Museum of Natural History: Butterfly Exhibit

Russ's parents have come to visit!  They've been staying with Cori and Jake since Sunday.  We all decided that it would be fun to get together in Houston and do something.  Today was the only day that worked out for all of us.  It was crazy day for us, but it worked out okay in the end.

Right after dance class, we undressed the girls out of their costumes.  {Oh yeah!  I forgot to mention that we had dressed Allie up too!  She loved walking around in her costume and getting the appropriate "Ahhh, how cute!"} After they were dressed and buckled up, I sat down between them and fed them lunch.  Russ drove with one hand while eating lunch.  THAT made me a little nervous ;)

We found the museum thanks to Linda{Our GPS}, and took forever getting the girls ready.  Allie had to be in a backpack carrier since strollers weren't allowed.  She hadn't been in it since January, and we hadn't fixed any of the buckles.  She had a great big fit about us adjusting them.  I'm not sure if it was hurting her, or if she was just tired.  Allie had missed her morning nap, and was already missing her afternoon nap too!  FINALLY, we met everyone at the front doors of the museum.

Shortly there after we got to enter into the butterfly exibit.  The begininng part consisted of a bunch of interactive games and information for kids.  Lily, Zion, and Enoch had a great time pushing buttons to learn about butterflies and few other creatures.  Russ made sure to show Allie some of these things too.  She loved pointing at the live bugs we saw after we had pointed them out to her.  My highlight of this part was seeing a mantis and showing it to Lily.  She LOVES Kung Fu Panda.

We then entered the sweat factory butterfly area.  It was really hot, and humid in there!  I had heard that if you wear bright colored shirts you are more likely to have the butterflies land on you.  I tried to dress the girls appropriately but the butterflies didn't like them very much.  I on the other hand had butterflies flying around me the whole time!  A time or two they landed on me.  We tried to get a picture of it, but it didn't work out :(  Here are just a few of the butterflies we saw:

 

 

 

We tried to get a picture of this goregeous blue butterfly, but it played shy the whole time we were there.  We would follow it around until it landed, but of course it would keep its wings closed.  One fun thing to watch was the butterflies eating.

Allie really enjoyed pointing at the butterflies.  I think she is in a pointing/wonderment stage! LOL!

At the butterfly area you entered from the top, and then gradually followed a winding path down.  At the bottom of the area was a waterfall.  We couldn't resist getting a picture there.  First Lily with her cousins {Notice how curly her hair was from the humidity!}, and then our family.

 I'm really glad that I brought the girls water bottles with us even though their were signs everywhere stating no food or drink.  Lily was parched because of the humidity.  She gets heat exhaustion so easily.  We let her stop and have a few drinks every now and again.

There was also an area that had all the cocoons displayed in a glass container.  Many of the butterflies had hatched.  We were able to watch a worker put all the butterflies in a laundry basket, and then her son went and released them.  Lily really loved watching this.  There was an amazing emerald green butterfly that I wish I could have got a picture of, but the little boy was so fast at releasing them, that I didn't get a chance.  You can see it at the top of the laundry basket.

After enjoying the butterflies for a few hours we got ready to leave.  As we were deciding where to go to eat we found a hidden area where the kids could play in a beehive.  We let Allie out of her backpack so she could stretch her legs.

 

We drove around after the museum trying to follow some directions a museum worker gave us for a restaurant.  Unfortunately we didn't find anything and had to drive another 10 minutes to finally find a Denny's.  After a few blunders there {think spilled water, no mac 'n cheese, five potty trips, etc} everyone was finally fed and happy.  We had a great time visiting the butterflies as a family.

Ballerina Costume Parade

I was so excited on Monday when Miss Daniel suggested that all the little girls come in their costumes for dance class!  Lily was just excited that she finally got to wear her costume.  I remembered to bring my camera to class today, but I forgot to change the settings from portrait to just auto.  The picture is a little blurry, but you get the gist....

Ariel(Chloe), Pirate (Sage), Miss Daniel, TinkerBell (Aly), Bumblebee (Ella)

Witch(Sophia), Pirate(Lily)

Secret Hiding Spot

Allie loves to be hanging around in the kitchen.  Most the time it is to cry for food, and see if she can drive momma crazy that way.  Yet recently she has taken to being in there just for fun.  She even created a secret hiding spot for herself.

She loves to sit in this cupboard, and play with the things inside it.

I really didn't think much of Allie playing in this cupboard.  I kept my silver bowls, cheese grater, and food chopper in there.  They all seemed innocent enough to me until today...I was working on my halloween costume in the family room, which is literally 1 steps away from the kitchen considering they are really just one big room split by a half wall.  Anyway, I was ripping a seam out of my costume when I heard a loud thunk and Allie started to cry.  Allie's cry was the histerical, "I'm hurt come get me" cry.  I dropped everything and ran around the corner to her. 

