I picked up my five yr old grandson today after preschool and went out on our own field trip to my favorite store, Leftovers, Etc. This is a recycle store for teachers/scout leaders and artists. You never know what's there so I go about once a week. You can fill, I mean STUFF, a large grocery bag for only $7, and a kid can get a lunch bag for just a buck.
So off we go, first to get gas, which is still going down and is now at $2.24 per gallon, and helped ourselves to Cheetos and root beer to snack on during the 25 mile trip to the store.
He is learning sounds and how they go together, but hasn't really learned to read yet. He asked about every truck logo, every billboard, every thing...how do you spell ____, how do you spell ___ backwards? How would he know? He can't spell yet!
Well, we get to Leftovers and he immediately fell in love with the place. He filled his bag in no time and then began to add interesting things to make platforms and things for his super hero toys to jump from. We had a delightful time and though I could easily have spent another hour in there I knew he was getting tired.
He wanted to go to El Magueys and have his favorite, a "cheese-a-dilla". The menu said cheesy quesadilla, but the waiter translated just fine. We were in the middle of dinner when he asked how to spell "ortreat". I thought I missed something so I asked him to repeat and yes, he said "ortreat". You know, as in trick ortreat.
We were then 12 miles away from home and he quieted down quite a bit, then at the quarter mile mark from home his little head tipped to one side one last time and he fell asleep. That's the moment you know you have received much, much more than you could have ever given.
Tomorrow we'll be working on that Super hero platform.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Smoke in my eyes
We invited our home team and my daughter's home team from church to have a bonfire at our house last Sunday evening. Ron worked to get two utility carts to hook up to his riding mower so he could give little kids a ride around the pond while Jenn and I made fresh apple pies and potato salad to add to the feast.
Friday night our youth from church had rented a big bungee-run blow up thing for their lock-in. Our pastor that oversees all chilren's and youth ministries, brought it in on Sunday morning to play games with the kids between services. Then someone thought, since we already had it payed for we could bring it to the bonfire too. So that's how we got this super big blow up toy for everyone to play in/on. Mostly the older youth and the adults could put on the vests and see how far they could run before being slammed back to the starting point. I know about that "slammed back" part as I was one who went flying back by the seat of my pants. The children mostly jumped on it and climbed all over it and a good time was had by all.
.
I found some children raking leaves (hmmm...we live on three acres here with lots of trees) up to the slide on the swing set. Then they were taking turns sliding into the leaves. This way they only had to rake a small pile and use it over and over. Clever children. Wouldn't you know, this summer my husband and daughter built this great swingset/fort and spent a small fortune for it, and look at what the kiddos liked the most...yes, that's a home made tire swing.
The train ride around the pond was a lot of fun too. When Ron would come back with a load of kids you could hear them chant "one more time, one more time". I asked a friend why she thought the kids were having so much fun in a cart that only went 5 mph, and she said it wasn't a video game! It was something out of their daily routine.
I'm already working on a plan for next year to be able to roast the hot dogs without melting my eyebrows. The fire was so hot that even with Ron's 5 ft. long hot dog poles it was hard to stay close to the fire long enough to get those dogs warm on the inside without being burned on the outside. Though it was hot, it just gave us something to talk about...like the smoke getting in our eyes no matter where we stood.
We have been having people over for bonfires for years and I do believe we have never had weather as nice as we did for this one. There was just enough chill in the air when the sun went down to put on a jacket, and some kids even put their shoes back on!
Friday night our youth from church had rented a big bungee-run blow up thing for their lock-in. Our pastor that oversees all chilren's and youth ministries, brought it in on Sunday morning to play games with the kids between services. Then someone thought, since we already had it payed for we could bring it to the bonfire too. So that's how we got this super big blow up toy for everyone to play in/on. Mostly the older youth and the adults could put on the vests and see how far they could run before being slammed back to the starting point. I know about that "slammed back" part as I was one who went flying back by the seat of my pants. The children mostly jumped on it and climbed all over it and a good time was had by all.
.
I found some children raking leaves (hmmm...we live on three acres here with lots of trees) up to the slide on the swing set. Then they were taking turns sliding into the leaves. This way they only had to rake a small pile and use it over and over. Clever children. Wouldn't you know, this summer my husband and daughter built this great swingset/fort and spent a small fortune for it, and look at what the kiddos liked the most...yes, that's a home made tire swing.
The train ride around the pond was a lot of fun too. When Ron would come back with a load of kids you could hear them chant "one more time, one more time". I asked a friend why she thought the kids were having so much fun in a cart that only went 5 mph, and she said it wasn't a video game! It was something out of their daily routine.
I'm already working on a plan for next year to be able to roast the hot dogs without melting my eyebrows. The fire was so hot that even with Ron's 5 ft. long hot dog poles it was hard to stay close to the fire long enough to get those dogs warm on the inside without being burned on the outside. Though it was hot, it just gave us something to talk about...like the smoke getting in our eyes no matter where we stood.
We have been having people over for bonfires for years and I do believe we have never had weather as nice as we did for this one. There was just enough chill in the air when the sun went down to put on a jacket, and some kids even put their shoes back on!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
The 100 Things I Love Challenge
On SnaggingStampers Kay challenged us to record in any way we wished, "The One Hundred Things that Make Me Happy". I decided I would record my 100 in photographs. This has been a bigger challenge (it usually is) than I expected. Here are a few pics I took this week:
I love fence rows. This one is down the road from our house.
When I opened my pictures there were these strange ones of my hand. I moved it around at different angles, then opened the next one and the next and then realized I was using my hand to block out some sun to catch a glimpse of the spider web in our window!!! So there's what my hand looks like and there's a spun web - another thing that makes me happy. We all love to watch spiders spin, and this year they have not disappointed us in the least. We had two huge webs in our family room windows and we couldn't bring ourselves to destroy them when we were having company over.
I was delighted to run across these BlackBerry Lilies when we went apple picking. After the lily flower blooms and dies, a pod forms then these little berries appear looking a lot like blackberries! I had some of these growing at our old house, but forgot to bring along some roots when we moved. Now I'll have to see where I can buy some to plant.
I love fence rows. This one is down the road from our house.
When I opened my pictures there were these strange ones of my hand. I moved it around at different angles, then opened the next one and the next and then realized I was using my hand to block out some sun to catch a glimpse of the spider web in our window!!! So there's what my hand looks like and there's a spun web - another thing that makes me happy. We all love to watch spiders spin, and this year they have not disappointed us in the least. We had two huge webs in our family room windows and we couldn't bring ourselves to destroy them when we were having company over.
I was delighted to run across these BlackBerry Lilies when we went apple picking. After the lily flower blooms and dies, a pod forms then these little berries appear looking a lot like blackberries! I had some of these growing at our old house, but forgot to bring along some roots when we moved. Now I'll have to see where I can buy some to plant.
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