Off to the Shrine Circus!

The boys had never been to the circus and now that Sawyer can read, it was hard to ignore all the huge Shrine Circus billboards all over town! The last time that I went to the circus was in Brazil and they shot a little guy out of a cannon with no clothes on.....thankfully everyone remained clothed this time :)

We invited Sawyer's friend Kristin to come with us and the two of them had an absolute blast together!

They had everything from dancing poodles, a crocodile tamer, trapeze artists, a dancing elephant motorcycle daredevils...but out of all those cool things, Raylan was most excited about the popcorn guy that kept coming around with giant bags of honey popcorn. Every time he would walk by, Raylan's little hand would shoot up in the air and he would start yelling! 

All this while he's elbow deep in his own popcorn bag....

We let the kids each pick out a souvenir and they all picked the light-up bubble guns. 

Raylan kept sticking the end of it in his mouth and then pulling the trigger as if he was actually blowing the bubbles out himself :) He had one hand in the popcorn bag and one pulling the trigger on the gun....made for some really interesting tasting popcorn!

These two wanted to sit a few seats down from us.....has this started ALREADY?!?!

Bubble guns never get old!

See? This is how the cool kids do it.

Afterwards we went down to the circus fair to see the animals....and the clowns. Raylan HATED them.

This week was Dr. Seuss week at school and each day they dressed up in different stuff  in honor of it. Last night at 10:15 p.m. Sawyer gets out of bed and says, "I need a whole Dr. Seuss costume to wear tomorrow!" ummmmmm WHAT?? So I threw this together this morning before school, he took another head piece and the 'Thing 2' sign for any other friends at school that had forgotten their costumes..... 

Have you seen the movie, "The Lorax"? It's so cute. If you haven't, the gist of the movie is that there is this guy who lets greed get the best of him and he ends up cutting down all of the colorful truffula trees to make these scarves called sneeds. In the end he realizes his mistake and tries to make it right. So the whole point of the story is to save the trees, be respectful and responsible for the environment. 

Sooooooo the reason for all of that, was so you would get the irony of this paper that Sawyer brought home the other day from school. They had just read the book and were supposed to write down what THEY would have done of they found the last truffula tree.....(with the intent that they would talk about being responsible for the earth etc....) 

So here's what Sawyer said:

If I found the last Truffula tree, I would....

"eat the fruit then I would chop it down then I would make a thede (sneed)." 

ummmm.....I don't think he got the point of the book.....lol

Most Acidic

A few months ago Sawyer came home wanting to participate in the science fair! Now this is an optional thing that requires weekly attendance after school for science demonstrations and then completing your experiment at home. So, every Thursday afternoon Bill would meet Sawyer after school to go to the science demonstrations where they had different professors come in to conduct experiments with the kids. 

For his project, Sawyer decided to see which fruits, veggies and liquids made the best batteries! He and Bill took zinc washers and copper wire and stuck them into the test subjects and then tested the voltage from each one with a volt meter. They tested lemons, potatoes, apples, water, Gatorade, and milk. 

It turns out that they all could conduct electricity but the apples and Gatorade came out the best!

We took pictures of them doing the experiment and decorated his board. Then he practiced and practiced and practiced explaining the experiment.....over and over and over. By the morning of, he was ready to go!

We were proud parents!

Of course Nana and Papa came to see this mad scientist :)

Raylan spend the entire evening shoveling his face with all the refreshments that they had....cookies and about eight bags of popcorn.

They had an awards ceremony...and you guessed it, they all got an award and trophy!! 

(Which personally I think is ridiculous....I want Sawyer to learn early on that not everyone is a winner every time. Winning takes hard work and if he wants to be the best at something and rewarded for it,  he's going to need to put in the time and effort it's gonna take to get him there. When everyone gets a trophy, it never pushes the kids to get any better. Why should kids who put in minimal effort be rewarded the same as the ones that worked their tails off? We are really setting them up for a heart breaking reality check when they get into the real world and aren't praised for doing the bare minimum. Phew.....man got a little carried away there. Getting off my soap box now.) 

With all that being said, Sawyer did do a great job and we were VERY proud of him and his effort!

His experiment was awarded, "Most Acidic"!!!!

He was already planning out his experiment for next year on the ride home.

Meanwhile this one keeps getting into my lipstick.....at least he has been paying attention and knows what part of his face it's supposed to go on....

Random Moments

Had a little helper while cutting green beans...little helper turned into little muncher!

