Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Cardboard Village

This fall, Austin's Target class got to use their creativity and design a cardboard village, much like what Caine did in his arcade ... well, after bringing lots and lots of cardboard boxes to school, Austin and his classmates came up with City Hall as their contribution to the Cardboard Village.
He worked with his friend Charlie from cub scouts to build City Hall
Those are obviously Texas trees in front of the building ;0
  
Friends Hayden and Michael built a gas station and convenience store....they ended their week with a trip to Canstruction - a very cool idea to inspire recycling and creativity.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Christmas Card pictures

Thank goodness Christmas comes just once a year as that is about as often as Eric and I can get our acts together and get the kids dressed and in great moods to go take pictures somewhere.....coming soon to a mailbox near you.....you just have to guess which one made it......




Monday, October 26, 2015

Football


 but at least I had my phone ;0 and..... at least he has RED hair!!  He is easy to find.
at the end of the season he caught an interception, scored 2 1-point after touchdown goals, pulled some flags at the right time in a play and dropped a few more balls that he would have liked.....but he had fun!!

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Butts Mill Farm

Our friend, Lisa, took her daughter and our two kids to this farm near us last week to help out with summertime activities while our kids are out of school and before school starts back up - in 2 weeks!!!

Anywho, these are the pictures she sent me....some are just so self-explanatory!!
 As you can see from the look on AC1's face, clearly AC2 was doing something wrong!  Or something AC1 felt was very wrong ;-)
 Like a kid in a candy store ;0
 No, they did not ride down the slide!!  Looks a little dangerous!!
 Seems they all had fun in the creek.

He has good form?

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Beach!!!!

Just in time for Austin's 9th birthday, we had to go to the beach for a few days to celebrate!!!  More about the birthday later.....
 Outside our rental....who can balance the best???  Right after this picture was taken we walked down to the beach for a few minutes before we left to come back home and Austin said he needed to hold on for a minute....seems when he slid onto this post he got a splinter stuck in his tooshie!!!
 Hard to believe this was the end of the vacation; look at the smiles on those kids' faces!!!!!  Plus they seem to still like each other....who are these strange characters?!?
 Don't ask.....I didn't .... just take the picture MOM!!
 Austin's sand castle.....seems I forgot to take a picture when he built it, so in the middle of the night I went back to the beach and attempted to take a picture with a device that did not have a flashlight....did not work so well....need to find that picture (smile).
We went to Tybee Island, GA and we stayed on the north shore, which is part of the inter-coastal waterway, so the sand is very different than on the front of the island....which has a very long sand portion.....anywho, this is one of the animal tracks we saw...who knows what it was!?!

We also saw MANY dolphins, which got very close to where we were swimming as it is near the channel where shrimp boats come in, so they follow the shrimp boats....very fun to watch!!

Ansley's Friend Turns 7

 Ansley and her closest friends all celebrate birthdays about a month apart, so we had some really fun birthday parties to attend this year!






 Needless to say, she had great fun at Lauren's pony party!!!  Who wouldn't when you get to ride a pony!!!
As you can see it was a beautiful day in GA; sunny fun with so many friends!!!

Spring in our yard

My homegrown peonies ... my new favorite flower in Georgia ... if you do not know them, you should look them up....they rely on ants to bloom...who knew!?!  Not this Texan!!  Plus, once you plant them, they are perennials, but they do not bloom until their 3rd year!  They are just a shrub/hedge like plant ... love them!  Just wish the picture was a bit more focused; better luck next year!!!

Hail Yeah!!! I mean Hail No!!!!

So along came a spring shower, and with it came LOTS of hail.....so much so, and at such a bad time of the day, that the kids' school ended up not releasing the kids until about 30 minutes after when the buses should have normally run, as it was right at the same time as the largest of the hail storm.....

April 20th if you must know.....at least it was this year!!
 This was our front yard, as you can see from all of the leaf debris, it was pretty bad!  Plus, it was early enough in the spring that the leaves had come out, but were still pretty tender, so they just got pounded!!!  I am so surprised it did not shave all of the trees bald.....our hostas probably got the worst of the beating!!  So sad!!!
 This is my car windshield!!!  I got about 20+ dings on my car, but they are not really that big, as you have to REALLY be looking for them to see them!  I always was a bit dented ;0
Our back deck.....you all have to know this was more for my insurance company than you all - KIDDING!!!

