Jellyfish

Livie had her first homework project of the year. She had to make a sea creature, either real or imaginary, for her school Open House on Monday. It's titled "Under the Sea". I remember Madie doing it, but I think Noah did a farm theme. Sadly, I can't remember!


Anyway, after much discussion, she decided she wanted to make an octopus. She started to draw it and I realized this "octopus" was like the meanest, nastiest octopus ever! Giant, razor-sharp, navy blue teeth. Mean, menacing eyebrows. This was going to try and eat all the other children's projects. I just knew it.

Well, as she kept working on it, it started to morph. Yes, it still had the menacing eyebrows. Yes, it still had ever-expanding, t-rex sized molars, but, it also had a big clown nose and rainbow colors to make it look just a little cute. It was also decided at some point in the project that the legs for the octopus would look cooler as jellyfish tentacles (or whatever those things are called), so the crazy, killer octopus turned into a slightly less scary, but still ready-to-eat-ya jellyfish! We'll have to see on Monday if the other sea creatures that get hung up that night have any bite marks taken out of them!

ALPACAS!

Another thing I found on the local events site was a thing about Nat'l Alpaca Days. When I mentioned this to Livie, she was like "I WANT TO GO!" This was at the end of August, so she's been waiting a long time to go. On the way there today though, she looks at me and says, "Mommy? What IS an alpaca?" hahaha I laughed so hard! After all these weeks of being beyond excited about seeing the alpaca farm, she still had no idea what they were! Well, she knows now and she had a really fun time, as did everyone else.



We went there expecting to see a big alpaca operation, but it wasn't like that at all. It was just a little farm with a dozen or so alpacas. We were the only ones when we arrived, so we weren't sure if we were in the right place, but we found out we were, so we unloaded and went to meet these sweet creatures. :-) There was a gentleman there who told us all about alpacas. They were very skittish at first. Who wouldn't be with 3 kids coming in to see them, so they ran around a bit, but they all finally settled towards the back of the pen and they brought one up for us to touch. Her name was Rusty and she was very sweet and sooo soft!

The kids liked her a lot!

Both Noah and Livie gave her a kiss on her nose. It was adorable. Don't know if the alpaca enjoyed it as much as the kids did though.

See how the rest of the girls just kind of hung out towards the back? It wasn't a large pen, so they weren't too far away, but they all huddled together.

Noah just loved Rusty and just wanted to hang out with him and pet him. :-)

Once they brought the food out though, the alpacas all came to us and ate right out of their hands.

They swarmed around the kids and the kids thought that was the coolest thing ever!

Noah loved feeding them almost as much as Livie did. Madie was a little more hesitant, but Noah and Livie looked like they were made for alpaca farming.

We went and visited one of the male alpacas in another pen. He was the tallest and the only black one there. He just kind of would check them out and then walk around. He wasn't too interested in them unless they had something to eat.

We only stayed for about 30-40 min, because it was such a small farm, but the kids just LOVED meeting the alpacas! I mean, look at those smiles! :-)

Bows

I mentioned in my post below that I bought several bows today at one of the many booths that lined the street. I just can't get over how adorable they are, so I thought I'd take pictures of them and share them here. :-)


This first one we got at one of the first booths we went to and we thought it was adorable. Not to mention perfect for Halloween. It wasn't until Madie said to me, "Hey, those are Bears' colors!", that I realized it was! It has a double purpose! It will be worn every Bears game, I sure. Unless they start losing and then it'll have to be chucked. It's all about luck, you know.

This one, and many of the ones following, we got from a gal named Kim Ruhland (www.kidsruhl.com). Her stuff is so unique and so cute and really, really inexpensive! I have a feeling, she'll be getting a phone call from me soon. :-) Anyway, since I have 2 girls, I thought we should get yet another Bears barrette, so they both can wear one. Thought this was really cute. :-)

This is what I mean by "unique". I mean, how stinkin' cute is that?! This is the one that Livie nearly had a nervous breakdown about. She wanted it SOOOOO badly, that she couldn't see straight. Thankfully she had some money in her piggy bank, so she was able to get it. This charming little number was only $3 - as were pretty much all of the ones we got today. They were all between $2-3. And, how many other little girls will be sporting turkeys on their heads?! ;-)

I picked this one out myself, because I just imagined them wearing it over the summer or in spring. Soooo cute!

Had to get a REAL halloween one! Not a Bears/Halloween combo. So, this pumpkin one fit the bill.

