No Water Creatures in Our House, Please!

It should be against the law for teacher's to send a child home with anything living...especially something that lives in water. I hate water creatures... they stink, they have to have their water changed, they stink, they eventually die and leave a child feeling guilty for doing something bad to them, and oh, did I mention, they stink! I know, I sound like a big fuddy-duddy! If this was a particular other person, I'd be thinking, just get over it and let your kid have fun with it!



Doesn't the fish bowl full of three tadpoles look pretty on my dining room table?



Just so you don't think I'm overreacting... D.K. just brought these home from school today, and the only one left living at this hour, five hours after coming hom is the big one on the left. The other two have already kicked the bucket! Poor D.K. looked so pitiful when he realized they'd already died!

My Little Hippie

I think my daughter was born in the wrong decade!

This Has Got To Be The Most Oober Cool Playland I Have Ever Seen

I found this while cruising the net looking for playground equipment for our church's play area remodel (hopefully coming soon)! I think it's so fun-looking, although I don't think it's as big as we're wanting! Our play area is used by the Headstart program that is housed in our building and the entire neighborhood uses it on a regular basis, so we're wanting something big enough for several kids at once.

Ah, Man

Have you ever tried to open a bag of something only to have it suddenly burst open and spew forth all over the place? Been there done that, usually with a bag of chips, or something the dog will eat up off the floor. Tonight, instead it was with a bag of frozen green peas (their small, frozen, round little selves make a delightful pinging sound when they all hit the stovetop and floor and roll EVERYWHERE at the same time) meant to be put into our chicken pot pie! The dog wouldn't touch 'em even if he'd been starved for a year! So that means that I've got to find them all. I think I've got them all, but of course I'm sure I'll find a few the next several times I sweep the floor or move the canisters around on the countertops! Oh well, I could've been worse.

This Is So Sweet and Hilarious At the Same Time

The Big White Barn Night Out

This morning I asked Smart Guy if we could go out to dinner tonight at a restaurant that we'll refer to as "the big white barn". The "big white barn" sits out in the country, being a former working farm, and has several small shops sitting on the same property, along with a lake full of fish and lots of hungry, greedy ducks. Bee and D.K. both recieved gift certificates for the toy store out there for their birthdays back in February, so I thought it was time to use them. So after school, we headed out. It was fun being out there. We walked around awhile after we ate. D.K. followed the ducks around awhile, then we fed them and the fish until we got tired of standing in the cold rain. This was, BTW, was of the places I took Inkling for dinner when she came of visit back in October.

Parking lot view of "the big white barn".




The original farmhouse that is now being used as a really quaint gift shop.




The sun rays were shining thru the clouds so pretty. I tried to catch 'em, but the pic doesn't do it justice. That's D.K. and Bee running around in the field.




The tractor to ride on in the waiting area.




Waiting area view.



The red and white checked thing is the base for train tracks going around the room. I couldn't get a good pic of the train though. The thing with the wooden frame in the middle bottom of the pic is a beehive. We looked and looked for queen bee. I know she's in there somewhere, but about the time we'd have one area searched, they'd have moved around so much that it seemed like we'd never find her.




This is the deco that greets you when you walk in one of the doors.




The view of the salad/soup/bread bar and the upper eating loft from our table. The pic makes it hard to see how grand it really is. It's huge.




Prophet and D.K. with the lego moose who stands on guard outside the door of the toyshop the kids had gift certificates for. The toyshop was, by-the-way, closed for the night when we got there at 6 pm. (Once I thought about it, I think Inkling and I had to leave the story early when we were there during her visit because they closed so early).




Bee had to have a picture with the tulips!




My family walking around the barn.




D.K. eating some of their famous blueberry bread SMOTHERED with their honeybutter. He had at least and inch of it on there. If you blow up the picture (click on it), you should be able to see some of it on the tip of his nose. He had about four pieces like that! The waitress we had was so much fun and she was the one who pointed it out to me!




Daddy pushing Bee on the swings by the lake.




The dock out onto the lake where we fed the fish.




Prophet and D.K. sitting on the bank watching the ducks, hoping they'd come up to them (not a chance)!




The view of "the big white barn" from the dock out on the lake. The windows all the way across are the main dining room windows that look out onto the lake.




If you look real close you can see a huge carp in the middle of the pic. There were three of them that were about 2 1/2 feet long amongst all the bass and bluegill in there. There were literally hundreds of fish in a small area around the dock waiting for us to feed them.

This is What Happens When You Ask 3rd Grade Boys To Dress Themselves

This is how they came down for church this morning! I gave them instructions to put on plaid shorts with "matching" polo shirts! Apparently "matching" is a relative term!