Wild!

This past weekend, I went with the boys to visit my brother and sister-in-law in Houston while Jerry was at school in Indianapolis. I always enjoy vising with Jonathan and Stephanie, and my kids LOVE playing with their cousins. It is great that they live close enough to drive to for the weekend. We went swimming twice, to an indoor maze/play area, and to the Bayou Wildlife Park. That was so cool! It was one of those places where you ride around in a tram with buckets of animal feed and the wild animals come right up, stick their heads in the tram and help themselves to the food! We saw giraffes, all sorts of different exotic breeds of deer, zebras, a zonkey, ostriches, emus, rhinos, all sorts of bulls and cattle from Africa, and one very, very fat pig among other animals. We all had a really good time, despite the above average temperatures in Houston right now!
That baby giraffe is only three 1/2 months old. He is already over 8 feet tall, though!

The ostriches were very bold and would peck at your arm if it was in the way of the food buckets!

Ethan and Ian were a bit more reserved than their older cousins about the whole thing, but still enjoyed it. They were more timid about the animals eating right out of their bucket, too!

I don't remember what this one was called...but it was nice and gentle about the feeding, which the kids appreciated!

In response to the ostriches!

An enormous buffalo!

Andrew's close encounter with a camel...the camels were by far the most bold animals. They practically got in the tram with us! They were going to find the food whether we wanted them to or not!

In wild kid news, both the big boys are going for allergy testing over the next several weeks. They have both been on daily allergy medication since they were one and have moderately severe symptoms. So I am taking them for regular torture sessions while we figure out what they are allergic to.

Here's Aaron showing of his 15 sticks from today which revealed sensitivities to baker's yeast, soy, tomato, and corn. I don't think any of them except for soy are all that strong of reactions, so I don't know if it will mean that he cannot eat these things or not. He still has some foods left to test, then on to inhaled allergens and chemicals. Fun, fun.

Speaking of wild kids, I think Andrew is going to take off all over this house in no time at all. He went from pushing up on his arms, to going up on his hands and knees, to rocking, to spinning around on his bottom, to rolling repeatedly to get to something, to hopping on his hands and knees in just a couple short weeks! Then he decided to become a yoga baby. He does a perfect downward dog pose!

Now That's What I'm Talkin' About!

Have you ever tried The Grocery Game? If you haven't, you probably should. They have databases that match the sale ads for the stores with the coupons that come in the paper and rebates that are currently available and tell you each week what is at its lowest price. If you do this long enough, and stock up on things when they are at their lowest price, you shouldn't have to ever pay more than the lowest possible price for any one item. I signed up for the one month free trial ($1 for the first month) just to see if it would be worth it for me. I am amazed at how much I am saving because of this! I renewed four stores after my trial was over. Now that I am on my fifth week, I am really starting to see the savings. They say it takes 12 weeks to see the full savings, but I just had to share something from today's shopping. Today at CVS, I spent $5.79 even though my total before promotions and coupons and such was $68.55! You read it right! I saved $62.76. You are probably wondering what I got for my $5.79. Well, even if you weren't, I am going to tell you:

• 4 tubes of Crest Multi-Care Whitening toothpaste
• 4 Oral B toothbrushes
• 2 Colgate Advance tubes of toothpaste
• 1 infants advil
• 2 CoverGirl Tru-Blend foundations
• 2 boxes of Post Grape Nuts Trail Mix cereal

I got all that for $5.79. Not too shabby! And, not only did I get all that for $5.79, I left the store with coupons for $23.28 off my next shopping trip. To be used just like cash. So when I go next week, the first $23.28 of my order will be free. On the house.

Like I said, that's what I'm talkin' about!

It's the little things, really.

Every time I am at the grocery store, I check the "Reduced For Quick Sale" meat bin, because you never know. Look what I found today:

I just love the Hormel pre-marinated pork tenderloin, but I almost never buy it because they're $10 each! And the ones I like the most (the teryaki flavor) are always smaller, but still cost the same. Well, today I got 7 of them. That's right, 7. Because the "use or freeze by" date was today, they had them marked down to $1 each! I couldn't believe it! I bought every single one they had left! Guess what we're having for dinner tonight?

Even with that wonderful find, I learned today something Jerry has been telling me for a couple months now - I need a new method for grocery shopping! Because I shop the sale ads at three different stores and match the sales to coupons and stock up, I go to at least three stores every week, and often it is four or five. When I am by myself, I can get this done in a couple hours tops since I am only buying the things on sale at all but one store, then the last store I buy the sale items plus anything I need for the week. This saves me more money than I could ever have believed before I started shopping this way, so I am willing to continue to go to multiple stores. The problem is that children have way too much energy and not enough patience for this method, especially when it is 93 degrees out at 9:30 AM. I have to start going when I can go by myself. After today, this is a must.

Branson

So I have been gone for a while - literally! Our family took our summer vacation this last week to Branson, Missouri. Jerry's parents chose the location and then we all (2 of his sisters with their families and us) met them there. It's funny, we wouldn't have chosen the location ourselves, but we really liked it. We would even go back again! We stayed at this resort. The resort is the reason that we had so much fun. We think that we could go back with the boys and not even leave the resort other than one or two times to go into town. There was fishing, swimming, a lake, paddle boats, a playground - plus other things the kids weren't really old enough to enjoy yet. Each condo had two bedrooms, a kitchen, laundry, a living area, and a patio. For the four families, we had two condos, and it was quite comfy.


