flocked

The youth group at our church has been having a fund raiser for their summer youth camp and mission trip.  It's really creative and quite hilarious.  You can pay money to have someone's yard "flocked," which means they end up with a dozen hideous flamingos in their front yard.

This afternoon I was picking up around the house and as I bent over to pick up something off the floor something purple in the front yard caught my eye through the front window.  Yes, we had been flocked!  Thank you Sam and Rebecca.  I'm actually incredibly impressed at whoever the actual flocker was... I was home all day with my front windows open and I heard NOTHING.

I find it rather funny.  The kids think it is AWESOME...built in pets, and so colorful, too!  I'm not sure what our neighbors think.

Landry: "Look, this one has a necklace!!!"

So for $5 we can have the flock removed...but for only $10 more we can have the flock placed in someone else's yard.  Hmmmm, revenge on Sam and Rebecca?  Or "bless" another unsuspecting friend???  If you live in Columbus, you better watch your front yard!

One more funny side note: You can pay $50 for insurance that you won't get flocked again.  Something worth considering, I guess. :)

splish splash

Well, it officially reached 90 degrees earlier this week, so I decided it was time to break out the sprinkler!!!  At the end of the summer last year I got this fun "Toss n' Spray Seal" toy for less than two bucks!

Supposedly the point is to try to balance the ball on top of the cone of water that sprays out of the seal's nose.  BUT I wasn't even able to do it, so I don't think any of my kiddos would be able to either.  But they get wet in the process of trying, so I can that's all you can ask for!

They were so excited to bust our their swimsuits for the first time!

Tucker had to take it in from afar before he was ready to jump into the fun...it didn't help that I woke him up from his nap to come out and play.

Landry was cold!

It was hard to get him to sit still long enough to get a good picture of him.

So it was fun while it lasted...I don't think we got in the 90's this day, so once you were wet, it was a little chilly.  I'm not complaining...it'll be in the 100's before we know it.

Doesn't he just look like he's up to something?

bright sunshiny day

We had been blessed with some gorgeous weather lately, and we've tried to take advantage of it by being outside A LOT!  Here are some pics of our outdoor adventures...and an attempt at a photoshoot of all 3 kids...not my most successful, but funny nonetheless!

This is when I went and grabbed my camera...this wasn't even posed...so cute.

Oops...he spotted me!  And yes, he is saying, "Cheese!"

I love that little face!

Watching "Thomas" the train pass by on the tracks down the road.

"Do we really have to do this, Mom?"  I should have known it was too close to lunch and naps for this to be a successful endeavor.

Hank's tummy was hurting.

I put Landry's stuffed kangaroo on the roof to get them to smile and all look in the same direction...I think Tucker was more concerned than amused.

The smiles didn't last for long.

"Last picture, guys - I promise!"

"God created the"- earth day

So, earth day was a couple of days ago.  I was reading a blog post about a Christian perspective on earth day and could totally relate to one of the comments regarding the post:

"Wonderfully written! I want to teach earth day today to the kids, but I didn't want to do it in a radical 'the polar ice caps are melting the polar bears are dying and its all because mommy drives an suv' kind of way. I do think we are to be good stewards to what the Lord has entrusted us with. Thanks for the scriptures."

So, I decided that rather than focusing on global warming, saving the whales, or even "going green" I would use earth day as an opportunity to remind my kids that it was God who created the world, so we should enjoy it, thank Him for it, and take care of it.  We read the creation story out of Genesis and out of a few of our children's Bible story books, and we read and worked on memorizing Psalm 24:1:

"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it..."

Then we headed outside where we went on a scavenger hunt to find things that God created...grass, flowers, bark, sticks...the kids found a rollie pollie, but since I was planning on taping our found items to a poster board, I had them put the little bug back.  :)  We had a lot of fun!  While the younger two napped, Hank continued the project and cut scraps out of magazines to put on the poster.  He ended up with a few categories...animals, people, water, trees, rocks, and sky.

