Delta Fair!!

Warning: These pics were taken from my cell phone. Pictures may cause you to have blurred vision...


We had a fun family night at the fair! They had a lot of free shows. We wanted to see monkeys riding dogs, pigs racing, ostrich racing, Monkey comedy show, and a dare devil show (we only had enough time to see one because we got there really late). We were going to see the pig racing when we got stuck at the feeding/petting zoo. The kids loved this, especially Rhylan. She fed goats, sheep, a lama, and tried to feed a cow. We got a cup of food for $1 and she skipped/ran from pen to pen feeding every goat in sight. At one point she was so excited she was laughing, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. This was the best $1 ever spent.

Riley kept pouring food on Gracin's shirt and the goats would eat it from his tummy and make him laugh.

Rhylan feeding the lama.

Riley showing her how to hold her hand flat...that didn't stop the goats from nibbling on both of the kids fingers...I guess it just tickled.

Riley fed the big water buffalo, it licked and slobbered all over his hand!

Rhylan and I went on this Farris Wheel. She was so brave, and loved every min of it.

After an exciting evening we all sat and enjoyed a snow cone!

Preschool--Butterflies

Art: She made butterflies out of tissues and band aids. This was great for fine motor, she opened the band aids all by herself. She decorated tissues and added antennae with markers. This turned out SOOOOO cute! we have little Dora and Abby butterflies.
Science: We looked at books and magazines to learn about he butterfly life cycle. I printed out some clip art. Rhylan colored each with markers, and glued them on the paper in the right order!!! I was so proud, she remembered the life cycle. After she finished the page I asked her to tell me about it these are her words "First it the eggs. Caterpillar comes out. It turn into cocoon, Butterfly come out!" ( I know, I taught her the wrong word, it should say pupa instead of cocoon oh well.) Then we used markers to color some pretty butterflies.
Math: I put a paper in the bottom of each cup with some of the letters we have been learning in preschool. Then she sorted the letter beads in the right cups. Then she counted all the letters she sorted. We found they all had 6 letters!--We will bring back this one with different letters--she had a lot of fun. I even caught her spelling out her name (bottom left.)

Language: She practiced writing the letter B. It took several tries but she finally make a butterfly out of 2 B's back to back. Then she dripped pain onto the wings. We talked about how a butterfly wings always match. So, we folded it in half an opened it up for a perfect butterfly!
Here she is studying about butterflies, caterpillars and their life cycles. We found this neat story about a photographer that took 24 years to collect the alphabet and 1-9 on butterfly wings!

Small town Texas rodeo!

Saturday night we headed off to a rodeo! It didn't start until 8:00 pm... the kids go to bed at 7:00 but they did SURPRISINGLY well. The action kept them from being cranky. We left at 10:00pm and missed the bull riders but really liked what we did see. Rhylan even went out for the kids calf chase, she didn't win us the new Dodge truck but she ran as fast as she could:) Riley's family has an exchange student from Germany living with them this semester. She thought the whole idea of the rodeo was CRAZY. She kept asking why? However she also was very entertained.

Gammy C and Rhylan watching the calf roping.

Markee and Rhylan BFF!!

Mom, Dad, and Tine
I think it is funny that Mark is the only one in focus...opps!

Gracin loves this spot.

a hair cut

Randomly today, I decided to give Rhylan a hair cut. I think it turned out really cute! I was pretty nervous but it all turned out okay. I am sure a stylist could have done better but... she's 3!! She doesn't care:)

Labor day weekend in TX--beach day

Rhylan, the little mermaid.

Rhylan and Savannah building a big sand castle.

Riley and Rhylan walking together out to the water.

Riley had a 5 day weekend for Labor day, so we went to Frisco TX (near Dallas) to visit Riley's family. We had such a fun time. Saturday and Monday we went to the beach! We went to two different lakes and played in the sun, sand and water. Rhylan and Gracin loved digging in the sand, making sand castles, and burying their feet. They also had fun walking around in the water, being knocked over by waves, collecting rocks, and floating. Riley and I took turns on the beach and in the lake, back and forth following our two favorite little kids around! Grammy C and Markee also played with Rhylan and Gracin.

Gracin is learning to use a spoon

Here is a play by play. As you can see a lot lands on his tummy still, but he feels like a big boy and is pretty proud. He also has learned to use a straw.

We finally made it to the sprinkler park

Well our mothers group has been going to the sprinkler park all summer and we finally went this time! It was our last change before they closed it for the winter.

As expected, Gracin loved it and Rhylan thought it was OK. Gracin tried out all the sprinklers and fountains. He went through the arch that was like a shower, stepped on water squirting from the ground and ran around in heaven. Rhylan took a while to get wet. She avoided getting sprayed for a while but eventually she went through the arch as well and had fun chasing her friends. She did ask to go home early. We were the first to leave. Poor Gracin could have stayed a while longer. He wore himself out, and fell asleep in the car on the way home!

Rhylan got brave and ran through the spray arch.

Gracin's turn. He came up with the idea all by himself. He went through multiple times.

Soggy Gracin

Rhylan wanted to sit out for a min or two.

Preschool--birds, and other fun things we did

So Riley had a few days off of school between semesters. We stayed home but we still have fun. Here are some more of the things we did!

Rhylan and I made a cake and had fun eating it!
Riley and I both played in the stake volleyball tournament.






Gracin played and relaxed. This picture of him sitting in the chair, he is watching Cars, his new favorite movie.




**************************************************
Preschool--I didn't plan anything for preschool this week because it was vacation. But it ended up being a week about birds.

ART: Last year on July21 we went to Goodwill, Riley wanted to buy a shelf for him and Rhylan to paint the next day. He wanted a special father daughter craft. Well, 6 hrs later we went to the hospital to have Gracin, so they weren't able to do their craft. So this week Riley helped her paint a little bird house while he painted the shelves.







Science: Riley and Rhylan made a bird house feeder from an old milk carton. They used markers and stickers to decorate it.



Field trip: We went tot he zoo, and Rhylan got a special lesson about birds...