Eyes Photo -- I Heart Faces

I love the I Heart Faces photography blog, and they sometimes have contests for photographers, both novice and otherwise. There's a new contest called Eyes... so here's my sweet A1 one day out at the farm during harvest...

Click the button below to see some more contest entries!

He's Here!

ten little fingers

 ten tiny toes

cute as a button little scrunched-up nose

at 7lbs, 9 oz and 20.5 inches,

our precious Seth is finally here!

Motherhood Photo Contest Entry

I just found the site I Heart Faces on their Facebook page, and I'm excited about their tutorials!  I couldn't resist this week's competition theme of Motherhood though!  Credit to my sneaky husband Scott for snapping the pic of me and newborn S2 w/ my camera!

Click the button below to see some more contest entries!

Cousins Corner

My cousin and [3/5 of] his kids came into town for some fun this summer!  It was fun to let Caleb and J (who are about 6 mo apart) hang out.  L and E are super sweet and helpful too!

 Anna and E

 Caleb, Pawpaw, and J

E, Mimi, Abby, Anna, and Me

L, my cousin Q, and "Uncle B"

New [school] Year!

Can it be that time is accelerating faster than it should?


How is it that we have

a second grader

and a Pre-Kindergartener?

A 4th reason to catch up:

Yes, it's true!  We discovered on July 4th weekend (very early on) that we are expecting our 4th little bundle of joy!  While we have always thought 4 was a great number, the Lord's timing was a tiny bit sooner than we expected.  We couldn't be more excited!  Abby will be just past 18 months when little peanut is born in early March. 


After filling in family and some friends, we announced our pregnancy to the rest of our friends via Facebook using a puzzle sequence of my profile pictures: 

First:

Then:

and finally, 

Fun, huh?

Children of the ...errr... Grain Sorghum

Farm Girl

green machines, boots and jeans

I love the opportunity to be part of harvest time each summer.  After last year's complete drought (NO crops due to no rain), we had rested soil and some great rains.  Couldn't pass up the opportunity to take some pics of the amazing grain crops! 

Great yield + waiting on semi trucks = having full combines that often dump into the same cart

Pawpaw!

In an average year, the grain usually grows as tall as waist/almost chest level to an adult.

silly girl

Can you reach as high as the tops?

This is an eye level pic by me... and I'm 5'8"!

Check my next posts for some closeups of C & A1!

Tickling the Ivories in the Spring

I love Mrs. Karen, Caleb's teacher! I also love that while she encourages her students to participate in semiannual recitals, she holds them in a local nursing home/retirement village so that it's also an encouraging ministry to the residents. Caleb did well again this year, and he's learning to function well under pressure. Though he initially balked, Caleb decided to surprise Aunt Licia and Uncle Travis (who were visiting) by introducing himself and his songs all by himself for the first time!

Mensiversary

Old McAbby had a month, e.i.g.h.t...

Sweet baby girl had Mensiversary Oct(if Latin annum is year...anniversary, then Latin mensis for month would be month anniversary, right?)

Over the course of the prior month, Abby Grace had fully mastered rolling (quickly) in either direction and became a sturdy sitter on her own instead of needing constant support. 

She said goodbye to this:


We began to hear some intentional babbles, beginning with a sort of /thuh/ and morphing into /duh/.  There were occasional /nnn/ sounds, and a scant few /muh/s (only when she was crying to be picked up, of course). 

Abby would turn immediately to find a family member when named by one of us:  Daddy, Caleb, Anna, Mama.

Baby cereal with fruit was becoming a hit, and stage 1 foods were all the rage... except when she didn't feel like it, and there was no chance that even prying her jaws open gently with a spoon would work. We had no progress with introducing a cup, yet she'd take water from a an elevated straw if I let it drip into her mouth. (me holding it with a finger over the upper end)

Then with two days left to go in the month, as though some inner deadline just had to be met, sweet Abigail Grace clapped, waved, army-creeped, and wore her first real hair bow in the span of those two days.  What an overachiever! :)

Houston Children's Museum

After our visit to the Houston Zoo, we ate dinner at the Galleria and scored a sweet deal on a hotel room ($50 for a $260 suite).  The next morning, we grabbed some breakfast at Einstein Bros. Bagels and headed to the Houston Children's Museum.