The girls have no St Patty's Day bows, so I got this little one. Think I may need to get a second, so they both can wear them on that day.

She had a christmas tree one made entirely of ribbons, like the ones above, but the girls liked this one the most, because it was shiny. Still adorable!

I included this one, even though we didn't get it today. We got it a couple weeks ago at the dance shop that has several cute bows. Livie, again, just had to have the cow. She has very strong opinions about barettes.

Got this one for Madie at one of the previous sales too. I included this one, because it was also made here locally in town (Can't remember the name of the gal though, sorry) and I just loved it. Very big, very feathery, and perfectly Madie. :-)

Now, Noah was feeling a bit left out of the whole hair bow thing. He wasn't getting anything, while the girls were getting bow after bow after bow. That is, until, he saw a MONKEY bow. Yes, that's right. A bow with monkeys on it. Well, that was it. Just had to have it. He too used his piggy bank monkey and bought this bow. He really wanted to wear it. Thinking it really made him look cool, but agreed after a brief conversation with me about boys not really wearing bows, that he would let his monkey wear it and keep it with his monkey collection. He has agreed to let Livie wear it from time to time, but I have a feeling he's going to be particularly stingy about loaning it out. Anyway, as you can see, our bow purchases were fun and whimsical and oh so adorable! Can't wait to have them wear them!!

Scarecrow Fest

Today was the annual Scarecrow Festival. In all the years we've lived here, this is only the 2nd time we've gone, last year being our first time. And, that first time was completely by accident! We had heard of this festival, but never really felt the need to be a part of it, but last year Livie had dance class when it was going on, so after she got out, we went to it and realized how fun it is!! So, this year, we planned on making it our morning (and afternoon) adventure. Livie had dance class at 9:30, so when it was over, we walked down to enjoy.


Our first stop? The Farmer's Market, of course! The kids picked out a couple gourds. Sadly, I didn't see much in the way of fresh produce. I was really hoping for a few more garden tomatoes before the season ended. They might just have had their fall stuff out, because of the festival, so we'll look next weekend too.

There is a local no-kill animal shelter called "The Pet Project" that had a few dogs to look at. Boy, were they cute!! The kids loved seeing them and saying hi. Hopefully one day we'll take a drive down there and pick up one of their sweet puppies ourselves! I think Olive needs a companion - a doggy companion, that is. ;-)

No visit to downtown would be complete without a visit to the park. The kids love climbing on the old cannons.

They always want to throw coins in the fountain, which they get to do after they sit still for their "fountain picture". That is currently the new header picture above. :-)

The local bookstore had a magic show at 11, so we headed down there and watched for a little while. Madie really liked it a lot. Livie stayed for part of it, but opted to go back into the bookstore with Noah and look at books instead. I've said this before, but getting my kids books is a weakness of mine. I love buying them for myself as well as them, so they've become quite the lovers of bookstores! Hoping that means they will always be good readers. Now, if I could only get Livie to read...

After the magic show, we met up with our friends. We walked with them for a while, but quickly realized that trying to stay together when the kids all want to look and play at different things isn't easy. Add that to all of us recognizing different friends and stopping to chat, well, we only got to stick together for a little while, before we got separated. But, we had a fun time with them while it lasted!! They are posing in front of one of the many scarecrows displayed today.

They wanted me to take a picture of them posing by the courthouse. Why? Not sure, but they sure looked cute!

They had a bean bag toss and got to win prizes.

They had a scratch off leaf that made designs and colors. Lots of fun crafts there today!

The petting zoo was a big hit! The line to get in was really long, so they just stayed outside the fence and petted them through it. Livie's favorite was the chicken, but he didn't like being touched as much as some of the others. The sheep were really sweet and loved getting pet.

We thought this scarecrow was really cute! It's a knight on a horse. :-) Notice none of them are wearing coats. About an hour into it, they decided they didn't want them anymore, so Pete took them back to the van. Well, by the time this picture was taken, it got really cloudy and cold again and they were freezing!

So, we hopped inside Jardines, our favorite Mexican restaurant, and had lunch and warmed up!

It began to rain just as we were leaving. One of the things you'll notice in the last few pictures I took is Livie's bow. We visited a booth of a gal that made the CUTEST bows ever! Livie insisted that she wanted a turkey bow. I tried to talk her out of it, but she wanted it desperately, so she promised that she would pay me with piggy bank money and we bought it. It's adorable, I must say. I bought 7-8 bows today - all for different holidays (and one for the Bears!). They were so inexpensive, so I took her card and plan to get a few more down the road. All-in-all it was a really fun adventure we had at the Scarecrow Fest. Up for tomorrow? Alpacas!

