Catching up - September Continued

This year instead of an annual September hiking trip, Greg went on a canoe trip. I decided to sit this one out and be a comfortable pregnant lady in my own bed and hold down the fort. He had a great time! The weather, company and scenery were beautiful and they had a bit of excitement too when his canoe tipped over paddling up a rapid and he and Eric had to bail it out. This could have been me. ;)



I did, however, re-paint Meadow's room. She has been wanting a pink room for a long time and I found a Disney stencil pattern online (I think it is called Enchanted Trellis) and printed it on card stock and then stenciled the walls. It took A LOT of measuring and marking before hand to line everything up and a lot of time to stencil but I love how it turned out! Meadow loves it too. :D






















I finally got around to taking a picture of the robot pencil/candy holder that we made Greg for his birthday. The top can holds the pencils and then the head is attached to a lid (I used a non-dairy creamer tub) that unscrews and then you can store candy in the belly. :) The stripes and any color you see is Duct Tape and arms are made from paper towel rolls. It was fun to make and he said it "was the coolest present ever." :)

Catching up - September

Meadow started back at Pre-school. She is in the bears class this year and she is really enjoying it. Her teacher calls her Meadow-bear. :) She loves the projects/art at school and is especially proud of her cutting skills. "I did it by myself!"

Here is Meadow showing off the backpack she got to bring to Disney World. Grandma and Grandpa Winters wanted her to celebrate her 4th birthday in style and it was every bit as magical as we imagined it would be. Thank you!! Her favorite rides were the haunted mansion, the triceratops ride in animal kingdom (dinoworld) and the Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Parker also loved the Haunted Mansion, Expedition Everest and of course the Jedi Training Academy. :) He rode the rockin' rollercoaster for the first time and liked everything except for the big loop at the beginning. lol. He was brave. After that however, he decided he would wait until he was a little older to ride the Tower of Terror. :)

Meadow got the royal treatment and was gorgeous and most important, sparkly, after a visit to the bibbity boppity boutique. sp? We had dinner with the princesses and that was the highlight her day. :)




Other highlights of the trip were feeding the dolphins at Seaworld, visiting the beluga wales in the Artic Area (very cool!!), and getting soaked by Shamu the Killer Wale. I can't believe how much water he/she can splash with his/her tail! I got to accidentally taste the whale water as the tidal wave hit us. It was very salty and we all smelled awesome at the end of the day. lol. The kids loved it and we all laughed very hard.




Other Favorites: 1. Jedi Training Camp. The kids got to be Padawans in training and earn their Jedi certificate and fight Darth Vader. It was a 2 hour wait to do this so Greg took the kids to do a couple of things while Mamma waited in line. The things we do for our children. It was worth it. :)


2. Eating at the T-Rex Restaurant in downtown Disney and excavating dinosaur bones afterward.


3. Taking a day off in the middle of the week to relax and hang out at the awesome hotel pools. :) :)

Meadow, My Sweet

I work with the activity days girls at church right now (ages 8-11). It is a lot of fun. Tonight I had to bring our children with me because Greg had to work late. They enjoy coming with me although they usually stay home with Greg so that I can focus on the girls.

Tonight, a new girl came to the activity for the first time because she had just turned 8. We went around the room and had all of the other girls in the group introduce themselves and say one thing that they liked. The answers ranged from ice cream to reading to animals etc. Since my kids were also sitting in the circle they got to participate too. Meadow said: "My name is Meadow and I like my Mom." It was the sweetest! All of the girls said "Awww!" Meadow, you are such a treasure to me. :D Parker turned shy and hid under the table instead of sharing what he liked. Sometimes it's tough being the only boy in the room. Parker you are also my treasure! :D

The best homework project ever!

Parker had an assignment to build a model of his bedroom. He chose to use legos and had the most fun ever putting it together. We even printed pictures of the posters that he has in his room and taped them on the walls of the box. He was very proud of his creation. :)

Catching up - August

Hmm...what happened during August? It is mostly a blur. I remember what I have pictures of. This is why you don't want to get behind on your blog folks, lol.

We have a lovely family in our ward that invited us to visit their cabin in the mountains in the town of Seven Devils, NC (just a few minutes from Linville) and stay for a few days in exchange for taking pictures of it so that they could post it on a rental site. We said YES PLEASE! It was just beyond beautiful and lovely and taking pictures of it in no way compensated for the wonderful time we had.

Here are just a few pictures of the cabin. The downstairs had a pool table, large TV, and a cabinet stocked with games to play with the kids. Just awesome.













































Walking down the road from the cabin is a lake where we had a picnic. Again, lovely. I thought about how hard it would be to leave this place if we owned it.




























































About 5 minutes from the cabin there is a catch your own trout fishing pond stocked with trout that swim in from the nearby river. They were huge! The water was so clear and the kids were mesmerized just watching them swim around. They could have stayed there for hours just watching. "Look at that one! Look at his spots!











































Then we had some fun with the classic mining for gemstones. Parker has been talking about rocks in school so this was a perfect opportunity for show and tell once we tracked back into school.













































Greg's parents live just an hour from the the cabin so they drove up on Saturday and we went to an old country store/restaurant for some hard to find candy and good bbq. :D There was a local band made up of three teenage boys playing bluegrass and singing. They were really great!




































Then we took the kids to a local park to play on the playground and swim in the creek. The water was pretty cold but they didn't care. :)
















































































We heard about an alpaca farm so we had to go check that out. It is located on a 40 year old apple orchard. The farm raises the alpaca which are sheared once or twice a year and the fur is shipped to places that manufacture expensive hiking gear and socks. Alpaca is one of the most sought after fibers because it stays dry kind of like wool, but is breathable and warm and lightweight, and soft. What an interesting looking creature. They are in the camel family and are smaller than lamas. These alpaca are recently sheared. The farm was so pretty and also had horses, donkeys, goats, chickens, etc, that the kids had fun looking at.




























































































Next on to Linville Falls. The kids did a great job on the 2 mile hike to the overlooks and back. Meadow was pretending she was a Saltopus dinosaur (Saltopus means "leaping foot") and she would leap over roots and rocks and holler "Saltopus leap!" It was pretty funny. Parker was a velocitaptor that could run really fast in the same picture.
































































Parker is wearing this expression because a bug flew up his nose. He did not like that but he cheered up after a few minutes. :)