This was by far the highlight of the trip!   I hope you don't mind a plethora of pictures, because there's just no better way to share the wonder and excitement that is the Children's Museum...

The first exhibit we visited is a cultural one called Dragons and Fairies.  This highlights the culture and traditions of Viet Nam.  I was pleasantly surprised about the uniqueness and quality of the hands-on displays!  Here's a little of what we discovered:

We got to practice carrying goods on a shoulder pole with baskets on each end, then got to practice transferring traditional Vietnamese cuisine (plastic, for those who are squeamish about shrimp) from bowl to bowl using chopsticks.

We practiced "riding" a motorized scooter and got to try children's theater masks.

Caleb tried one of the common trades of Vietnamese men:  fishing

Anna played some music on drums, gongs, and a bamboo xylophone.

After the Viet Nam exhibit, we proceeded to the building/architecture/design exhibit Building Brainstorm.  We all used blueprints and pvc pipe to build a building.

Then we used computers to design room layouts and created fantastic buildings with stylized architectural structure blocks.


The next sections were Matter Factory and How Does it Work? We explored magnetism, gravity, viscosity, earthquakes, pulleys, elasticity, communication, and more!


Within that section was the Science Station. This day's hands-on activity was fingerprinting. We learned the difference between patent and latent fingerprints. Do you know the difference?

The kids left their prints, dusted for them, and picked them up on scotch tape.

In the Building Zone, we took hands-on-creating to a whole nuvva levvo both literally (a second floor balcony) and symbolically.  There were quite a few activites, including an earthquake and windstorm table for testing buildings:


...and the biggest flat lincoln logs you've probably ever seen.


At this point, we broke for lunch in the cafe, where Abby downed a bowl of her own rice cereal, and we chowed down on sandwiches and hot dogs.  Yum!  Then we checked out the puppet stage.  Alas, poor Yorick...

just kidding


We headed to the basement for the Invention Convention (at which we could have spent a day here on its own)  We created Lego cars to try on the test track, flying vehicles for the air tunnels, Paper planes and rockets for the launchers, and so much more!

The teacher in me got even more excited as we traveled to Kidtropolis!  This is like a million social studies lessons rolled into one kid-sized yet ginormous experience.


We started with personal "ATM" cards in hand, and went to the City Hall, where we got to answer questions using a massive "coin-sorter" thing that helped us figure out each person's career strengths and interests.  (Kinda like a visual/physical ASVAB test)  Then, we tried out several types of jobs:  Paramedic, Police officer, Grocery Checker, Restaurant manager/worker/chef, Pet store owner, Banker, Bike Repairman, and others.  At each of the stores/buildings, there was the option to work there and receive a paycheck (to be deposited and loaded onto your ATM card) or to be a customer/consumer (and spend hard-earned money from your ATM card).  It was awesome teaching the kids concretely about how we get money and whether or not to spend it.

Shopping at a pint-sized HEB grocery


Cooking some pretend meals in the Kidtropolis cafe.


We left Kidtropolis to check out FlowWorks... an outdoor adventure in how water can be used and studied.
Caleb at the wave tank


We moseyed back into the A/C and stopped at the Think Tank, where we tackled brain benders, optical illusions, and all sorts of other thought provoking puzzles.


We finished out our experience relaxing in the library/resource room, which doubles as a branch of the Houston Public Library.

This was such a great trip! Abby spent a little time upstairs at the TotSpot, which is perfect for little guys and gals. She'll enjoy it even more if we go again as she gets mobile.

The McDonaldSpot highly recommends taking your little Treasures to the Houston Children's Museum!