Sock Monkey Treasure Hunt

Today was such a beautiful day. We decided to take a walk and look for interesting treasures. We let sock monkey lead the way!



You can see they were excited to go. :-) I'm going to let the kids narrate the rest of this blog, so they can tell you why sock monkey found these items to be so interesting.

Me: What did sock monkey find here?

Noah: The water thing. It looks like a good thing to take a picture of.

Me: How about this?

Madie: I think they're pretty.

Noah: They're white ...

Olivia: No! They're purple!

Noah: No, they're white.

Olivia: NO!

Noah: Yes! They're white. Oh wait. They're purple.

Me: Ewww. What's that?

Livie: A... what was it?

Me: It's a caterpiller

Livie: A caterpiller.

Madie: It's a dead caterpiller and it could've turned into a cocoon, because it was fat.

Livie: (insert crying, because Madie talked about her caterpiller) I want to erase all of Madie's words. Erase all of it, mommy! (more crying... calming down a bit now) It's cute. I want to keep it.

Noah: Sock monkey by a stop sign (he's singing this phrase over and over)

Me: Let's move on.

Me: Who's this? :-)

Livie: I want to talk about it. I have a purple flower. It's pretty. I'm standing on a rock. I love caterpillers. I love daddy.

Me: Um, what is this?

Noah: This is sock monkey POOPING AN ACORN! hahahahaha Well, the acorn had holes in it. On second thought, he's not pooping it. I was just joking about that. hahaha Sock monkey, we made a new rule that sock monkey should always be by every treasure. I tried to put it by the caterpiller, but she took the pictures too fast. That was really rude of her.

Me: Oh, really? I think it was awesome of me!

Noah: Sock Monkey on a fence.

Me: A still life?

Noah: What are you even talking about, weirdo. What is a still life.

Me: Nevermind. Next!

Noah: Sock monkey by another water pump. Except this one sticks out of the ground and the other one didn't.

Me: What's up with your smile?

Madie: Sorry, I just was eating a cracker. Well, the rock had an interesting shape. And, it looked like it had thumbprints on it. It was very unusual.

Me: Cool!

Me: Livie, where's sock monkey now?

Noah: Hey! That's my line!

Me: OK, bossy! Go ahead.

Noah: OK, this is sock monkey on one of those water hose things. Gotta go, bye! (both Madie and Noah leave at this point to play Wii with Pete)

Me: Livie, what is this?

Livie: I don't want to do this anymore. You blog 'em.

Me: OK. This is sock monkey on a drainage pipe. The kids seemed to find every single water drain in the entire neighborhood and wanted sock monkey to take pictures by them all, but I managed to keep it down to just this one.

Me: After our adventurous journey with sock monkey, we returned to our house, where sock monkey began to feel a bit patriotic and wanted to jump up on the flagpole for our final shot of the day. Hope you've enjoyed our vivid account of our sock monkey treasure hunt today. I tried to give a complete picture of what it's like to blog with 3 kids talking to you about it. You'll notice there's always yelling and crying at some point during our conversation - oh, and name calling too. That's what we call "Bloggin' it Troll style!". ;-)

City-Wide Garage Sales

As many of you know, I LOVE garage sales. I haven't been to many this summer, but today was our annual city-wide garage sale. Couldn't miss that!! Livie had dance class, so I promised her we would bring her back a surprise.


We got this fun Imaginex set with gorillas and a bunch of misc animals. She was very excited. And, this is like a present to me too, because that means she'll be content to play for the whole rest of the day. So yay! A whine-free, crying-free afternoon. :-)

I think garage sales are the best place to find halloween costumes. This beautiful flower girl dress is now going to be Madie's bridal gown for halloween. She's going to wear my veil and wear some sparkley shoes. All for $2!

This whole set of Groovy Girls - which is the back-up plan in case Livie gets tired of her gorilla set - was only $1!

We got a rock tumbler and Noah bought this chair for himself at one of the garage sales. Yes, it's got crayon marks on it and has a little broken piece on the leg, but it's perfect for him. He has been sitting there playing Wii in it and loves it!

And, for me? A cute popcorn set, complete with salt shakers! Sadly, we were rained out before our time was over. But, I only came back with $2, so our time out was rapidly coming to a close anyway. But, it was a fun way to spend our morning. Madie and Noah had a great time and for less than $30, we walked away with some treasures and new clothes and smiles on our faces. :-)