Lying next to her foot was the chopper, with the safety cover off.  Allie's big toe was gushing blood.  I almost panicked but decided to clean up the toe first to see if the damage was as bad as it looked.  Lily helped me grab a big wad of toilet paper and hold it on Allie's toe while I tried to get her to calm down.  After 5 or 10 minutes of putting pressure on it the toe slowed in bleeding enough to access the damage.  Apparently the sharp blades of the chopper had landed on Allie's big toe and cut off 1/4 of her toenail.  It was still attached by some skin.  I had to "operate".  The poor girl screamed bloody murder as I held her foot down. Finally I was able to get the whole thing bandaged up.  We took some pictures later tonight.  It was quite the wound!

 

We now are watching for infections, and crossing our fingers for her toenail to grow out fast!

Pumpkin Jack

Last year at Target I ran across the cutest decoration for a pumpkin.  I didn't have enough money to buy at the time, so I figured I would buy it two days later when we got payed.  By the time I got back three days later all of the decoration was gone.  So imagine my pure joy when I walked into Target at the end of September and saw my decoration back again!  I instantly snapped it up.  I wish I could have got all five versions of it, but I will settle for my Pumpkin Jack!  Who is Pumpkin Jack?  Enjoy watching Pumpkin Jack come to life!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Argh!!!!!!!

The Monster Dash

Sometimes people tell me of fun things you can do for your kids, and I get in my crazy head that I need to do ALL of them.  No matter what, I will sacrifice things so Lily{or Allie} can have experiences that I was never given when I was growing up.  But seriously do most these "fun" things have to be early in the morning? 

This morning we woke up at 6:30 and woke the girls up at 6:45 so Lily could go participate in the Monster Dash.  Basically it is a "fun run" for kids of all ages, and you are asked to donate a dollar for their registration.  After getting us all dressed and fed we got to MacLean Park at 7:15 to sign Lily in.  Upon signing her in she received her complimentary t-shirt. Russ made her pose as a "strong runner"

Russ helped Lily warm up a little by running a few sprints.  By then it was time to get ready.  All the kids gathered around while the mayor explained some of the rules.  I wanted to get a picture of him, but I thought shoving Allie in her stroller through a mass of kids/adults so I could get it, probably wasn't going to happen!  Boo!  Finally it was time to break down in age groups.  There were so many kids in the 6 and under group that they had to split it into girls and boys.

As the mayor yelled go, Lily took her time running.  Russ encouraged her by running by her side, but she was just having fun, and didn't get that it was a race.  She actually had found a friend{Kaylie}from playgroup to run with.  The picture is fuzzy because they were running but if you look they are laughing with each other!

  At the end of the race there was a man handing out medals.  Every child who participated got a medal {If you run 3 of the 4 dashes in a year, you get a trophy}  Lily came and showed me her medal afterwards and I about fell over.  This wasn't some cheapy dollar store/fall apart medal.  This was a REAL METAL MEDAL!  I pointed to a girl runner on it, and asked Lily if it was her.  She grinned and said, "Hey that is me!"

Afterwards the kids got some cake to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Monster Dash.  We were back home by 8:20, ready to fall into bed and take a nap ;)  I'm really glad our community does these fun events for the kids, even if I do have to get up early for them!

Come on Over!

Ya'll have to come see my new blog template!  It is so cute!  I wish I could take credit for it, but I didn't make it.  Scroll all the way to the bottom of my posts for a link to the Template Mama.  She does amazing things! Oh, and the navabar below my header doesn't work right now.  Hopefully I'll get it working before halloween.  Some how I doubt that though!

Painting Pumpkins

Soon after I got my crafty glitter pumpkins done, Lily started begging to paint her pumpkins.  I kept putting it off, because I honestly didn't know why I had let them by pumpkins to paint.  I didn't want to make a big mess with them doing that!  Ugh!  But then I had a conversation with a lady that I walk with this morning.  We discussed how we should make life enjoyable for our kids, and what kind of things we could do to make their time on earth enjoyable.  After that conversation I vowed that we would paint pumpkins TODAY. 

I was a little nervous giving Allie a paint brush with actual paint on it, but I just reassured myself that I would watch her REALLY good. I was surprised when Allie took the paintbrush dipped it in the paint and happily painted her pumpkin.

What mom?  You thought I would eat this stuff? {Evil laughter}  Not even two seconds after I took this picture, Allie put the paint in her mouth.  She realized it was gross, spit it out, and didn't do it again!

