2: I want you to break it. Nummer free: I want you to build it back together again." I have no idea where this came from and told him that there was no way I was going to bump, break or repair the car in front of us. He said "I don't wike what you said to me."

OK - I know it is not very imaginative or informative, but I have uploaded a few albums to our shutterfly account, which you can link to here http://owenlandparkproductions.shutterfly.com/

I put up an album of some of the projects John has been working on recently. You can find that in the latheworks album.

I put up pictures from Jack's last two soccer practices, the game and some brotherly play time post game. You can find that in the soccer practice, soccer game and playtime album. Go figure.

And you can check out the fun the boys had with their cousin Noah at the St. Joe South Side Festival this weekend. Jack calls it the Vestible.

I know, I know - this is all very unimaginative. Like everyone else, I have been up to my eyeballs with work and am hopefully going to have a few weeks where my schedule is a bit more normal. I hope you enjoy the pics if you decide to visit.

Love and more to come,
me

Oh Yeah, Baby!

Noah will drop to the ground and do this little hip dance calling out "Oh, yeah, baby!" I find this hysterical.

Ally Cat

The show at the Coterie features 3 science fiction pieces - thus the name Science Fiction Triple Feature. The middle piece is Flowers for Algernon. And yes we have a live mouse in the show. Actually, we have two mice as we have found out the little guys do much better with a friend. John and Jack came to pick me up after Jack's soccer practice the other week and Jack was thrilled to meet one of the mice. This one is either Ally Cat or Ally Oop (Algernon, Ally, get it?). I can't tell the difference between them. I would make a horrible mother of twins...

A baaaad reindeer

So we are posing for this picture and Jack says to me "I'm going to kill a baaaad reindeer, Mommy." I have no idea what this means or where it came from but there ya have it.

Go-Bagel?

The kids had bagels and 'go-gurt' for breakfast the other day. Devlyn decided to adorn her bagel with her go-gurt. (OK - as you can see from the wrapper in the picture, it is really called a Moo-Tube but I can't make myself say "Who wants a Moo-Tube?")

Gymnast Jess

Jess joined her high school's gymnast's team this year. She has competed in 3 meets thus far and placed 2nd on the beam last week. She had a pretty rough time on the beam tonight. One of the big problems she had tonight happened when someone took a picture with a flash - and no it was NOT my camera. She was taken by surprise and fell off the beam. She is pretty upset with herself, but I think she did a fantastic job for a young lady who has only been in training for a few short weeks.

I hope to make it out to her meet next week and get a few more pictures of her in action uploaded for you.

I also have pictures of Jack's soccer practice (I keep calling it rehearsal) as well as his game, but I have to sort through them and upload which is going to take some time. Hopefully I can get to that now that my evenings are my own for a few weeks again.

Love and blessings,
amy

Comstructions

To let the kids celebrate Labor Day I offered up pizza for breakfast. This went over very well, though Mom did ask me where the aliens put her daughter. Jack was super excited because he helped Gammy pick out pizza. Imagine how excited he was when they found this in the freezer section...




Wy ran around with the paper top from the packaging and read the "comstructions" to me - and I quote "Number one: Pweathe don't make your pitha too hot. Ven when its hot, you give it to me."

Conformity

Wy and I were having lunch with Mom earlier this week. Wy looked at me and said "Mommy, can I go to ve Coterie wiff you, PWEEEEAAATHE!" I told him he can go with me when I am in performances but he would have to be on his best behavior by being a gentleman."

He looked at me very seriously and asked "Mommy, are you in conformances?"
Laughing, I replied "I will have to ask my boss."
He looked at me again and asked "Will your both thay yeth?"
I said "Quite honsetly pal, I don't know."

So I texted my boss, explained my conversation with Wy and got the following response; "LOL! Yes baby you do conform!"

I told Wy that my boss said I conform and Wy beamed. He bounced up and down calling out "Oh fank you for taking me to ve Coterie, Mommy! Fank you! Fank you!!!"