Easter

I know what you are thinking!!!  Easter, Lynn, come on, that was MONTHS ago!!!!  Oh just wait my friends, I have pictures from September to put on here!!!
 I promise you Austin is in this picture!!!  He is the only one wearing a NEON Yellow shirt....oh the Easter Egg hunt!!!
AND I promise you Ansley is in this one too; she is just to the left of the tree in a pink dress....oh how well a Mom knows the backs of her children's heads!!!

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

7!!!!

Oh Ansley, how did it happen?  How did you get to be 7 years old?!?  No, seriously????  I cannot believe you are 7!
Look at that kitchen table!!!  What a fun party we had this year - 7 years, 7 friends - 2 hours of crafts, piƱatas, baking pizzas, decorating cupcakes and cookies!!!  No wonder Mom had to have an adult beverage afterwards ;0!!! Did I mention we were stuck inside because it was pouring down rain the whole time and we had planned for you guys to play in the backyard for most of the party?  Must be why we played charades instead!  But it was fun!!
 
Recap for your year: you started gymnastics this year, and you LOVE it!!  We actually had to make you do it as you were content not doing anything outside of school and playing with your friends, but we wanted you to do some sort of activity and you picked gymnastics.  You LOVE the bars and have convinced Dad to build you a set in the backyard...now we just need to make the time to do it!!

You love having friends over to play or going to friend's houses - your BFF is Leah, who you call Leafy and she calls you Apple - silly girls!  You have done so well in school and the teachers always seem to talk about how well you do with helping all people feel included in the class and all activities.  You seem to think boys are gross, which makes your Dad really happy ;0  You have found Eliyse in the back yard and now try to go and play with her any chance the two of you all get - bamboo forest and all!  Of course, you still love to play with Megan any chance you get, such a neat bond the two of you all have - hard to believe it has been 4 years!!

You and Austin still fight like brother & sister - I am pretty sure that is NEVER going to change!!!  It sure does make for some interesting times around here!!  You also attempt to throw a fit every morning over us brushing your hair and putting it into a Taylor Swift ponytail, but it is such a distraction to you in class if we do not get it up so we have to do it!!
 
 

You LOVE American Girl Dolls and Grandma seems to think this is just great!!
 
This was from your birthday, obviously....you were VERY excited to get a new riding hat for your AG doll, can't tell from the picture (smile) how you ran off to try the new hats on, huh?!?
 
We cannot wait to see what life brings in the next 7 years with you!  Love you!

Nerd!!

Austin has learned to play chess, which is great for a math brain, so I am told, I honestly cannot keep up with all of the rules!!!  But Eric and Austin really enjoy playing and he plays every Friday after school in the Chess Club.

At the end of each semester they have an awards ceremony and this year he got 1st place for all 3rd graders in one semester and 1st place in Bughouse in another semester.  You could go so far as to offer me money to explain to you what Bughouse is and I would wind up penniless as I still have no clue and he has been playing it for 3 years!!!!

Of course, our little guy HATES to have any attention focused on him, so it is REALLY hard to get a picture of him getting the trophy, so here is the best we could get.


American Eagle

I am going to catch up on this year; I swear - but I do say that every time I get on here, so ....

So close to the end of the school year, as it got warmer and the kids wanted to spend more time outside than there were waking hours, we started taking the boat out to a lake close by our house, same lake where Austin caught a nice sized fish several months back ;0

Any who, we took the kids out and while out, we saw what we thought was an eagle fly by!!  Pretty exciting!  So we followed where we thought it had flown, and sure enough, we found it.  Of course, we just had Eric's cell phone to use to take the picture, so it is not the best quality, but it was fun to see!
 Never can tell what you will see when you put down the phone, tablet, computer, etc. ;0

Monday, March 30, 2015

Science Fair

Each year the kids have been submitting a project for their school's science fair; this year was no different, but I have to pull more pictures off Eric's phone ;0.....they did a Hovercraft....as you can see Ansley was SO excited it worked!!

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Something......

Is better than nothing, right?!?

Where does the time go!?!

Spring is just around the corner, so we are ready to get back to doing some of this.....
note the proper head gear for the red head!!  We learned enough lessons from his mother's childhood to know that he needs a sun hat while fishing at all times!!  Fortunately, he still buys the theory that if Granddad does it, it must be a good idea ;)