awesome giveaway

http://blog.imaginechildhood.com/imagine-childhood/2010/08/-giveaway-forum-worth-the-wait.html#comments

Neglected

Oh you poor poor neglected blog...I will be back I promise

Squaw Creek, Fathers Day, and Safety Town

SQUAW CREEK
This was seriously such a fun field trip! Brett didn't feel all to well so he missed a lot of the hiking but it was still fun. Our wonderful friend Amanda is the naturalist at the Wildlife Reservation and she did such a great job with the little ones. They got to see all kinds of animals and even have a staring contest with a snake. :)

beautiful trail


Lilly exploring the trail
looking for bugs
I love this picture. Abagail, Genna, Anna, Anlsey, Lilly and Lexi...such a great group of girls. They were looking at what they thought may be eggs but ended up being fungi that had just started growing.


Brett, Jude, and Isiah looking at the insects
Amanda telling the kids all about crayfish and how they can carry water with them so they can breathe.
f Crayfish in defense mode :)
Lexi could of won this staring contest (if the snake had eyelids) :)
learning about butterflys


I just realized I started this blog after Safety town and kind of skipped over Fathers Day. I was no where near a computer Father's Day so there is that but I still wanted to show some of what they entailed. Safety Town was so fun for Brett. He really loved it! He learned about bike, water, stranger safety and a million other things like poisons and how to call 911. It was great fun for him and it's something his grandma puts together for work so he got to see her hard work first hand. He is ready to go back next summer! Father's Day was great. We got to spend time with Jeff and both of our fathers. Jeff Brett and his dad went fishing which was great. I think Jeff really enjoyed himself and we all got new shirts to support his new job. Lilly kept stealing his shirts.



Brett at Safety Town
yBrett and Grandma Janice..her work is who puts safety town together
showing us what he learned
getting his safety diploma


just cute pictures from crazy hair night at VBS last week

Deanna Rose Farmstead

These blogs are going to be heavy on pictures and short on words but I want to catch up to our summer before we go camping. Here are some pictures from our trip to Deanna Rose Farmstead in Overland Park Kansas..This place was fantastic. It is seriously sitting smack dab in the middle of town. There were lots of fun playgrounds and animals. You could feed baby goats for $1 from a bottle....by far the favorite of the day! There was a dairy farm, fishing pond, silo slide, petal tractor track, and lots of gardens. It was great and FREE :) It was an hour drive so not free but seriously worth it. The kids loved it.

bottle feeding baby goats...this was by far Brett's favorite thing we did this day. He really loved watching them eat out of a "baby bottle"
watching the goats...she was a little to nervous to do the bottle herself.
Petal Tractor!!!


watching the chickens...she was so sweaty and did not care at all!
feeding the animals
looking at the flower garden
emy little bug
my little butterfly
Brett really wanted to ride the horse
Helping Lilly across the bridge
hee haw hee haw :) She loved being outside
playing on the barn slide

2 yeras ago today

2 years ago today I was giving birth to my second little joy. She is the most amazing little girl and is so fun to watch. Happy Birthday to my beautiful flower. We love you Lilly! Hope you enjoy some pictures from her first 2 years of life :)

oh so tired

It's past midnight and I am to tired to write or do pictures but I am going to leave you with the two things that I learned while hiking at Squaw Creek today....#1 there ARE snakes at the wildlife refuge and they are fast little guys and #2. if Brett gets hot he WILL puke no matter where he is :) we had so much fun and I can not wait to show you the pictures but it is going to have to wait until tomorrow or the next day. It was also day 3 of VBS which means crazy hair night which means total fun :) Pictures of that to come as well.

http://www.fws.gov/refuges/profiles/index.cfm?id=33560

going to the campground tomorrow to swim with the cousins and fish with Papa before VBS so don't hold your breathe on pictures :)

more outside pictures and randomness

Ok so I actually have lots of pictures to post but I need to get them off my camera and not my phone so it will take a little more work than what I am willing to do tonight. We have still been walking Mark Youngdahl almost every night but we also made it to the Farm on Friday and had an amazing time. Those are the pictures I still need to get loaded. All of the pics I have put on here so far I have been able to easily send from my phone and that has been NICE! :) Here are some pics of our most recent walk and a craft project I am working on.

Brett's hand. I need to buy some blue thread so I can finish it. It isn't Brett if there is no blue involved. I am working on Lilly's now. I saw this on www.childhoodmagic.blogspot.com which is a blog I have become slightly obsessed with reading. I find her fascinating and inspiring and I would love for my kids to have that kind of nature surrounding them. Also I am really interested in her style of homeschooling so it has been really fun to read. I wonder if I should tell her I mentioned her on here? I'm not sure how the blogging about other bloggers thing works? Also I should mention I am not very good at embroidery but I did really enjoy doing it today. It was a nice sit and relax craft plus Brett got to help with parts of the stitching and he was really excited that I was going to embroider his handwriting. (He wrote his name)
This is the deer we saw on our walk Thursday night. I wish this was an accurate shot of how close he really was to us but as I mentioned I am using my phone camera. We were really really close. The kids LOVED it!
More feeding the fish and turtles. They really love watching the turtles battle for food.
I love going as the sun is going down. It is such a beautiful place to walk and makes for such an amazing time to find lightning bugs. The rain has kept us in a little more than I like because we CAN NOT get sick this week (its VBS and Lilly's birthday is Thursday). We have a huge field trip planned for Squaw Creek on Wednesday so I am praying for nice weather.

Also as I mentioned it is VBS week and Lilly's birthday so those pictures to follow. Brett is loving VBS this year which is a nice change from the fit throwing we had last year. Fingers crossed the whole week goes as well as tonight did!