More Saturday Pictures

I often fail to get any pictures of myself, so when Lauren posted these, I thought it would be worth sharing. They are from Pump It Up and the Pumpkin Party on Saturday as well.

Halloween is Coming!

Friday afternoon, after our busy morning, Colin chilled out, riding bikes with the neighborhood boys.He really loves playing with them and they are super-tolerant of him!Saturday morning was the Halloween party for Michael's squadron. We had it at Pump It Up, which is always a huge hit with the kids (and usually with the adults also!). Here are Michael and Colin headed down the gigantic slide:
Colin likes the bouncy houses a lot, especially the one with balls and basketball goals. Michael tosses him up so he can make the baskets.
Here are Colin and Seth, sharing a pony ride. Colin is currently insisting on calling both Zach and Seth "Zach," despite our best efforts to help him distinguish between the two. Afterward we had some yummy pizza and cupcakes before heading for home.
In the evening, we had friends over for a dinner of soup and breads and to carve pumpkins. Jen got this picture where it looks like Colin is actually participating, but he spent most of the night running around the yard and eating! Maybe next year he'll be more interested in cleaning them out! Heaven knows he enjoys being messy!
See, snacking:
And more snacking. Yummy cupcakes! (in my defense, he had three servings of soup before any sweets...little piggy).
James was wonderful enough to indulge all the kids' pumkin carving fantasies! They drew or told him what to draw and he dutifully carved it out. Here is a Zach-inspired creation, complete with Frankenstein-ian "bolts," crossbones, and mummy-like wrappings. Weird.
And here is Kim, working on her first pumpkin ever.
Turned out pretty snazzy, huh? :) Great job Kim (and both your kids)!Leah brought stuff to make caramel apples; here she and Kim are working in my kitchen. Do you think I could get them to stay here as my permanent sous chefs? That'd be handy.And the yummy finished products. Very sticky though...crazy Texas humidity!We had such a great day, but everyone had to take a nap on Sunday to recover from all the excitement!

Art Day - Fun Textures

We had a lot of fun at this week's Art Day. I wanted to do something different, so I tried to think of all kinds of different textures for them to mess with.

First we made some "cornstarch goo", a non-Newtonian liquid that behaves with dilatant properties. You can read more about it here, but basically the more you roll it or smack it, the harder it becomes, but if you just hold it still it will drip out of your hand. I remember being completely fascinated with the stuff in science class and I have to admit, it's still pretty darned cool! In fact, I think the mommies may have played in it more than the kids, though they seemed to like it too!
Next, we cut out shapes from clay. Zach kept bringing me heart shapes ~ what a sweetie! Leah even managed to teach Colin to use the rolling pin correctly! This was sort of my trial run to see if they might manage making Christmas ornaments for one of our art days and I think we will definitely be doing that - we can make and paint them all on the same day!
After that, we created little collages with tissue paper and glue. I think Adrianna's butterfly was probably the coolest, but she had a little help from mommy!
Colin mostly liked spreading the glue.
Lauren had some fun bleeding paper cut into leaf shapes, so we colored and painted a bunch of those and them sprayed them with water to watch the shapes spread.
And snack time included more fun textures: Jello and Rice Krispie balls.
Afterward, the boys were interested in our sleeping bags (still out from last weekend), so Leah showed them how to roll the bags up properly (which she called a "man job" - which they loved).
All in all, a pretty fun morning with friends!

Peanut Oil and the Zoo

Well, our Monday and Tuesday were an eventful start to the week. Monday started off okay, but the afternoon ended with Colin dumping peanut oil all over the floor of the pantry. I saw him unscrew the lid, but was just not quick enough to actually stop it. So, we ran a little experiment to figure out how best to clean up the oil spill. We chose 4 squares and 4 ingredients: corn flour, baking soda, salt, and corn starch. For those of you who may need this information in the future, baking soda and salt are far superior. I ended up using salt for the rest of the floor, but in retrospect probably should have gone with baking soda because the salt granules bounce over a larger area and are therefore more clean up than the soda would have been. After than it just took a quick scrubbing (or three) to get the floor back to normal. :)
Tuesday we decided to meet our friends at the zoo. Colin and Kiki really liked "fishing" in a little fake pond in the kiddie area. Here are some pictures of that:
After we were getting ready to leave this area and go see some animals, our friend Kim got a call from her security company that her house alarm was going off. Lauren and I followed her home to (presumably) meet the police (who had already come and gone), so our zoo trip was cut short, but instead we had a really yummy lunch with them and played the afternoon away at Lily's house!

So, not the start to the week we'd planned on, but eventful nevertheless!

Colin's First Camp Trip

Well, we finally got around to going camping with Colin this weekend. :) Michael took off Friday so we could make three days of it and we drove up near Waco and met Joe and Laura there (Check out Seal Rock, Laura's blog, for some more pictures.).

Colin was such a good camper and enjoyed everything about the weekend. Here he is bringing Michael some tent stakes when we first arrived.
And chilling out with Papa Joe.
First up, came a lesson about fire-building and safety.
He did pretty well helping out and not getting himself scorched.
Pardon the smoke.
Not sure we're there yet, but I think he's beginning to understand that it's hot and will hurt if he gets too close. It's problematic that he does not yet totally acknowledge the concept of "hurt" yet (despite - or maybe because of - the number of bumps and bruises he gets in a normal week).Like any good little camper, Colin got dirty as quickly as possible. I just adore that smudged up face though!Colin's first S'more. He loved them (once we convinced him it was just a better version of graham crackers!).
The fog over the lake in the mornings was beautiful and the crisp fall air was just the break we needed!
Then the sun started to come up and it was even better!
Here's our campsite in the early morning light.
And my favorite boys in the early morning light. (Colin actually slept with Joe and Laura though...suckers...I mean, thanks!)Yesterday we did a brief hike.
In the afternoon we played at the camp playground. Colin insisted on pushing his wagon all the way there.
Poking at Papa through the holes.
And waving his favorite rock.
The most favorite activity of the weekend though had to be throwing rocks into the lake down at the boat ramp. Our campsite looked out over the water and several times a day Colin would say, "rock i' water? boom, splash? puh-lease?"Colin, being a clown. (that's a bucket, in case you can't tell)
Saturday evening he was so tired that he literally fell asleep mid-bite at dinner. No kidding. We were trying to get the burger out of his mouth before laying him down.
Here's Michael playing with the fire. Someday I'll have a camera that will taking amazing shots, even in the dark. :)
Colin was just as big of a help with breaking camp as we was in setting up. He largely stayed out of the way until given a job to do. Here he is drawing in the rocks with a stick and waiting.
Then he helped daddy sweep out the tent and then even began sweeping the gravel around our campsite!
Here are Michael and Colin this morning getting ready to head down to the lake.
And one of the few pics we got of all of us. Colin, unfortunately, is desperately trying to get away, unhappy that we have inhibited his play for even a short picture!
And there you have it. Highlights of our fun and relaxing weekend away!