Robot invasion

A little while ago we made a robot out of milk cartons. Evan loves his and plays with it still if I let him. I don't very often because I was fool enough to put some dried beans in the carton for a noise maker. Silly me. Here is the finished project hope it gets you thinkin' what your kids can make out of your garbage. We just wrapped a milk carton with foil and glued on eyes, arms, legs, and a nose. Then he went crazy with the stickers.

Little Ladybugs

So here is the next little bug we made. If you don't know last week we made caterpillars that turned out so cute. This week it was ladybugs.

A word about making them: Again we used egg cartons. If you are going to paint like we did paint the red first and then the black. The first one I did I painted the black first and the red wouldn't show over it. I used a big stick pin to poke the holes to thread the pipe cleaners thru but a skewer would work too. Other than that have fun making the only kind of bugs I like to have around: Fake!

Free Movies!

We have a movie theater in town that is offering free movies for the summer. I was so excited to see this and quickly planned out the summer movie schedule. Today was the first trip. We saw Inkheart at 9:30am. Yes you read that right it is an early morning movie time for the free ones, but that works just great for me. By the time we get home it is nap time for the kids and quiet time for me.

As Doug and I were trying to keep the two younger kids calmed down and quiet it dawned on me that this free movie time was the best time to go. Everyone there had a child and some had much more (I saw two buses outside for kids to load up on) so they expect some noise. It isn't like going to a night showing where you could have some kids and a lot of adults. Nope this was kid chaos at it's best. I loved it. Loved the movie too. I plan on going almost every week this summer to a new movie with the kids and maybe a picnic at the park every now and then.

Not the best of pictures cause they were taken with a cell phone. I was going to bring the camera but I forgot. Maybe next time I'll remember, or not. :)

Just waiting for the movie to start and getting all our eats ready.

Daddy's little girl

There is just something about a little girl and her daddy. Once Doug got home from his trip Alexis was glued to his side and got very irate if he tried to remove her from it.

Dancing with daddy

Sleepy yet still hanging on

Father's Day

Never before has the song "I'm so glad when daddy comes home" meant so much when sung on Father's Day. Last week Doug had the opportunity to travel for work and I had the opportunity? to stay with the children. Before he left I told him that there was going to be big trouble if he didn't make it home for Father's Day. He doesn't travel too often, but when he does it seems to fall on or very near important days. For example he missed Evan's first birthday, the last day of school, small holidays, and a big holiday for me - Fourth of July. He's also come close to missing our anniversary and other birthdays and major holidays like Christmas. Not to complain, but it is hard enough to have him gone for days or weeks at a time without having him miss something I feel is important too.

Okay off that road and back to him being home. So he left on Sunday morning and was suppose to be home Friday afternoon. Well it didn't quite happen that way. His home bound trip started off right on schedule and then Mother Nature stepped in. His flight out of Chicago was delay for about 5 hours because of lightening storms. Needless to say he missed his plane in Denver and ended up standing in line for 3 hours to try to find another flight to Spokane. Lucky for him and Mother Nature there was a later flight that he was able to catch and he made it home just half a day behind schedule, yet he almost didn't make it. He woke up on the flight to the pilot saying that Spokane was closed because of lightening and they needed to circle around, but they didn't have enough fuel for that so they were turning to Missoula to refuel and would head back to Spokane. Thankfully the storm was a swift one and passed. Instead of Friday afternoon he made it home early (like 2am) on Saturday morning. If he had been stuck I'm sure our friends Heath and Shaina would have been please because Doug talked about calling them to see if he could stay with them. Lucky for me he came home instead.

So, Sunday morning we made stuffed french toast with a carmel apple sauce, scrambled eggs, hashbrowns and milk for his breakfast. I think he liked it.

Because of the type of food (the sauce) Doug came out of bed to eat at the table with us

Frogs

For some reason this year we have an abundance of little things outside. Specifically, I'm talking about frogs and toads. I've already mentioned the big toad in the driveway, but what I failed to mention was the little one in the orchard grass and now Doug and Chris found a tree frog. It was a hopping little thing. Doug and Chris of course had to bring the little hopper inside to show me. Thankfully I'm not that squeamish. I held it and then gave it back. Then I saw the hopping skills. That little thing just did not want to stay still. After a couple of pictures I was more than ready to have it returned to it's home. I so did not want a little frog jumping around free in my house.

Close up of our little jumper

On Doug's shoulder

On Christopher's chest. Hope he doesn't hop up his nose.

Storm cuts swimming short

This afternoon we were all out playing in the water. Well the kids were I just sat in the shade making sure no one drowned. The boys were in the pool and Alexis was at the slip and slide. Suddenly I started hearing some rumbling. At first I thought nothing of it because it sounded like a big truck on the road. It kept coming pretty regular and I looked in the sky. Darkness was approaching. "Boys get out of the pool!" I yell. Of course they ask why and I quickly explain that a storm was coming and we needed to get inside to be safe from the lightening. We made it with a few minutes to spare.

Threatening storm approaches

Not easy to see but hard rain coming down

You can see the hard rain pelting down

Watching the storm that ruined her fun

And the pool stands alone