Silver Statue

We had a lovely time in Bricktown one Friday last month when Mike was off from work. We went and saw The Lorax (great movie w/ a really great message) then went and ate at the Red Pin. Both were great. Afterward we walked a little around the canal and happened upon this guy...

The kids walked up to him & touched his arm. Isabella was quite surprised to find that he had soft clothes so she started poking his arm. This whole time she is thinking that he is a statue. Jackson tries to take his walking stick. Then we give them some money to stick in his can. And this is what happens...

I thought it was all quite hilarious! :)

Here are some ducks we visited as well. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

My decorated wall for St. Patrick's day!

Fun at Home

We try to do some fun stuff at home, whether it is part of our homeschooling or not (but really, isn't it all?). Isabella would say it doesn't happen enough... I say there are just not enough hours in the day to get everything done and do the fun stuff!

Anyway, here are some of the fun things we've done lately!

Isabella found a book at the library sale that has fun activities for kids. Of course she wanted to do one of the food/sweet related activities first. I was not feeling up to making sugar cookies so I picked the caterpillar cupcakes. It took them about 5 days to eat all the cupcakes but they made it. :)

Another fun thing we've done is watch ants dig tunnels in our ant hill. This was part of our homeschooling week on insects. We purchased the ant hill awhile back and finally got to use it! The ants came in the mail and we followed the instructions for setting up their new (temporary) home (which included sticking them in the fridge for 15 minutes to slow them down so we could transfer them into the hill!). Isabella was a bit paranoid about them getting out while transferring and coming to bite her but I did my best to exude confidence (and not be afraid myself!). All was successful. I taped the lid closed (which was a bit over cautious but I had visions of Jackson knocking it off the counter & large ants crawling around the house). They quickly started to dig tunnel after tunnel and it was really exciting to watch. We fed them every few days (a carrot the first time which they didn't seem to like very well and apple the next time which they loved) and watched them eat and carry the food around in the tunnels. After a little over a week I decided it was time for them to be free. I didn't want to be the cause of their death in this fake ant hill and that is precisely what would have happened if we would have kept them much longer (I think the company said 20 days??). So the pictures below are on release day. Isabella was a bit grumpy for some reason (although she wasn't bothered by letting them go). I tried to get her to do a video to tell about her ants but that didn't go so well.

On another day I decided we'd have a green food day. Jackson is totally into green and wants to turn green like the incredible hulk. Now if only that didn't include horrible anger outbursts, we'd be doing good! Anyway, I made green avocado hummus (with some power greens blended in) and green smoothies (again w/ the power greens). Jackson loved it and ate it all up. This is one way to get him to eat spinach & such willingly w/o any hassle. We checked his belly periodically throughout lunch to see it's progress on turning green. ;o)

And lastly, this isn't really fun for the kids but rather for me. :) Here is my valentine's decorations in February! 

Baby Lilly is here!

My sister Jennifer and her family welcomed Lillian Dawn on February 21st @ 554am. She weighed 7lbs 12 oz and was 20.5".

We headed up to the hospital to see her that night after dinner and had a nice visit. She is a cutie and we all enjoyed getting to hold her. Jackson was a bit disappointed that the hospital wasn't quite what he had hoped (he was excited to go at first) but he was overall patient for the visit. ;o) We are happy that Lilly is here and that she is healthy! While walking along the halls of the hospital I had memories of having Isabella flood back to me. She was born in that very same hospital. Some days it seems like ages ago and others it seems like it was not too long ago at all. Time is a funny thing!

Isabella is into making silly faces for pictures these day. Please enjoy them while they last. :)

Baby Cait is in these pictures too! (Can we still call her baby Cait even though she is a big sister now??)

And then when I scold her about her silly faces and she actually gives me a regular one, baby Lilly turns away. Such is life!

Wichita Mountains Hike

We decided to take the quick trip over to the Wichita Mountains (near Lawton) for a little hike to try to break in our hiking shoes and also for fun. The day was mild, a bit overcast but the perfect temp for hiking. We got down there about lunch time so we had to stop by Meers and eat a yummy hamburger. I haven't been there in quite awhile, probably before I stopped paying for/eating non-humanely raised meats. So it was a pleasant surprise to find out that they raise their own long horns and that they are grass fed! Mike of course said that he knew this already but he didn't bother to say anything to me about it! Anyway, it was delicious.

After a full meal (complete with peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream) we headed off to the trails. Along the way we saw lots of buffalo and long horns. We stopped before the main trail to hike up to a "cave" which is actually a crevice in the side of the mountain (hill?) that you can climb up into. The kids thought it was fun. (These are the pictures where it is dark in the collage below.)

After the cave we headed over to the real trail & walked back to a little waterfall. The kids tried to lag a bit from time to time and I had to "chase" them to get them to keep up the pace. :) But overall they did really well. Isabella climbed up the side of the mountain quite a ways near the waterfall (pictured up above in the bottom right hand corner) and was pretty proud. After we made it back to the car we headed out (it would be getting dark pretty soon) but stopped by to see the prairie dogs before leaving the park (pictured in the top middle and below in bottom right hand side (Jackson on the fence).

We had lots of fun and we were glad we made the trip. We were all a bit tired and the kids slept wonderfully that night (no naps for Jackson on this day!).