Art Gallery

Ok, so this will be my last post for the night. I guess I've kinda been saving them up.

Saturday morning was a slow one for us, the kids disappeared upstairs and this is what I found.

They had created their own art and had taped it up on the wall by the stairs. Creating their own Art Gallery. They took me on a tour and informed me that they were closed on Mondays. I love these two kids, they are always coming up

with something that blows me away.

Kade

Kade is getting so brave! I think he'll be walking around by the end of the week. Here is an update of his progress. As you can tell we are all pretty excited for him!

Here is another one of Kade that I love. Just something to make you smile!

Brynlee

Lately Bryn has been cracking me up. Out of the middle of no where she will say, "Old MacDonald, that reminds me of a song..." then she'll break out in a song that she makes up as she goes. Here is a sample of her up and coming album. Enjoy!

(You'll have to pause the music at the right.)

Brynlee

So I am about a week late...but here we go. Bryn started preschool this past week and is completely in love with it. I went in to drop her off and as soon as she had her back pack put away she leaned in to me and said "Ok Mom, I want you to go now." Uhhh, I wasn't quite sure how to react. I convinced her I needed a picture first then we'd head out. She must have had a pretty good time too because when I went to pick her up she didn't want to come home! I literlly had to pick her up and carry her to the car while she was kicking and screaming. I am trying not to take this personally because she was also upset that she didn't have enough to bring home in her back pack. (I'll fill you in on a little quirk my little girl has... she loves to fill any bag and every bag she has with anything and everything she can find. If there isn't something in every pocket the bag isn't full enough. Just to get her ready for school I had to empty out her school back pack 2 or 3 times.)

So she is completely loving preschool and I am enjoying my time alone with Kade, but I'm not quite sure I want my little girl and big boy to keep growing!

Wendy

About 3 weeks ago Bryn and I found a caterpillar crawling around on the carrot leaves in the garden. I had recently watched an episode of “John and Kate plus Eight” where they caught caterpillars and watched them change into butterflies, and I did the same thing as a little girl. So, we caught this caterpillar and Bryn lovingly name it Wendy. We have had a great time watching it grow and grow and grow. Watching Wendy eat it is no wonder how a plant can be devoured in such a short time.

After about a week Wendy climbed up to the top of the jar and attached herself to a stick (I really don’t know if it is a Wendy or a Wendell, but we refer to it as a ‘her’ because Bryn would be devastated otherwise.) It seemed to take a couple days for this part of the process to complete, but we woke up one morning and Wendy was completely in a cocoon. For the next couple days we watched Wendy and noticed that it wasn’t a quiet process that was going on inside that cocoon. There was definite movement and ‘twitching’ going on. I was completely enthralled. The ‘twitching’ only happened for a day or so, then all was still.

Now it is about 2 weeks after Wendy went into a cocoon and this morning we woke up to a wonderful surprise. Wendy had come out of her cocoon and we had a beautiful butterfly. The kids and I were a little excited and maybe a little anxious because we weren’t sure what to do with her next. We took her out back and opened up the jar so she would be able to ‘be free’. Only I think we were a little premature in our actions. Wendy wasn’t quite ready to fly away. We watched her walk around on the patio for a few minutes, and we were able to get a few great shots of her spreading and drying her wings. She was quite beautiful. But it was obvious the patio was not where she wanted to be. So we got her popsicle stick and helped her into a bowl and carried her to the flowers out front. It didn’t take long to see that this was where she wanted to be. The kids and I just sat and watched. It was simply amazing.

Our tummies finally reminded us that we hadn’t eaten breakfast so we went inside and gave Wendy some privacy. A few hours later Tanner and I went out front to check on her. She had climbed to the top of the flowers and had her wings completely spread out. I had a chance to take one more picture then she was off. It caught us a bit by surprise, but it didn’t take her long to disappear.

Bryn was disappointed that she wasn’t able to see Wendy fly away, but came to peace with it when she remembered that Wendy was flying off to find her family. See the dark spot in the top right hand corner? That's our Wendy! Fly Wendy Fly!

And He's Off...

Well, kind of.

Can you believe it? This one is growing up a little too quickly for me.

p.s. an new obsession: Mario Kart Wii- anyone want to challenge?

Summer is Officially Over

Yesterday while I was getting my hair done I got a little teary eyed thinking about Tanner starting school again. So much so that I thought I'd go find him and just give him a big hug. I found him watching some cartoons, then I noticed that he had pudding all over his face...typical Tanner. Then I noticed he had pudding smeared all over his church pants! Huh, maybe it is a time for a little time apart. We love our Tan and we are sad to see him go back to school, but I think we will survive. He is a big 1st grader now and when we (tried) to walk him in to his class this morning, we were hardly able to keep up. He has grown up so much since beginning Kindergarten- it is exciting to see what this next year holds for him.

First day of Kindergarten

First day of 1st grade

And one more side note. A miracle happened at the Bench house this morning. All kids (and mom) were up, dressed, fed and out the door by 7:30. I never thought this would happen.