Toy Story 2 ... It's Us!!!

Our 2008 Family Photo!

Buzz and Jesse are ready for the night!Our very own Buzz.

This may be the only time you see Keith dressed as a cowboy! Here he is as Woody. Mommy as Bo PeepIt's Candy Time!Emily found some good stuff in her pumpkin... and purposely picked some of mommy's favorites as well. Luke's big request all night... lollipops!

Laugh Out Louds and Other Points of Interest

Here's a quick pix of the kids eating their caramel apples. Notice how first they ate the caramel!!! A quick break from playing (a Jesus play to be specific) to pose for a picture requested by Emily.

Luke smiles BIG for a picture after a spaghetti dinner! He went straight to the bath following this pix!

Our babysitter, Danni made this for Luke. We are quite fond of it, so we took a picture and are adding it to our family site of memories.

We recently found a new playground that is surrounded by a farm. The kids like to watch the cows, even talk to them from time to time in the midst of playing. We like to ride our bikes to this park in the afternoons. It makes a great family outing.

We call this playground the World of Spinning.' Everything here has a spinning attribute.

Some of it is just simply beautiful! Like this butterfly garden.

And then Luke decides to sit in the chair of perpetual spinning!!! We had to help him out.

Our friends... the Moo Moos!

Costumes Are Almost Done!!!

We are almost ready for our debut of 'Toy Story II' tomorrow! Woody's costume just needs some red stripes on his shirt. Jessie's costume just needs some additional ties to the chaps. Buzz Lightyear's needs to be hung up and not worn as it's starting to show signs of over use. And... Bo Peep's costume just needs some leggings and the final touches on the bonnet! This has been a long and tedious process, but thankfully I discovered the beauty of using the iron-on hem, eleviating my need to hand sew everything like previous years!

Tomorrow we will have pictures up for everyone to see! I can't wait!!

-Angela

Bananas!!!

While reviewing my previous posts I realized that I forgot to journal about BANANAS!!!

1. Luke thinks he's a monkey most of the time. (Well, when he's not Buzz Lightyear or pretending to be Emily's dog, which is quite often.) So, he asks for bananas a lot! In fact, it's rare for him to go to bed at night before inhaling a banana first!

2. The kids (mostly Luke) have figured out how to pretend a banana is a telephone. It's really funny.

3. Last week we went to the produce section of Publix and weighed different items. What we ended up leaving with was the reality that most bananas that day weigh roughly half a pound. (I really had no idea they were that heavy!) We then weighed ourselves and realized that Luke weighs 48 bananas, Emily weighs 96 bananas and well... I didn't calculate mine. LOL. Now the kids like to brag about how many bananas they weigh! Who couldn't have more fun with school and learning then to make this analogy/correlation!

Emily's Progress

Emily has finished reading 'I Can Read It Book 1' and is now on book 2. She is quite pleased with her accomplishment. She also LOVES math. We spend ~1-1.5 hours a day on math. She just keeps asking for more and then makes up her own story problems (yes, math story problems) for additional fun and application. She also looks forward to changing the calendar on the fridge, filling out her math book calendar and weather graph, and then using the 100 counting chart. Today I gave her a bowl full of change and asked her to use her counting chart to tell me how many pennies were in the bowl. She enjoyed the challenge and ended up on 67 pennies! She seemed to enjoy that more than discovering how many bananas she weighed. :-)

Emily's handwriting is greatly improving as well. Her letters and numbers are very smooth and proportionate compared to two months ago. I'm quite impressed. :-)

Enough for now... more to come.

We've been SMARTIED!!!

So... have you ever been SMARTIED??? We have! We received 288 packages yesterday and then another 1440 today! I can't believe it. How did we get hooked up??? It turns out someone Keith knows owns Smarties and decided to bless us with a load of candy! Be sure to stop by our house on the 31st for your share! (I'm sure we'll be donating several bags to the church too.)

Buzz Lightyear and His Launch Pads - Pumpkin Patch

October!!!