Close up of the chubby fingers at work

Allie was done with her pumpkin after three minutes or so. Lily on the other hand took about 30 mins.  She had to try every color we owned on it!  But she was so proud of her pumpkin. Look at her smile over it!

 

Stupid me didn't take a finished picture of them, but I have a few more pumpkin projects coming up.  When they are all finished I'll take a "group" shot with these darlings in them!

Glitter Pumpkins

When we were at the pumpkin patch, I bought four pumpkins for me to decorate.  It didn't take me long to get crafty!  Here is a step by step process of how to make glitter pumpkins!

Step 1: 

Gather your pumpkins.  I would suggest using small pumpkins if you are going to use real ones.  If you're going to pick up the fake craft pumpkins, get them on the larger side!

Step 2:  

Get some fall colored glitter.  I chose orange just because this was my first time around.  Next time I might add in some gold, green, or purple!  My bottle of glitter is 4 oz.  I used half the bottle to do my four pumpkings.

Step 3: 

Gather craft glue, an OLD sponge paint brush, wax paper, and brown lunch bag.

Step 4:

Place wax paper on working service.  Pour out a large amount of craft glue on you paper glue.  Grasp stem of pumpkin in hand.  Use other hand to dip sponge brush in glue, and then proceed to "paint" the glue on your pumpkin.  Do LARGE sections of the pumpkin.  I suggest 1/8th to 1/4th of the pumpkin at a time.

Step 5:

Sprinkle glitter all over glue area.  Pat glitter into the glue.  Resprinkle with glitter, pat glitter with glue. {NOTE:  I do not have three hands ;)  My daughter was shaking the glitter!}

You can also sprinkle a fair amount of glitter out on your wax paper, then roll the pumpkin it.  However, I still suggest doing the two coats of glitter.

Step 6: 

Repeat process of glue and glitter around the rest of the pumpkin.

Step 7:  Display and enjoy your glitter pumpkins.  {NOTE:  These should last through Thanksgiving!}

Pumpkin Patch

Down a block, across a major highway, and down another block is a local Lutheran church.  Every year (apparently this is true) they hundreds of pumpkins from a farm in New Mexico and then make a "pumpkin patch" of sorts on their spacious front yard of the church.  Most of the proceeds go to youth groups and the community.  When Russ and I heard about this we decided it would be fun to take the girls to it.  Sadly, before Russ left for California we didn't make it.  It actually didn't open until the day he left.  Shucks!

Last night tough I found out that our ward would be going there for play group this week.  I was so excited!  As we had made trips around town they had spied this little gem nestled across the road and had questioned when we would get to go there.  Well, today was the day!  It was nice and hot with a slight breeze.  Perfect for "picking" pumpkins!  I didn't get to talk much to the other ladies at playgroup because I was worried about watching Lily and Allie.  I didn't want them to accidentally wonder over to the busy road.  We still had a great time though!

Allie's eyes were HUGE when she saw the first pumpkins.

Besides the pumpkin patch, there were many little activities for kids.  This one consisted of a barnyard of animals.  Allie loved to point at the animals and make me say the sounds they say.

Lily quickly found this fun little tunnel surrounded by the "big pumpkins"

We got stuck at the flower pinwheels for about 10 minutes.  Allie loved to bat at them and make them spin.  It is so funny to watch her get pleasure out of such simple things.

Later on Allie found the caterpillar too.  It took me ANOTHER 10 mins to convince her to come out.  She sat in the middle of it and just smiled at me while looking around.

The kids didn't get to play in this house very much.  It was swarmed with mosquitos.  Lily's legs got eaten alive!!!

It was getting to be lunch time so I forced the kids to go pick a little pumpkin.  The big ones were too expensive, but the smaller ones were cheaper than what you would find at Wal-Mart!  Allie kept looking at me to check and see if it was really okay to pick one up! LOL!

FINALLY, she picked one.

She handed it off to me and went to play on this cute little bench.  She sat and stared at her feet as she swung them back and forth.  It was as if she had never noticed she had feet before.

After careful consideration Lily settled on a pumpkin.  I couldn't resist getting a picture of them with all of our pumpkins.  Yep, I bought a few for me to decorate :)

While the moms were paying for the pumpkins the girls decided to test run some of the wagons.  Lily was generous enough to pull since she was the oldest child there.

The sisters then wanted a ride together.  I love these two munchkins to death!  It melts my heart that they always want to be playing together. 

At this point everything went downhill because neither Allie or Lily wanted to leave, but I was dying of heat and insisted we go.  I dragged Allie screaming and bucking, and bribed Lily with the event of decorating the pumpkins all the way to our car.  It wouldn't be a normal day if at least ONE tantrum was thrown.