Frager Rakes, Pet Worms, and the Wee Small Hours

Harrison's breakfast habits have been fairly simple.  He eats oatmeal. Almost Everyday.  Recently, the kids had been introduced to other breakfast foods by some friends.  Seeing how much they enjoyed the different food choices, I bought some new cereals for them, just to change things up a bit.  The other morning, Harrison kept asking for Frager Rakes telling me that they are his very favorite.  I felt like I was playing Mad Gab with him.  I kept saying it over and over again.  Finally it hit me.  Frager Rakes is Frosted Flakes!

We have been doing some major landscape changes to our front yard.  Tag gave Harrison a worm he came across as he was working in the dirt.  One worm turned into two, then three, and so on.  We had to make the worms a home, which Harrison carried around all day.  Lily joined in the fun and they had a blast with the pet worms.

Early this morning, Harrison crawled into bed between me and Tag.  He cuddled up to me and so sweetly whispered, "I love you, Mom.  You are so beautiful."  Having such a tender hearted boy is truly a blessing.  It melted my heart and I wanted to freeze that moment forever.

Soccer

My mom has asked many times for me to post Lily's soccer pictures.  Finally, today she told Lily to tell me to post them.  It's hard to turn Lily down, which is probably why my mom finally asked her to get on me.  Smart move mom.  Sorry it took so long.

Lily is on a great team. They named themselves the Fairies.  What more do you expect from a team of 5 and 6 year old little girls.  At this very moment I can't think of the right words to describe how funny it is to watch little kids play soccer.  Here are some pictures from a practice and her first game.  

Team Lily

Every Saturday we head out to the soccer fields to enjoy a little Fairies competition.

 Harrison shouting, "Go, Lily!"

Labor Day Weekend 2011

We went camping with a couple of friends for a few nights to enjoy the long weekend.

The first night it rained and was absolutely freeeeeeezing!  We hung out in the back of the car for awhile with the heat on.  Having a big car came in handy.  Instead of grilling, we had cereal and listened to the rain.  It was actually a lot of fun.  I've said this one hundred times before, I'm a dork.  With that being said, probably one of the the most exciting parts of the trip was that I got to use something out of my 72 hour kit.  We have a 72 hour emergency kit for our car (and one for each member of the family in our house).  I'm really big on emergency preparedness.  While no one ever wants to be in a situation that requires the use of their emergency supplies, I was thrilled when I remembered that I had put snow hats in our car kit.  I pulled them out and the kids loved wearing them.  Ahhhhh, the joys of emergency preparedness.  It warms my heart :)

Tag packed as many kids as he could onto the 4-wheeler.

Lily and Harrison learning to shoot a gun for the first time.

Fishing

Harrison has started to become very particular about what he wears.  He dresses himself now.  Tag took one look at Harrison and said, "That looks like something I would've worn when I was a kid."  They are so much alike.

I kept asking Harrison to look up at the camera and smile so I could get a picture of his awesome outfit he put together, but he was too busy shoveling.  His best friend, Caleb, kept trying to help me out by telling him to smile.  Caleb and I finally gave up, but sweet Caleb was more than happy to smile for the picture. He's the cutest little boy.  I'm so glad Harrison has a good friend.

Lucy.  This girl was on the go the whole time.  She loves being outside.  I'm so glad that she was able to have a few days of non stop outdoor fun.  She wanted to climb on everything, get dirty and keep up with the big kids.

She has started talking a lot.  Some things we can understand and some we can't.  Her more common words are: mom, dad, hi, bye-bye, again (gen), up, quack quack, go, grandpa (said in the presence of Jerry), I love you (I ya ya), this (tis), and an occasional amen.

She also uses sign language.  Oh, how I love baby sign.  She can communicate so many things because of it.  Her most commonly used signs are: more, please, milk, water, eat, cat, finished and bird.

For the words yes and no, we get very enthusiastic head shakes.  And if she really means no then you get the look. Eyebrows down and all.
I love this busy little bee.

Lily also loves the great outdoors.  She was definitely in her element running around and breathing in all that fresh air.  

Zipline

Our friends Jared and Liz (not pictured Susan and Pat)

As Girly As It Gets

Lily wanted to have a Tangled themed birthday party.  At first, I was a little worried because a lot of her friends are boys.  We were able to round up 9 very sweet girlfriends to come over and enjoy a couple of hours of all girl birthday fun.

First, we painted lanterns.

Then, we enjoyed birthday cake and ice cream.

Lily was so sweet to make sure that her little brother didn't feel left out.  She included him in all of her birthday activities.

Hitting the pinata turned into pinata baseball which turned into beating the pinata.

The final activity was putting flowers in all of the girls' hair, just like Rapunzel.  

I can't believe I have a 6 year old!