Bill turns 28!!! This is a classic 'Bill' face :)

Celebrated with the family-Steaks and a bunt cake. Then an impromptu who-is-the-best-at-this game started and went on for quite a while! Who can balance their whole body on an exercise ball the longest? Who can jump the farthest? Who can stand on one foot the longest? Who can hold the plank position longest? Who's the best at darts? Which of the little ones can run the fastest on the treadmill? Who can speed-jump rope the fastest? Geesh-I didn't realize how competitive we all were!

Oh life's predicaments....heard some frantic screaming from Raylan's room one evening and ran in there to find this. 

Getting your ankle stuck in the long brush we use to clean the fan blades with, don't you just hate that?!?

Time for yearly wellness check ups!

Sawyer was healthy as a horse! (45 lbs.)

Raylan was healthy as a beast! (26 lbs)

Both got poked, measured, pressured, weighed and finished it off with a nice shot at the end :)

Sawyer's class had PJ day at school last week! They all got to wear jammies, bring stuffed animals and curl up to read all day. 

Now that's the life!!!

TEEEEEF!!!

Raylan's favorite activity these days: Brushing his Teeeeef. We catch him all the time in there 'brushing' away. It's more like squirting an unnecessarily large amount of tooth paste on his tooth brush, getting it wet and then sucking it off, getting it wet again, tapping it on the edge of the sink really loudly and then clapping for himself for a job well done.   

Taking care of his pearly whites!

Baking some banana bread with our roommate, Cheyenne. 

One of the things I love most about the stage that Sawyer is in right now is listening to him read! He picked up a book the other afternoon and read it to the Day Care kids as if he'd been doing it all his life. You can tell he was mimicking Mrs. Pederson because there would be a 'Keep your hands to your self.' reminder every once in a while. He followed p the story with questions about the plot and the characters :)

I know that at some point, all kids learn how to read. But when it's YOUR kid, it's amazing.

The other thing I'm loving right now: Watching the brotherly relationship unfold. Sawyer has always been very good with Raylan since there is such a large age gap between them, but recently they have started to really enjoy playing together and being really silly. They wrap each other up in blankets and drag each other around the house...pillow fight...tickle each other until one of them ends up in tears...ya' know, the usual stuff! :) 

Christmas 2013

I know this is a little late, but this time of year is SO busy! 

We started off the festivities with my Day Care Christmas party! It's the one party of the year that almost every single parent comes to! 

Once the parents arrived, the kids did a little Christmas craft, had a bunch of yummy treats (I set up a table of treats and hot apple cider for the parents too).The kids had been practicing some Christmas carols to perform for their parents at the party for a couple of weeks and they were SO excited to sing them! They did such a GREAT job!!! They were absolutely adorable ringing their jingle bells and belting out the songs at the tops of their lungs! Then they got to open up their gift bags with all their little gifts from their friends. 

It's a pretty busy afternoon with everyone there, but I just loved it and I'm pretty sure the kids did too!!!

Nana Kathy had a week off of work and spoiled us a bit by taking Bill out to lunch and then bringing by this huge assortment of treats for me!!!!! 

She also brought Sawyer an early Christmas gift of a Rainbow loom.....it's this HUGE fad with the kids these days to make these rubber band bracelets for each other and trade them at school. Sawyer absolutely LOVES it!

Christmas morning we opened up gifts at home from Nana Jane that she sent! But did we get pictures of it? Nooooo......we facetimed with her while the kids were opening up their gifts so that's why we don't have any pictures :( She had gotten Sawyer this HUGE castle LEGO set that he was just dying to get started on and then Raylan got this enormous slide to play with outside. (Every time we go to pick him up from the nursery at church, he's playing on the slide) Thank you Nana Jane!!!! Hopefully next Christmas she will be with us!

We headed over to Nana & Papa's house in our jammies for breakfast and gift opening!

It looks like I'm never at any of these occasions.....

It was great having Alex's girlfriend, Shelbie and her daughter, Macie with us this year! 

Raylan and Macie were just into everything until Bill opened up his yearly tin of popcorn.....they planted themselves at that tin and stuffed their faces for the rest of the morning! Note to self: open up the popcorn first to keep those two occupied.

The gang.

What's cuter than two little kitties in a box? Two little kiddos in a box!

That afternoon, we were joined by the rest of the extended family to continue celebrating!

We had a delicious lunch of ham and two kinds of brisket!!

Sawyer making everyone Rainbow Loom bracelets. 

The evening ended with a cut throat White Elephant game and a dessert bar that would put Martha Stewart to shame! Another wonderful Christmas for the record books!