Happy Birthday, David! (a week late...)

I realized that I never blogged about David's birthday. I did take lots of pictures though.

Present & card from Grammy and Grandad

Jalen is thrilled

Still thrilled

Overwhelmed with enthusiasm

 Present from Baylie

Baylie can't wait to play. Jalen is still trying to hold back the joy.

Present from Jalen

Finally a smile

 Presents from Mommy

And it's gone

Official Photographer

 David's favorite gift - a piano teaching book by John Schmidt

 Kid's favorite gift - Mickey Mouse waffle maker 

 Fainting from joy

 Carrot Cake!

Finally a smile from Jalen

 Determined to place 35 candles (I don't think she made it)

 We gave up on lighting them all

We love you, Daddy!

Labor Day Fun

I just realized that I uploaded pictures, but never finished a blog post on Labor Day. The pictures are all from my phone and aren't that great.

We wanted to do something fun, but didn't want to go far away or spend much money. Hi-Wire was the perfect spot. The kids love it here...and so does their daddy.

Bouncing Baylie.

In the pit.

All the pictures of Jalen are blurry because he is constantly in motion.

On Monday, we went out to Chapin for a small-town parade. I love small-town parades where they still throw candy.

Some of those Boy Scouts are pretty vicious throwers though.

We had trouble getting to the display tents because the longest train on Earth went by. It was cool to see it so close up though.

My favorite car at the auto show.

Afterwards our good friends the Ruppe's invited us over for hamburgers and hot dogs. It was a perfect, lazy weekend.

Toothless

Ever since Jalen knocked his teeth loose on the tennis court, he's been complaining that his mouth hurt. One of his teeth tightened back up, but the top two have stayed really loose and one of them had started turning brown. The teeth were so loose you could see them moving when he talked. We kept trying to get him to pull them, but he wouldn't. Finally, David convinced him to tie a string to them and slam the door. That's how we pulled Baylie's front teeth and Jalen has always wanted to try it.

He was really brave with the first tooth. Check it out HERE.

The second tooth took a little more courage - and a $5 bribe. Check it out HERE.

Once they were pulled, he was excited and just wanted to go to bed so the tooth fairy could come. She usually gives him a buck a tooth, so he made some pretty good money on those two teeth.

Baxter Court

Now that both of the kids are in school, I have a little more time to do things. One of those things is to volunteer at the school. I ended up volunteering to oversee the outdoor classroom - Baxter Court. I didn't really know what I was getting into. I was a little surprised to see what kind of shape it had fallen into.

I spent a little over two hours at the school on Friday pulling weeds and throwing away dead trees and bushes. The area is really cool. In addition to the planter boxes on the ground, there are also boxes built into the back of benches where the students can sit. There's a teaching area at the front with a white board. There is a lot of potential.

I was able to weed 6 1/2 total boxes on Friday.

I had quite a pile of weeds when I was finished.

I also had 26 fire ant bites. Fire ant bites last FOREVER. They'll quit hurting for awhile and then weeks later they flare up again. I'm kind of dreading having to deal with these.

On Saturday, David and the kids joined me and we finished the remaining 3 1/2 boxes. We found another fire ant bed, a humongous black widow and a little field mouse. It was quite the adventure.

I'm very excited to see what will eventually be done in this space. I think there is a lot of potential for fun learning out there.

Nature's Way

I stepped outside today and was startled as a huge bird flew from the back yard to the fence. At first I thought it was an owl, then an eagle. It was seriously huge. I then realized it was a hawk. Not only that, it had a dead possum in it's claws. Amazing...and gross.

I went and picked the kids up from school. When we got back two hours later, the hawk was in a tree still scouting out the back yard.

Moments later Baylie yelled for us to come see. The hawk and caught a second possum in the yard. Wow! I kept the kids in all afternoon. Sometimes nature is a little too close for comfort!