A Family "Tree"

We live within walking distance of a massive banyan tree that is the perfect tree to climb and explore. Back in the 50's our neighborhood was an animal safari park and this tree and the water and red bridge you see in the picture were all part of the park. They surround an island that was called monkey island and people would go on a boat ride around the island. It is an interesting part of our neighborhoods history and makes a great location to get some good pictures. We spent about an hour (seemed like 10 hours!) trying to get a picture of all three kiddos. I know, crazy right? I think we managed to get a couple of good ones and a lot of good individual pictures too. We also have some pictures of Alex's birthday pan"cake" breakfast, and some pictures taken in our backyard. So without further ado.... enjoy the slideshow :)

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Hi Ho Hi Ho... its off to the beach we go!

Alternately titled, how to bring home a bucket of sand on your clothes. So I'm not sure why I thought Andrew would be deterred by coolish water and cooler air - apparently it is still hysterically fun to get yourself and those around you (namely daddy) good and wet! Note to self: next time put Andrew in a full body wetsuit, and maybe Chuck too!

It all started so innocently.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some nice father/son poses....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Until we turned him loose on the sand....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently it's contagious :)

Not Me Monday

This is my first attempt at It's Not Me Monday! A funny way to set the record straight. For a full explanation and to participate, check out my charming kids blog.

This week, I did NOT do the following things.

1. I did not lower the hurricane awning down over the window that is in Andrew’s bedroom in order to disguise the fact that due to the end of daylight savings time sunlight would now be streaming into his room an hour earlier – in the hopes that he would not feel compelled to get up an hour earlier! I did not take into account that he has apparently gotten smarter since last year and was not about to fall for it again.

2. I did not quickly throw a pair of jeans on Andrew to take him to the pediatricians office only to discover once I was there that I’d neglected to put any underwear on him! Thankfully he was just there to check for an ear infection and until just now this was an oversight known to no one else… well except for Andrew!

3. I did not borrow a pair of socks from Andrew (who is three years old) because I ran out of my own. I mean whose three year old has such big feet that I could get away with this? And by the way, Andrew does not wear a size 1 shoe and is not 44 inches tall, and does not weigh 52 lbs. That would be crazy right?

4. I did not string clothesline around my gazebo in the great clothesline experiment to see if we could actually save money on our electric bill every month by not using our dryer. And I did not tell my husband that we would look younger from all the exfoliating our now less than soft line dried towels would do!

5. I did not just see a gasoline price of only 2.29/gallon and declare it to be really cheap, and get really excited about it - because that would mean that I am so used to insanely high prices that what used to be considered expensive, is now in fact cheap!

A Big Boy Room

So we bought paint and decorations to redo Andrew's room with for his birthday - ahem, that would be six months ago!  Grandma Lynne and mommy spent the past two days finally getting the room done :)

So without further ado... here it is, I told mommy and grandma that it is great (repeatedly)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fall festivities

Here is a random sampling of what we've been up to over the past couple of weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dressed as a shepherd boy for Light the Night (Halloween alternative) at church

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Showing off some of his school projects

                    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ready to dig in to Rachel's BOO gingerbread house!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food + family + a park on a sunny day = FUN!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate + graham crackers + toasted marshmallows = one happy camper!

Voting 101 (when the wait time is 2 1/2 hours)

We decided to make a family morning of it and vote early.    We were lucky to spend the first hour waiting outside right next to a playground that Andrew enjoyed.  The remaining hour and a half were a bit more challenging, but we made it :) Here are some tips that Andrew would like to pass along.

Bring some leftover Halloween candy with you (and see how many surfaces you can leave sticky residue on)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Play with (rearrange) the chairs and don't sit still for more than 15 seconds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make sure you get the ever so important "I voted" sticker and display it proudly!

Farm Fun!

This is from our trip to Green Meadows Petting Farm in Kissimmee. I highly recommend it for anyone with kids (or without!)- we had a great time :)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Hotel and Carnival Fun

These pictures are from the hotel we stayed at in Kissimmee and the carnival across the street in Old Town.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Tractors and Naps

Nothing says fun to a three year old boy like "riding" the tractor lawn mowers at Lowe's or Home Depot.  And it looks like the forty something year old little boy is having fun too!

 

And here's a bit of proof that despite the occasional protest.... Andrew still needs a nap every afternoon.  After thinking it was rather quiet in the house, this is what I found :) 

Have you hugged a tree lately?

 

Andrew has :)

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a big smile for you mom!

 That's it - I'm done!

Beach Time

We decided on a quick trip to the beach Saturday evening to unload an excessive amount of energy from one little boy - Mission Accomplished :)  If we could just harness a bunch of three year old boys together we could probably solve all of our energy problems.

 

 

 

Name those Cars

We recently got some playdoh Crayola model magic fusion for Andrew to play with.  I think daddy is getting a lot of play out of it too!  Andrew's favorite requests to be made are Car's characters and the alphabet of course!  Here are some pictures of recent creations.  For those of you who have not seen the Disney movie Cars a zillion times, the characters below are a tractor, Lightning McQueen, and a yellow version of Tow Mater.  Too bad we didn't take any sculpting classes in school, they may have come in handy here :)  For anyone interested - I highly recommend Crayola's model fusion - it is much much less messy than playdoh, and is very soft and easy to work with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Labor Day Reversal

In honor of Labor Day - Alex, Rachel, and Andrew decided to take a break from all their playing and do some laboring while the grownups relaxed.

Alex spent time at a construction site                                                              

 

 

 

 

 

  Andrew practiced rescue skills.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andrew and Rachel managed to wrestle a gator.

 

 

 

                                   

 

 

All that work - wears a boy out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taking a break  - without breaking anything

Letters, letters everywhere and lots of words to spell

Ok.. so Andrew has a bit of an obsession with alphabet letters and building words out of them - I keep telling myself this is a good thing after I have spelled out my 100th word by mid afternoon, He takes his letters with him everywhere.. to the store, to bed, into the bathtub, at the table while he eats.  If this keeps up I'm thinking we may need an intervention!  kidding of course :)

School Daze

Andrew had his first day of school today!  He started a speech program at a local elementary school and will be attending two mornings a week from 8:00 - 10:30.   He was such a big boy when his teacher came to get him and walk him to his classroom, no tears and no fuss.  And how did I do you ask?  lets just say lots of tears and lots of fuss!  thankfully only after he disappeared into the school building.  But I recovered after a teary phone call to my sister and another to my mom :)  Andrew had a great time and is looking forward to going back, so all is well. 

Here is our growing up too fast little boy on his first day of school .

 

 

And the ever important "Disney Cars themed"  brand new backpack of course. This was actually the first pose he gave me, but I thought I'd like to preserve the memory of how HE looked on the first day... not just his backpack, LOL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the inside of his classroom, this was taken during the school open house last week.  The two boys are giving "Buzz Lightyear" a ride in the Barbie jeep!   Not sure that would have been Buzz's choice of transportation, LOL.

Summer Splash

The smile on his face pretty much says it all.

 

Meet the Guineas

So I went to the pet store to ask about guinea pigs and guess what happened? yep of course we ended up with a couple! Now in my defense.. this was not a pet store that usually has guinea pigs! a family had just come in the day before and left them there to be adopted (they were moving into a place that would not allow any pets). So of course Andrew and I had to call daddy and make sure we could bring them home. The best part was that this adoption required no paper work or home studies, LOL. And you have admit they are pretty cute for being oversized rodents, LOL. Andrew is having a great time helping take care of them and loves his "guin pigs". The short haired tan one is Cheeca, and the long haired one is Callie.