It ended being a really fun day.  It was exciting to have some added purpose and direction to our day, and I was proud to have taught my three little ones about how to be good stewards of the earth our great God created!  If I had a little more energy I would have made dirt cake with gummy worms for an earth day dessert...but there's always earth day next year!!!

having a WILD time

So we took a family outing to the Houston zoo! We had only been there once before, and that was shortly after the summer of 2007, when Hank wansn't even 2 and Landry wasn't quite 4 months old. It was a nice sunshiney, but cool day. We all had a great time...so much so that we decided it would be worth it to get a year-long family pass, so we'll have many more zoo adventures in the months to come.

Talk about deja vu...the pic above on the left was Jeff and Hank in '07...the one on the right is Jeff and Tucker on our most recent visit.

Best friends!

So big and so beautiful!

The sea lions!!! One of my favorite exhibits of the day.

Another blast from the past...Hank in the "eagle's nest" in '07 on the left and two-and-a-half years later on the right.

My boys!!!

A tunnel that goes right through the aquarium...so fun!

Three peas in a pod!

Landry trying her first frosty on the way home.

Hank doing the same!

brotherly (and sisterly) love

One day last week, it was cold and rainy outside, so we let the kids watch The Fox and the Hound. Toward the end of the movie there is a rather intense part when a bear is attacking Copper, the hound, and Todd, the fox, is trying to help protect Copper. Hank has only seen the movie once before, several months ago, but he remembered when the scary bear part was about to come on. He turned to Landry and said, "Landry, a scary bear is about to be on the TV, but you don't have to be scared. I'll protect you." Then, Jeff and I watched in amazement as he completely of his own accord went over to Landry and put his arm around her. PRECIOUS!!!

He also ate a little snack with his "baby bwu-duh Tuck-uh" during part of the movie. Tucker didn't sit still for long, but this pic was too cute to pass up.

And, yes, I am humbling myself enough to show you the piles of laundry to the left of our entertainment center rather than making the attempt to photoshop it out...it's all about being real, right?

love

Well, Valentines Day has come and gone, but not without a fun little project in the Lay household. I got a free subscription to Southern Living magazine, and when the February issue arrived, Hank immediately spotted the cookies on the cover and asked, "Mommy, can we EAT those sometime???" I explained to him that to be able to eat them we would have to first make them...and that is when the seed was planted in my mind. I knew it would be a monumental task..and quite messy, but that's the stuff memories are made of!

So Hank and I took one day to make the cookies while Landry and Tucker napped. The cookies themselves are o.k. on their own, but much yummier with the icing! The next day my friend Michelle came over to help me decorate...I saved a few for Hank and Landry to decorate when they got up from their naps.

I think the favorite part of decorating for both Hank and Landry was eating the sprinkles...by the spoonful. Nothing like a Valentines Day sugar rush. I think my favorite part of the whole ordeal was watching Hank decide who to decorate his cookies for. Upon my recommendation, he decorate the first one for his daddy. Then, he decided to decorate his second one for Landry. Then, as he decorated his third one, he said, "Mommy, I want this one to be for one of my friends. I want this to be for Walker and Miller - and in the morning we can take it to their house!" What a way to melt a mommy's heart! (For those of you who don't know Walker and Miller were some of Hank's best buddies back in Tyler). I explained to him that Walker and Miller lived too far away to deliver it the next morning, but he still decorated one for them. We were going to try to send it with someone to them or mail it to them, but considering the cookies are over a week old and still haven't been delivered, maybe we'll settle with emailing them a picture of the cookie.

And for those of you who are curious, our cookie making and decorating adventure turned out to be a fun and successful experiment. I loved the idea the magazine gave of cutting holes in the cookies before you bake them in order to be able to tie them onto a piece of paper, making them an edible valentine!

If you don't live close enough to have been hand-delivered one of our edible valentines, here is one just for you!