Spiders

No it’s not Halloween in our house. You might be asking yourself why I would make my children a spider to play with especially since some spiders are extremely dangerous and this might entice them to play with any given one. Here is the story behind the spider.

Since fishing on Saturday, Madeline has requested her “spiders” we know them as fishing lures. See Eric went ahead of me with the kids and when I arrived Maddie had the lure box and had come attached to it. My first reaction was to tell her that they are just like spiders and she needed to stay away from them. Since Sunday, Maddie has found the lure box on many occasions and claimed her "spiders." She has asked repeatedly to see her spiders and I reply they are sleeping. Through my quest to figure out how to keep her mind off the “spiders” long enough for her to forget about them I decided we would make spiders. I kids love their new craft and have spent hours playing with them. So my next step is for them to get tired of the spiders, forget about them and then re-teach them that spiders are not to play with.

Yeah, a strategy that might have not been thought out properly. But in the light of things the kids love them.

Thumbprints

Caleb's


Madeline's (not sure why this is sideways)



We used finger paints. After the kids placed their thumb/finger down in the paint they made a print on their paper and told me what they wanted their print to be. I drew around their print to make the caterpillar, butterfly, dinosaur, muscle man, etc. It was fun seeing their minds come up with what they wanted to see on the paper.

Mix and Match

Colors, Shapes and the alphabet.






I placed stickers on a piece of paper. Then I cut out smaller squared pieces and place the exact other sticker on the square. The kids had a lot of fun matching the exact sticker to the one on the paper. Caleb enjoyed it so much that I made him one that was at his level. The alphabet.

A Sunday afternoon

Wow, that is amazing

Let's go fishing.


Yummy....



Let's paint

Our Garden

It is so exciting to actually have tomatoes. I love our little garden. We had sweet peas this summer and the kids and I had so much fun eating sweet peas from the vine in the warm sun. Our strawberry bushes only produced 2 strawberries but looks green as ever. Next year we are going to do our squash. We know that it will take over but I really miss it and we will see what we can do to maintain it.

Spiderman

Calebs favorite thing right now is dressing up like Spiderman. Here is a picture of this morning while the kids watched Spiderman. The other one is from yesterday.

Swim Lessons

Caleb had a great time at swim lessons this year. He was able to move up a class since he can now swim free style with his head under the water. Caleb moving up a class was only reassurance that he is growing up. His class was outside with a group of 4 other kids that were at least 1 to 2 years older than him. He preferred this class. The instructor felt very comfortable letting the kids jump off the side and swim to the wall while she was teaching another child in the middle of the pool. At the end of each class they were taken to the diving board. Caleb would jump in and swim to the side all by himself. Sadly, I only have pictures of the first class and not the one he was moved up to. Kick myself for forgetting the camera at home.

4th of July

We had a small group of friends over for the 4th. Eric and I decided to take the kids out and let them pick up some fireworks this year. Caleb was so excited about them and couldn’t wait to start lighting them. He placed them one by one on the counter and talked about them all. We had yummy desert, watched the kids play in the pool and just had a really good time. When the sun started to go down we went outside and started the fireworks. We also have a special treat every year since we live in the boundaries where fireworks are illegal so fireworks go off in every direction you looked in the sky. Caleb loves firework. Maddie on the other hand did not partially enjoy the noise that came with them. The picture of her in the towel is Maddie trying to wrap herself up enough to feel comfortable… of course she was in my arms too. Once friends started arriving she was more into playing than worrying about the noise… until they left.

Behrmans

Here are a couple of pictures from when the Behrmans were here. If you would like to see more you will need to click on the view all images button on the next blog and it will take you to another site to see a slide show. Not sure why it’s not just showing here.

Behrmans in Saint Louis