Aye! Sea Turtles!

6/14/2011

When I gave the volunteer my camera I didn't realize that I had it set on video. He was really nice and did this video as well as taking some pictures.

Snake Farm

6/13/2011

A few months ago we took the kids and Nancy to the Snake Farm. We saw it on an episode of Dirty Jobs and since it's just down the street we checked it out. It was very cool (well hot actually) and very snakey. The kids liked finding the top 10 most venomous snakes in the world and I liked the petting zoo - which only had goats and the like - not snakes.

K - you can't really see it in this picture but I have NEVER seen a snake as big as this albino python. It's over 9 feet long!!!

Derek was afraid of the goats at first but they were pretty pushy and he eventually gave in and just held out his hand so that they would stop chasing him.

Feeding this llama was weird because it has three lips and they are kinda scratchy. It's hard to describe, just believe me, it's weird.

These goats didn't want us to leave.

Tyler's Joy

6/7/2011

Here is a triumphant picture of Tyler at our ward's Easter Egg Hunt in April.

Jared Is A Good Science Teacher

6/6/2011

I am really jealous of how good Jared is at teaching. Almost everyone in our ward has a testimony of his gospel doctrine lessons, he got all "excellents" on his teacher evaluation at school, and he works for half as much time as me and is getting better grades in our curriculum development class. He tries to make me feel better by saying that he does well because he went to school for a really long time and that I do better than him at taxes. Hmph! It doesn't make me feel better. I want to be totally perfect at everything the first time I try it! I even had a nightmare last night where Jared turned in a paper with three sentences on it and got an A and I wrote over 10 pages and got a 68. (I might have a problem.) Well, at least I didn't have Jared's dream last night. He dreamed that ugly fat witches were attcking our house and casting spells on him :D

For the classes he teaches, Jared likes to make scale models. Here is a scale model of the layers of the Earth's crust.

Here is a scale model of the solar system that he put up on the wall of his classroom. I really liked it. The yellow made his room seem so happy.

Derek the Builder

6/2/2011

Yesterday morning Derek was playing with the K'nex downstairs while I finished sleeping. He kept coming into my room to wake me up and ask me to take little pieces apart and put them together. At 8:30 I finially came downstairs and found the "grandfather clock" from the instruction book almost fully constructed. I helped him connect the three major pieces that he had built together and voila! A pretty cool toy. I'm really impressed in my son's mad construction skills. He told me that his secret to success was to "just follow the arrows Mom."

Jared's Little Bird Told Him...

5/31/2011

Jared bought a humming bird feeder. Now our back porch is a humming bird hot spot! Yesterday we saw five of them all fighting to get the goods. Jared says that he's been filling it up with sugar water every other day. So cool (and a little expensive :)

Die, Die, Die!

5/29/2011

Tyler is such a super kid! This week we found out that he was commended for both his Math and Reading scores on the 3rd grade TAKS test. For all you Utah and Idaho people, that means that he got above a 90% on his end of year standardized tests. In Texas the TAKS is a really big deal and kids and teachers all work really hard to study for them.

We also found out that Tyler was accepted into the GT (gifted and talented) program in the Northside Independent School District. This is a really big deal. It will allow him to take accelerated math and science classes as well as test out of some of the required high school credits. He's very proud of himself and insists on referring to himself as "a genius." We keep telling him that bragging all the time isn't really a genius thing to do...he's still learning...

This week the squash vine borers attacked my zucchini plants. I thought that I could avoid it this year by wrapping the base of the stem with a paper towel tube. I guess not. Every branch I broke off had a wiggly little grub in it. I had to rip out the plants and I was really upset.

Tyler and Derek sensed my distress and thought that they might be able to cheer me up by drawing pictures of bugs dying terrible deaths. It actually worked. When I look at these, I feel so much better!

Ants Under Attack - Tyler (age 9) Killing June Bugs and A Snake With Spray - Derek (age 5)

The Home Depot - An Actual Home?

5/28/2011

Family home evening...Texas style!

We spend A LOT of time at Home Depot looking at poisons that we can use to kill bugs. The kids usually come along and get bored. Not this time!

She Calls Herself "Lolly"

15 May 2011

So my little Holly (or Lolly as she calls herself) is a regular stinker. She's got this wild curly hair that I can't tame. Nancy does a little better than I do, but she usually ends up looking like she just got out of a wind tunnel. She loves to play jokes on us and has a little bit of a temper. The other day I wouldn't let her get in the car to go to the Fathers and Sons campout with the boys. She was so mad at me that she put her blankets in her backpack with a bottle of water, took my phone, sneaked out through the garage and got two blocks down the street before I finally caught up with her. When I did she said, "Go away Mom!"

She likes to stand on the arm of a bench at the top of the stairs and look down at us. It's very, very, dangerous.

Relaxin' with wet hair on dad's pillow.

Holly LOVES to go for rides in the car.
We ran out of baby clothes (and barrels) so Holly had to wear a Little Einstiens drum.

This is my favorite. While I was grading papers I let Holly play with my graphing calculator. After a few minutes she gave it back to me with this message.

Oh dear, my sweet baby, what have you done?!

Poteet Strawberry Festival

2 Apr 2011

Today we went to the Poteet Strawberry Festival. It's the biggest and best festival in South Texas. I was skeptical of something so far out in the country but it was wonderful!

Here is the Poteet yellow cactus flower of Texas. Here is the Poteet hay field of fun.

Here are the kids posing with "Freckles", the Poteet Strawberry Festival's mascott. I didn't want to wait in line to get a picture of his front, so we just stood in the back. It was basically the same.

Derek's first experience with bumper cars. Tyler didn't have as much fun during his turn because the cars didn't have pedals and it was hard to control them with just the steering wheel.

Holly was bound and determined to get on every carnival ride that she saw but she was too short for most of them. She was actually too short for this one too, but we convinced the guy at the gate that we would keep her safe. She LOVED it!

I loved this! I have always wanted to go into a mirror maze and this one was great. I followed the boys through and it was so funny to see Derek running head on into all the walls. Holly kept running into the dead ends on purpose so she could see herself from all sides.

The view from the top of the ferris wheel. Yes mom, I went on the ferris wheel. As a side note, I really dislike ferris wheels. It's not the heights, it's the swinging. I've been scared of them since I was little. This one was okay. It didn't swing too much.

Holly aparently LOVES ferris wheels.

I'm pretending to love ferris wheels. The boys are excited.

Hot and sweaty Holly. It got up to 100 degrees today.

Our last ride was a little kids roller coaster. Holly climbed up the stairs 10 times or so because she was so excited to ride on it. However, we couldn't convince the guy to let her on. So Derek and Tyler went on the ride while Holly stood at the gate crying and crying. The boys said it was really fun. Tyler didn't like the "down and turney parts." Derek said, "It was great!"