We all went to several attractions together. We went to a Chinese Acrobat show that was fascinating. The things these people can do!! We went to a musical called "Noah" that was really neat. They had live animals and mechanical animals that looked so real, and they stuck to the true account from the Bible. They added some stuff that isn't stated, but it wasn't anything that seemed like it couldn't have been part of the actual story. We also went to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. That was interesting. They do a rodeo type show while you eat your dinner. The only catch is that they don't give you any silverware for your food. They serve soup, Cornish hen, pork loin, potato, corn on the cob, and an apple turnover. To be eaten with your hands. It was a bit messy, but Ethan was totally in his element. He loved having permission for once to eat with his hands. Then as our family of four, we rode a train, took a cave tour, did some outlet shopping, went swimming and fishing, and did a lot of driving! It would normally take about 7 1/2 to 8 hours for us to drive to Branson, but for us (with two young boys and a pregnant lady) it actually took about 9. Yeah, we stopped for a lot of potty breaks!


Here are some pics of our fun:


These were taken inside Talking Rocks Cavern. Ethan thought it was really cool to be in a cave, but Aaron was scared for the first half of our time in there.

The boys also had fun playing with play dough on the patio. Aaron here is modeling his fish that he made out of dough.

Overall, our train ride was a bust - it was boring. But one of the workers let Ethan put on his ha for this cute picture. I think he still looks so babyish here...such cute chubby cheeks!

This is all four of us on one of the dining cars on the train. I hate to say it, but the pink milk and snickers bars we bought the boys were the only redeeming things of the whole ride for them. And all that for over $80! We could have just gotten them the milk and candy at the convenience store on the way to the train and saved a lot of green...

We had fun fishing too. Believe it or not, this was my very first time to go fishing. My parents weren't really the fishing sort...Ethan did not want to hold the pole at all, but he played with the worms the whole time and was as happy as could be. Aaron caught the first fish of the day. It totally freaked him out when the fish first started to pull the line though and he was about to throw the entire pole into the water when I took it from him and brought his fish in! He was disappointed that we threw it back though. He really wanted to take it back to our room and cook it for supper! Notice Ethan holding up half a worm to show. Yes, he tore it in half himself.

As it turns out, we should have had someone take a picture of all four of us with Aaron's fish because after he caught it, the fish swam off and told all of his friends to avoid the worms and we didn't catch anything for the longest time. Even I as bored. Finally Jerry caught the one shown here - yes, there is actually a fish in that photo with us. Look really hard! Did you see it???

Finally, I reached the halfway point of this pregnancy this past weekend. Suddenly, my belly popped too. I am half sick of people telling me I have suddenly "blossomed." Okay, so I know they are trying to come up with a nice way to say that my stomach is suddenly twice as big as it was last week, but I am not a flower. I feel like I have exploded. I guess it is appropriate considering it is almost the fourth of July. My baby thinks he is a firework and needs to explode in size all at once! Well, it was bound to happen...

A Little Bit of Comic Relief

Man, this blog is so serious. Lighten up, will ya?

So, we are in no way, shape or form studying dinosaurs, bones, archeology or paleontology but this has been Ella and Sarah's HUGE project over the last couple of days. I love homeschooling!

It's getting more and more complex now. They are making the tail longer, adding more ribs and really getting into it. You can see the dinosaur skeleton I printed off for them to use as a reference. Ella is free-hand cutting out all the pieces. She has informed me that, "If we get the house, I want to hang it up on the wall IN THE LIVING ROOM and make more and it'll be like a museum." How exciting! They are going to do a dog next.

And then we have the king of the castle and her royal princess...princess, er Sarah. Ella made the crown.

***UPDATED*** Here is their finished product. Notice the ubiquitous amounts of tape and tacks used to tape it together and hang it up.

***UPDATED AGAIN*** Ella just wanted to make sure that everyone knew what to do in that room...

This Is So Not Important

But still, how cool is it that Michelle Duggar is due with her 18th twelve days before I'm due. Her last one is 5 days older than Lily.

Not Your Nature Television

Yesterday we went on a Fabulous Family Adventure. Don't you just love those? We went to the Alafia River State Park and hiked, picnicked and played on their playground, screamed at bugs, bled, threw rocks and sticks and leaves and oohed and aahed at all the wonders of God's great creation.

Having grown up hiking and camping mainly in southwest Colorado and northwest New Mexico the flora and fauna of Florida is so different. I miss the aspen trees and columbines and the smell of pine trees and the rocks you can pick up anywhere and throw in the rivers. It's hard to find rocks in Florida. It's all sand and these teeny little excuses for rocks. Makes gardening easier, but not quite as fun when you're hiking.

One thing that I learned yesterday had something to do with the whole communication issue in regards to Shepherding a Child's Heart. I find myself often being bored or uninterested in what my kids are talking to me about and it's usually because they are retelling me parts of movies they've seen over and over and over again. As I was tucking the kids in last night I stopped and talked to Sarah in depth about her day, asking her what her favorite part was and what her least favorite part was and it was genuinely fun talking to her about our adventures. I am starting to consider the television and it's distractions and divisive qualities as one of the biggest detriments to a good, quality communication relationship with my kids. This is something that God is really convicting me about. I am not convinced that all television time is inherently evil (although I'm willing to discuss the merits of this argument), but I am of the persuasion that our family watches too much T.V.

On a lighter note, someone please tell me what the deal is with this...frog. We thought he was a new frog with his "tadpole" still attached but he's awfully big to be a baby frog, we thought. It's a little creepy.

Fun and Scary (Not both for one thing...)

So for the fun first. Have you seen the serious give away at Rocks In My Dryer? I'll write a haiku for a shot at $1000 any day! Give it a try - but it is today only, so we've got to think quickly!

Now for the scary. What did you think about the link my mom sent us yesterday? Did you watch it? After watching the first one, I didn't really want to watch the second one. It is so disturbing that those classes were real and those things were really taught in an actual school. I wonder if they are still using that training video? Obviously, going to a Christian school and then teaching in a Christian school, I never encountered anything like that. As if I needed another reason to homeschool...