Pheobe

Have you ever seen the episode of Friends where Pheobe jogs through the park?

That's our Devlyn. (I know the pics are small. I never seem to have my camera when she is out running like crazy. We have to settle with a shot from my phone.)

Love to you!

Spelling

Every day Connie has spelling homework. On Monday she writes her spelling words three times each. On Tuesday she has to put her words in alphabetical order. On Wednesday she has to create a sentence for each word on the list.

The photo is a little on the hard to read side so for those of you who may be having difficulty, I will share my two favorites from this list;
"Now just sit down and eat your dinner." This is a comment directed at Connie many a night while we are sitting around the dinner table.
I also really appreciate "I want to go to Pizza Hut but I can't."
Love and blessings

Crazy Hat Day

At the beginning of each month the kids' school has what they call "Can Day". Kids can bring in aluminium cans to the Can Man, he will give them a special Popsicle stick and the following day the kids can have some fun with their uniform by getting to wear silly socks - or as you might have guessed, silly hats. The Can Man takes all the cans to a recycling center and gives the proceeds to the school. Last year the school kids brought in over $1,000 with their recycling efforts. Way to go kids! Here are our kids showing off the crazy hats they got to wear today. Duck, Duck, Tiger!

Love and blessings.

School bus blues

Lowe's has a program called Build and Grow. Kids can sign up to build projects for free. A few weeks ago, John took Jack for a Lady Bug bug-box project. As the project title suggests, the bug box was indeed for the purpose of holding bugs hostage. It had a little removable clear plastic lid that functioned as the capture/release door for these unfortunate souls. This weekend the project was a school bus. The school bus also has a little removable lid though it is black. Thankfully the purpose of this container is a holding cell for chalk not renegade insects. Here is Jack proudly displaying his accoutrement for the school bus project.

Let me see...hit the thing with that other thing...

Unfortunately the side rails broke off of the bus Jack was building. The folks at Lowe's told us those rails had been breaking off of other kids' buses all morning. Then they gave us gorilla glue to bond the pieces together. I think gorilla glue was an idiotic choice as it EXPANDS which would prevent the little removable door from being installed OR removed...and it takes at least a half hour to set up. I tried to convince Jack to wait long enough for me to get a different glue, but he was inconsolable. I am weak. I gave in and used gorilla glue. It expanded. The door wouldn't work. Jack was an emotional wreck. I finally asked if there was a spare bus that Jack could put together. No dice. But they did let me take the already put together display model. I thought things were fine. Might I draw your attention to the fact that I said "I thought things were fine." Things were not fine. OK - Jack managed to keep it together until we were in the car where he lapsed into a deep depression.

He didn't like this substitute bus. He didn't build it. It wasn't his bus. Fortunately I am sometimes clever. For some weird reason I can't explain, I kept the stickers that came with the original (now broken) bus. I told Jack we could pull all the stickers off of the impostor bus and put on the stickers from HIS bus kit. He thought this was brilliant. One by one he peeled off stickers and stuck their straggly little torn off pieces to my arm as I drove. He replaced those stickers with the exact same stickers from the kit of supplies he had been given and now he loves his bus.

After solving the problem of the bus, we stopped by the K-mart to pick up some tennis shoes. Jack has decided he wants to play soccer. "Soccer is where you kick a ball. If you kick it to right goal you win. If you kick it to the wrong goal, you are a loser." He spent a long time debating over which shoes to get because he needs "shoes that will make me faster than Dominic." I told him I liked the white shoes. He IMMEDIATELY said he wanted the black ones. I asked "If I told you I liked the black ones which shoes would you pick?" You know he said "The white ones." And the lady standing behind me left the aisle laughing. At least he is honest.

p.s. - don't tell me I have to go buy him actual soccer shoes. A few people dropped this on me after I bought him tennis shoes.