Joshua Noah Turns 5!

Holding up the big #5 with his stack of presents.

This birthday was all about Cars the movie. Some of his presents were Mater Tall Tales Wii(above), Cars 1 the movie, Cars Giant Coloring Books, Cars Leapster Explorer Game, a Crayola Art Set (with crayons, markers, paints, color pencils, glue and scissors), and Cars Duplo Lego Set

Buttons to decorate his crocs from Mommy and daddy

His favorite present Mack from Grandmommy and Grandaddy

Joshuas' Cars Race Track Cake

Happy Birthday to you!

Make a wish!

Licking icing off of the cars.

Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley was not welcomed at first as you can see...
We had the opportunity to host Flat Stanley for our nephew in Ga. last month. Below is an excerpt from Wikipedia to explain.
"The Flat Stanley Project was started in 1995 by Dale Hubert,a third grade schoolteacher in London, Ontario, Canada. It is meant to facilitate letter-writing by schoolchildren to each other as they document where Flat Stanley has gone with them. Dale Hubert received the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence in 2001 for the Flat Stanley
Project. The Project provides an opportunity for students to make connections with students of other member schools who've signed up with the project. Students begin by reading the book and becoming acquainted with the story. Then they make paper "Flat Stanleys" (or pictures of the Stanley Lambchop character) and keep a journal for a few days, documenting the places and
activities in which Flat Stanley is involved. The Flat Stanley and the journal are mailed to other people who are asked to treat the figure as a visiting guest and add to his journal, then return them both after a period of time. "
In the end this was a really neat project and I think I may do it with our kids next year. Are any of you up for hosting Stanley?

Our Home Town

First we took Stanley on a trip to the lake.

Joshua takes Stanley to see the beach on a very windy day

Brenden teaches Stanley to always wear his life jacket

The kids help Stanley visit the Spill Way at Grenada Lake

Tayler and Stanley helped save a Carp by throwing it back into the water. Here are Tayler and Stanley with a billboard and a picture of a Carp.

Stanley Playing at Grenada Lake Park with Joshua

Next we head home for Stanley to meet a few of our friendlier animals during feeding time.

It was hard to get a good picture while Stanley watched the ducks and geese eat. Garlic doesn't like visitors and wanted to taste Stanley a few times.

The chicken all pretty much ignored him.

Meet May and Friend

Upon stopping at a local feed store we found this lone chick. Apparently the post office and store had a miscommunication and this little one was the only one that survived their shipment. She also had poo stuck all in her feathers on her behind and would not had lived if she wasn't cleaned up(this is not uncommon with chickens). I told the clerk and he cleaned her up and we brought her home, I felt sorry for her. She was to young to be alone and not old enough to be with the big girls quite yet so Alexander kept her company. I would go in and often find her perching on his back and them both snoozing away.

She would slide off and then cuddle beside him falling right back asleep.
Her name is May Flyer. She is doing great and out with the big girls now, thanks to lots of care and attention from Tayler and Xander as we often call him.

Roller Blades

We recently had a new store open in a nearby town called Dirt Cheap. I have heard of the good deals friends have gotten there for years but had never had the chance to visit one nearby. Josh, the kids, and I love to go. It is almost like yard sale shopping but better. On one of our visits we found these roller blades for Bren and I, they were only about $4 per pair. Tayler has had her skates for a few years and with lots of practice on the porch she puts us to shame! They are really lots of fun. We found Josh a pair as well a few weeks ago. Now we need a pair for Joshua and we will be set.

Rascal

Meet Rascal the duck. Here he is with his mom Ginger the goose.

Yes you read right his mom is this goose ;0. Ginger decided to go in bird terms broody. She was laying eggs and we were taking them. So to make up for it she collected all the chicken and duck eggs. I thought it would be a good experience for the kids and neat to hatch one of our own so, we marked a few eggs with the dates and took the rest. We let her have a few duck and chicken eggs. For future reference a goose sitting on chicken eggs is not a good idea. They stay way to hot and then in the end can end up exploding. Yes we learned the hard way. Pew Wee! Boy was it a ton of work trying to take care of her and make the others leave her alone. In the end it was a learning process, though not one we will do again soon!

First Swim.

She would nudge him behind her teaching him to follow her. It was really neat! Gives knew meaning to having all your ducks in a row.

In Brenden's hands just hours old.

Camping Tree House Style

Tayler roasting a marsh mellow over charcoal.

Sitting on the stairs eating hamburgers and chips.
Joshua being his goofy self.

The boys tested the bed out for us.

Our protective roommates, policing the grounds before bed.

Joshua was the official flashlight tester.

As you can tell the kids talked me into sleeping in the tree house for the night. It really was a lot of fun! We grilled hamburgers over charcoal, lit candles and read a few books before settling in. The tree house lit up with candles under a tin rood reading stories happened to be my favorite part! Surprisingly we all fell right to sleep, though Joshua ended up in a sleeping bag beside the bed. It still worked out well until Shadowfox our indoor/outdoor cat decided to holler around the house wanting inside. Little did he know we weren't there. I tried calling him several times getting him all the way to the tree house and he would tease me running back to the house. I gave up and settled back down just falling back asleep and BOOM. The darn cat knocks the board over covering the door keeping the dogs in(we haven't added doors and windows yet). Lord have mercy you have never seen such a ruckus! Three kids and three dogs woke up scrambling around scared to death. It was quite a sight! Needless to say the cat scared himself as well and left us alone the rest of the night. We lasted until about 6 that morning, we all woke up freezing and ran scampering across the wet grass back to the house. We started a movie, popped some pop corn for breakfast and all just about pasted out. Ok so I really did pass out. Thank goodness Cars is a long movie! ;)

Taylers Caterpillars

Unfortunately we didn't get to see what this one turned into.
It was really neat though, having a vein down its back that moved like a running light. Ha hard to explain...

Tayler has been catching caterpillars and caring for them. She recently had two form cocoons and turn into really neat moths.