Camp

The kids are on Spring Break this week and Ansley's friend ask her to go to day camp with her, so she is going and oh my gosh are they having fun!!!

They are making Hello Kitty balls, which are the cutest things ever!

Practicing her fairy dance :)

An & Meg going together on a fairy walk....look how small An is compared to Meg and they are in the same grade!!!  An got the short genes :)

Making a pot for their plants they are growing.

Of course being silly :)

Rock Star training!!  Oh my, did we really have to go there?!?

Ansley's turn as the MC .... we have opened a whole new can of worms!!

Austin on the other hand is fishing with Grandpa at the cabin and has become so enthralled with fishing that he and Eric are going back to the cabin this weekend to fish some more.  What is so crazy about all of this is that after 3 days of fishing Austin has still not caught anything, but he wants to keep doing it!!  Talk about perseverance :) when that kid sets his mind to do something, watch out!!

Texas came to town

 Texas came to see us, and boy did we have fun!!  But, we need to get caught up before we get to Texas :)

 Here, Austin is showing you how to make fossils with nature; it is a four-legged animal on the left (very generic I suppose) and a shark on the right.  The rocks used to make the shark were pointed at the top, so this is 3 dimensional art.

 We have been doing major remodeling work over the past few years, and this is the end result for the outside of our house....finally finished, with the house, now on to the yard....

Ansley has become quite the independent dresser; this was her creation sort of, and boy was she proud.

Austin on the other hand had to devise a way to trap leprechauns.....seems the best way to do that is with green & gold.  this was his trap, with a working spring door which made a loud "whack" when it shut......no, the butter in the background was not a prop :)

 Well, Grandad and Nanny came to see us, so we had to put them to work!! Here, you can see Dad helping us tear down a wall; he is showing us that he still knows how to work after all of these years!!

Before.......

during......and.....you will have to wait for the after as we are still working on it.

The real reason they came to GA was because we finally got the kids baptised; so here is our group, squinting and all!!

Then, Austin taught Grandad how to play chess.  We still do not quite believe it, but my Dad really did not know how to play chess and Austin is learning, so he taught Dad what to do. Scary huh?!?

More pictures to come as we wrap up this project......

Soccer without Snow

These pictures are better; but not perfect :(  Austin is in white this week, and still has red hair, so you should be able to find him :)  He had fun again today even though his team did not win.  In the end, he is getting a quick lesson on do your best and keep trying.

 Running after the ball seems to be a MAJOR theme of this game.

 Oh no, wait, now they are going the other way!

 He really wants to get the ball!!

This is the product of Austin and I being home by ourselves for Christmas :) He asked to buy this plant, and now after 2 months, we can see the beautiful fruits of our labor.

Soccer in the snow?!?

I realize these are virtually impossible to see, but we were using Eric's phone as we forgot the camera and it was SNOWING!!  What!!??!!  Austin asked to play soccer this year, so we signed him up with a group well known in the area....little did we know it was a competitive league, very unlike his T-Ball team from last spring.  His T-Ball team was at a local mega-church and did not keep score or put pressure on the kids to do anything more than have fun and learn the game of baseball.....well, needless to say, this soccer club is not like that at ALL!!  So Austin is learning to play soccer and trying to learn sportsmanship, teamwork, and how to run, run, run and not get tired!!  He did well today and seems to do better with soccer than he did with T-Ball, probably because they are simply running up and down the field the entire time.  BUT, today, there was SNOW coming down to boot.  So snow & soccer; what a Saturday!!

Cindy Lou

Ansley wore her hair as Cindy Lou today for Dr. Seuss Day at school; that is some crazy hair!!

Austin the Gardner

Look what Austin grew; ignore the chaos of our house in the background :)

Missing in Action

We are here; just not on our blog :) Charlie is showing you how to sleep properly at the cabin on the floor with a pillow for his ole' head.....really have no idea why I have included this :)

 I will have to find our Christmas pics or not; we think An might have deleted them :(

 This is an up close shot of Eric and Austin working on Austin's Pine Wood Derby car.  This was their first year competing, so they were in the pilot phase of their cars ... they are already scheming for next year.

 Ansley had to bring this monkey home from school and take him around with her for the weekend and get pictures of him playing with her.....so of course we had to get a shot at the lake when we went to the cabin.

 She was so excited to have him for the weekend.

He had to help her do a puzzle  

 and ride the 4 wheeler with the boys......I am not really sure if her teacher was prepared for the little guy's visit to the country ....

 he got lost in the woods..........kind of our twist on "where's waldo".....have you all noticed that I have not said the little guy's name?!?!  It is because I cannot remember it!!  Oh how these birthdays get the best parts of you....

 I know, why is there a sink?  You will have to stay tuned for Eric's latest project......

 Oh yes, a dresser too, again, stay tuned for more.....

 And then, there is our little toothless wonder!!  Austin has lost six teeth total, here you can see the start of three, and the two on the bottom in the middle/front which have already come in, and his latest loss of the front right one........now if you know me well, then you know I HATE loose teeth, so this whole process has been excruciating for me!!  I am so glad I have a wonderful husband who will take care of these parts of parenting instead of me!!

Ansley was jealous that I was taking pictures of Austin's mouth so she asked that she get in the picture too....too bad I could not find a bigger bow for her hair!!  Obnoxious!!