So it turns out that Luke LOVES his costume. He MUST wear it whenever it's on his mind. I find myself hiding it in his closet so that it's out of site and out of mind.

Today we had a little photo shoot of Emily (Jesse) and Luke (Buzz Lightyear) at the mall. Luke was on cloud 9 about being able to wear his costume. And yes, he hit meltdown when I made him take it off to eat a late afternoon snack and then take a nap.

Upon arrival home, he insisted on wearing his costume again. He has since tested many launch pads around the living room. Everytime I look over to check on him, he's standing on another new surface. A raised surface... ahhhh! Pretty much anytime I don't hear the plastic rubbings of his costume, I can assume he's either thinking of a new surface to try or he's found it and is on top of it, waiting for my approval. Thankfully he waits for approval before testing it!
We now have 'Mother Approved Launch Pads' through out the house (couch cushions lying on the floor) and several 'Non-Approved Launch Pads.' It's a bit scary!!! I'm still rather new to this little boy, super hero thing and am much more comfortable with the challenges of raising a little princess.

On another note... thankfully his costume had BIG knee pads built in!!! It must have been designed by a mother of boys. :-) (And... there sure is a lot of sweat inside his costume when I take it off of him. It's gonna stink by the 31st!)

~ Non-Approved Launch Pads ~

~Mother Approved Launch Pad~

And... then there was the visit to the pumpkin patch!!! We sure had fun with hay rides and pumpkin pickin'! Enjoy the pix.This is our 'ugly pumpkin pick' for the year.

Emily Writes Her Very First Rhyme

Here is Emily's first Rhyme

One, two, chase a Whoo
Three, four, chase some more
Five, six, lollipop licks
Seven, eight, pick up Nate
Nine, ten, throw him in a pig pen!

We thought it was pretty cute, and so we're sharing it.

Romans 12:2

Life is filled with fun and laughter...

Emily is very proud of her little brother and excited for him in his new costume.

Here are her Super Hero muscles!!! (Just a note... she's still trying to convince me (mommy) to be her horse for Halloween since she will be Toy Story's Jessie. I'm not too thrilled about being a horse... so she keeps offering that maybe she will be the horse (since she's wearing all brown and has the clothing for it already) and I can be Jessie. In the end, she chose to be Jessie and agrees that I can be Lil' Bo Peep. Daddy will be Woody.)

Let it rain...
Luke found a new toy with our paper towels!!!
Luke reads to Georgie just like big sister reads to her pig, dolls, etc.
Luke checks out all of the gadgets on his new Buzz Lightyear Costume.

And then he has to test it out and make sure that it's truly Super Hero Quality!!! (I keep losing my laundry baskets and find them next to this chair.)
Step One: Set the StageStep Two: Ready for Jump Step Three: Go!!! Step Four: Mission Complete
Emily learns how to make a mural.

Luke's favorite pass time while he waits for Emily to finish her school work. (Emily made this little fort for him.) What is he watching you ask??? Well, Toy Story of course. LOL. He has to learn all of his super hero tricks before the 31st!And then one night I was trying to find Luke for bed time... and here he was, laying on a pile of laundry. He thought it was quite comfy and wanted to set up camp.
Luke and Emily read their own bedtime stories.

Emily and Ethan

The two friends had another play date. It was very sweet to see them together. I still have a hard time with the two of them believing they will get married some day. Ethan's mom and I talk about this from time to time and try to make sure it's guided appropriately. Emily and I have had countless talks about how God has a special person picked to be her husband some day and that she will need to patiently wait and see if Ethan is that person or not. And... that she needs to remember that she has many years ahead before she needs to think about his. It doesn't matter how much I talk to her, she always responds with comments of how nice he is and that he loves Jesus too and that God has told her in her heart that he is 'the one.'
Ahhh... Deep Sigh...
Nevertheless... They send each other letters and talk of the other frequently (though they rarely see each other inspite of living really close to one another). Here's a couple of pix.