Back to School - for faithful blog checkers!

Getting SO big. And so thankful they're healthy and looking forward to school.

 Trying to get everybody acting normal is almost impossible.  Cam's doing his hand on hip, chest puffed up look and just won't stand up straight!

 Sunny day, bus waiting activities... jumping shadows... and the boys in the very back ground who practice their math, or physics or whatever it is and try to estimate at what point to leave the driveway to race the oncoming vehicles and beat them to the next driveway.  All the teachers can be thankful that we at least get rid of a decent amount of energy before even getting to the classroom doors!  The neighbors???? They might not be quite as thankful.  Things are rarely quiet.

 Especially when you're fencing each other's shadows with baseball bats.

Swing!!!

And DUCK!!!!!

Thanks for persevering, Aunt Mary, and for encouraging me to get on this!  I would think this is a nicer sight than seeing that dinosaur over and over again!!

Groupon to the Rescue

Back in the fall we spent $30 on $100 worth of Castle Fun Park money.  It was a neat family night out!  One that we wouldn't have spent $100 on but was still fun to spend $100 worth!

Bit of mini golfing...

Lots of road racing :)

The good old "frogger".  I def remember doing this in our family living room with a joy stick and the old commoder 64 (??) when I wasn't much older than Cara nearly 30 years ago.

Batting cages - a huge hit ;)  Best part of that was probably when Cody knocked our socks off by taking a few wild swings to get into the swing of things and then proceeding to nail nearly every ball!! 

Maybe Cara's best part of the night was the remote control boats behind the batting cages.  I don't think I'll ever understand some things in life!

It might be a while (and another groupon) before we do that again but SO much fun!

Cowgirl Cookies

A couple weeks ago Cara went to a birthday party and came home with the neatest craft!

Cookies in a jar.  Take the mix and pour into a bowl...

Add a slightly beaten egg....

some melted margarine, vanilla, and....

Mix it all up!

Such a great thing to send home for easy cookie making time with a sweet daughter!!!  She was so delighted to do most of it herself.  Many thanks to Cara's friend Amy and her mom.  

Mostly her mom because she had to put up with the mess in getting the jars ready to go home!!!

A package

I was doing some clean up and I found this piece of a package that I've saved for most of our marriage.  I wish I had written what it was and who it was from.  It's about $35 in postage all little stamps.  And I LOVE calla lillies.  Always have.

Do you remember sending us this package?

Dear Opa and Nana

It is always SO  wonderful to have them come visit!

Snuggling on the couch....

 while Daddy reads "The Breadwinner".

 Some intense Payday at the kitchen table and

 Settlers of Catan in the living room.

 Strategic game planning between these two partners in crime.

Distance

We miss these two so much. Their visit here was for sure one of the holiday highlights.

 Cuties, the both of them.

Hebrews 13: 5 - 6 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6 So we may boldly say:

“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?”

Career Day

My mini Steve!!! Was SO delighted to get his own primo shirt to wear.  Even took his lunch in a plastic shopping bag like his daddy.  And should anything break in his classroom today, Sam should have it covered.  I think the tool belt weighed 15 pounds!

 Little Miss C. Overduin artist.  She made the palette, I made the beret.

 Mr. C. Palentologist.  He's had his shirt and pants picked out since the notice came home, notebook in the front pocket.  But once he googled palentologist costume, he was sure he needed to have a hat and vest!  Sleeves from a tshirt that was cut up the middle became the vests pockets, sewed on last minute.  His teacher gave him enough national geographic pictures to write a mini book and his carrying case has all sorts of necessities in it.  His hat was formed by cutting the middle out of a paper plate, then stuffing a nice plump balloon into the ring so I could tape and glue tissue paper into a roundish shape.  After that was somewhat secure I taped the whole inside to make it a bit more sturdy.

 Once Cam decided to be an astronaut (hopefully you could tell without my telling! :) ) there was lots of work to do. He found his own white shirt downstairs, then asked Aunty Krista if her dressup box had any white pants.  Thankfully it did and thankfully they were MILES too big so Cam could end up with "puffy pants."  Next came the helmet, first we created the see through glass by making a square of packing tape doubled over... (the worst part of the whole thing - that tape doesn't have any desire to go straight or unwrinkled!)  next we blew up a balloon and started taping white tissue paper over it.  Lots of tape involved.  Last we added the chin strap and decor and taped the whole inside for sturdiness.  

One of my favorite parts of a day like this is how the kids are so willing to make do with what we have laying around the house. Sure, they would have loved to visit the dollar store but they jumped wholeheartedly into making it as fantastic as possible with whatever they could find.  So, need white boots?  put them in white grocery bags and tape them on!

 Daddy found just the finishing touch when we asked if he had any kind of hose to finish off the "back pack" Old plumbing hose that screwed right onto the pop bottle!!  Bit of tape, sharpie and buttons to finish everything off.

After all those hours I'm just hoping the hats make it through the rain into the school building!

And my pretty teacher (old fashioned in that she wore pearls and pencils in her bun) declined to have her photo taken.