Rocket Scientist at Play

It's very interesting living with a rocket scientist. He has a knack with certain toys. Like K'nex. Check out this Mars Rover (or something that goes on the moon, sorry Bryce....I forgot what you called this). It even has a type of motor made with a rubber band. Pretty amazing.

He also dresses up his boy like an astronaut.

Here's what he did the other night....

A model of the vehicle he is working on at work.

Not sure what that sticking up gray thing is.

But like most rocket scientist things, it LOOKS cool.

Me, on the other hand. I just have kids make things like apples.

With worms.

That's what you get when you cross a rocket scientist and an elementary teacher!

Acorns

I don't know what happened. When daylight savings time started (ended?) my munchkins have turned into monsters between 4 and 6 pm. They get antsy-crazy! My house resembles a college dorm on a Saturday night. To channel that energy, I've tried some more crafts. We decided to make acorns. Using a paper grocery bag, I had kids color brown and orange.

Notice sweet Brielle hanging out over there. She doesn't know what kind of family she's gotten herself into.

While they were coloring their orange and brown sheets, I drew acorns.

Don't worry, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to construct such an image. Really basic shape, it turns out.

Then we tore the brown colored paper. I squiggled on some glue to the top part of the acorn. Kids put torn brown bits there.

Next I squiggled glue on the southern part of the acorn.

Kids put on the orange pieces.

Just to make it stand out, I retraced the black lines of my original acorn drawing and wrote their names.

Okay, back to the crazy college scene....oh my!

Three kids under four, life is an adventure!

Matching Girls

A friend of mine gave me a few clothes for Galina. Lo and behold, one of them was the same as Brielle's. (A hand-me-down from Galina actually.)

So I put the matching outfits on my two girls. Galina especially enjoyed being twins with her sister.

She didn't want to take it off! And the next day, when her outfit didn't match Brielle's, she was mad. But only for a moment as I let her pick out her outfit. My little eccentric one. Quite the fashion diva, isn't she? (Takes after her Aunt Amy.)

Halloween Snippets

Here's our cat, Polly (aka "Queen of the Basement"). Every once in a while she pops upstairs. It's especially fun around Halloween time when she checks out the black cat Halloween decorations I have. Long lost relatives, she thinks. No wonder she stays down in the basement so much. We attempted to carve pumpkins this year.

This being the reason: we had help.

Bryce's parents came out for a visit and Bryce recruited them to assist.

I just took pictures. And yes, that is a power tool. The manly way to carve pumpkins.

Bryce insisted on carving all 4. He just wanted the seeds. Okay, I wanted them too. With extra salt! There's the finished products. My sweet sister sent a gift for the kids to celebrate Brielle's birth. Part of the package included a cute little pumpkin shirt. Galina grabbed it and wanted it on her baby. She proceeded to take care of HER baby Brielle. Both the Brielles were laying on the blanket for a while just hanging out.

We also had Circus Week at Treyton's preschool. The kids dressed up for a special program for parents. Galina got to wear her princess dress that day.Here we are waiting for the program to begin. Lots of kisses for baby sister.

There they come! Treyton is the shark between Spiderman and the Rockies baseball player.

They looked a bit scared. But once the music got going, they got grooving.

My favorite costume was this Frankenstein. To add to the character, he even walked like Frankenstein. His momma must've been so proud!!! (His mom is actually Treyton's Sun school teacher.) Next to Frankenstein is the girl Treyton wants to marry, Gracie. She was in Treyton's class last year. Makes a cute little witch, doesn't she?

And Grandma Kay got to take part of the festivities as the official baby holder that morning.

This is Treyton's class minus two girls.

And the big night finally arrived. Trick or treating! Wild children before leaving. Wild and crazy! It was sooo fun to take part in their joy. I just love being a parent!

Brielle and I hung out at home answering the door. Her little p.j.'s say "I want my mummy!" A friend stopped by earlier in the afternoon to give her that. She was pregnant thinking her baby would be there by Halloween, but she was late. Poor lady. (She was around 10 days overdue.) She graciously donated her unborn baby's outfit to Brielle. Thanks, Christie.

Here are our precious angels!

A bunny rabbit.

A shark.

This holiday was made for Galina. Our social one struck up a conversation at every door. She sang Happy Birthday to some, petted dogs, and told people she needed more candy for her mom and dad. Poor Bryce. He tried to convince people that he didn't teach her to say that (which he really didn't), but I was grateful for the extra candy. That's my girl!

After a long night of trick or treating, it was time to relax on the couch with daddy and watch a Diego Halloween movie I got from the library.

The loot was enormous, the giggles contagious, the memories forever. Happy Halloween!

Fancy Fish

We were snowed in last week which can only mean one thing...craft time!

We decided to make some fancy fish. I just took a paper plate and cut out a triangle shape for each child doing the craft. Then the kids colored the plates.While they were doing that, I cut some tin foil into small squares. And a bonus...this supposedly sharpens scissors too, I read somewhere.

Next I let the kids dip the foil into glue and then let them put it onto their fish.

However, I found it was a little easier to just add a drop of glue to the back of the individual tin foil pieces. Another method that worked was to add drops of glue to the plate and let the kids put the foil onto the dots of glue.

Then we taped the tail which we cut out for the mouth to the hind end of the fish. And we cut out fins and taped them as well.

Of course, any fish isn't complete without googly eyes.

The kids ran around the house (aka "the ocean") with their fish to help cabin fever swim away.