FALL!!

Fall is here!!!! It is by far my favorite season! I love the crisp air in the morning, the colors, the smell in the air. I LOVE it!!!

I love taking walks with three of my favorite people:

I love looking at the leaves changing colors:

I love looking at all of the mums that are fall colored:

and bright orange pumpkins!

and I love to make pumpkin muffins!

Happy Fall!!!

Exploration Place

Yesterday was free museum day, so we (and 5,000 other people) decided to head over to Exploration Place. The first thing that Lily did was dress up!

While Lily was doing that, the boys and Jeff stood in line to put themselves in a bubble!

Then Lily and I headed over to the three and under section. She had fun playing house, splashing in the water, and sailing her own ship.

While Lily was there, the boys were playing in the castle.

Riley's favorite part is throwing the dragons down this tube.

Zach likes this big knight.

After that, we ventured off to the Kansas in miniature. The kids like to make the trains run around the town and watch the little kids on the playground and amusement park move around. There is even a drive-in movie theatre with a movie playing.

The boys like to make the airplane fly in this simulation.

Another favorite is making this ball float in the air!

When we were done at Exploration Place, we decided to walk over to the Keeper of the Plains since the kids had never seen it. Actually, Jeff and I haven't seen it up close since they moved it, so it was new to all of us.

I couldn't take a picture of the kids in front of the statue (all I could get was the back) so I had to settle with a picture of the kids in front of downtown Wichita, the Arkansas River, and the back of Exploration Place.

It was an adventurous day!

Tiger Scouts!

Zach had his first Tiger Cub Scout meeting last night! He was SO excited!!!! He wanted to be in scouts so bad last year, but they don't offer scouts for Kindergarten boys at his school. (I don't know if this is a Boy Scout thing or just his school.) So, when they passed out papers to sign up at the end of the year last year, he couldn't wait to show me. We signed him up and he even got to go to a Boy Scout social event in August. Last night was the first meeting for his individual troop though, and he got to wear his brand new uniform. (Complete with patches that Jeff & I sewed on with our limited sewing ability....I think we are going to find some way to iron them on next time.....really, it shouldn't take two adults 2 hours to sew on three numbers and a circle.) Jeff is a volunteer and goes to all of the meetings with him. Zach had a lot of fun last night and even earned his first badge last night!! He will receive it at the Boy Scout meeting for the whole school next month!

Turtles!

I took Lily to another Zoo class today. This time it was to learn about turtles! She was way more into it this time. Last time she stuck to me like glue for most of the class and hardly participated. But this time she was all about learning! First they had little centers where you could color a turtle picture or play with toys while we waited to get started.

After they listened to a turtle story, they broke into groups and talked about turtles. In the first group, they talked about what turtles eat. Here is Lily "feeding" her turtle a sunflower.

After more fun facts, they pretended to be turtles. Lily LOVED this part. They pretended to hide in their "shells", they climbed over "rocks" and climbed through a hollow "log". She had SO much fun doing this!

Then they brought out a REAL turtle!!!

All of the kids got to touch it's shell and one of it's legs. It's name was Shelly. =)

Lily had so much fun at her turtle workshop!!!

Fall Art Projects

Fall is finally starting to creep in, so last week, we started making Fall art projects!


This one I did with just Lily. Since she isn't good with scissors yet (OK, I don't let her use scissors...) I cut out squares of orange, yellow, and red and had her glue them onto a piece of paper with a leaf printed on it.

I tried to have her say the names of the colors while she was gluing, but she thinks everything is blue, so we didn't get very far with that. =)


I also had Riley and Lily do fingerprint leaves on paper with trees printed on them.
Riley did a really good job using his fingers.....Lily decided to make handprint leaves......at least she had fun! =)

Can you tell which one is Ri's & which one is Lily's?

The last project we did is making a scarecrow face. I cut out all of the shapes and the kids glued them onto a small paper plate.

Aren't they cute? (oh, the kids are cute too.)

Those are our Fall projects for now..... now I can't wait for Fall weather!!!!

Zach's First Goal!

Zach made his first goal at his soccer game today!!!! He was a little hesitant his first two games to just get in there and kick the ball, but this time he was very confidant and it showed! When he kicked the ball in the goal, he put one finger up (for #1) and kept saying, "It's my first goal!" He was SO proud of himself. =)

Fun At The Fair!

We went to the Kansas State Fair yesterday. We invited along my sister Amy to go with us, which the kids were super excited about.

The first thing the kids saw that they wanted to do was go down this BIG slide!

FUN!!!

Then the boys saw all of these prizes......and games that you could play to win those prizes....

The first one they played was a bowling one that looked easy, but was really kind of hard.....which I guess is the purpose of all of these games. The boys did not win at this one and they were really disappointed.

Then they saw this dart throwing one:

The guy running the booth promised that everyone would be a winner....which I interpreted as, he was going to try to get us to spend a ton of money letting Zach & Riley have chance after chance. Riley popped a balloon on the first try!!!!

But poor Zach had a hard time and got really discouraged when his darts were gone and he hadn't hit a balloon. That's when the VERY NICE man let Zach use more and more darts (for free!!) and showed him how to hold the dart until Zach popped one!!!!


So, each of the boys was a winner! They each chose swords (of course...such boys!) and they were very happy (as was I).

Then we found the slushies that my sister Mary had told us about. They had 12 different flavors and you could make your own flavor combo!!

I can just see Zach thinking of the possibilities! =)

Don't these look colorful and yummy?!?!

Then we headed off to the rides! Amy took the boys on the Tilt-A-Whirl.

They LOVED it! I also took Lily.....but she did NOT love it. =) Poor Lily.

Here are the kids dragging Amy off.....I don't think they like her..... =)

Amy took the boys on this water ride.

The boys loved it.....I think Amy did too, but this picture makes me think she didn't think she would get as wet as she did....

.....or maybe it was that she knew she was going to go up again....only on a bigger hill this time. =)

Then the boys went on the little roller coaster!

We took a break from the rides to see the Pig Races.

Our section was cheering for the pig in the red.....

but he lost each time........

until the last race where they had this fat piggy running in the race. He actually trotted more than ran, and he was really cute.

Then we took a food break. I had heard of a fried candy bar, but had never tasted one, so we bought one to try.

It was good! Zach wouldn't try it and Riley only wanted one bite, so they got ice cream. Lily & I loved it though.

We decided to see the animals next. First we saw the chickens, roosters, and ducks.

Then we moved on to the bunnies!!!

Aren't they cute?!?!


Then the boys got to ride a camel!!!

We asked Lily if she wanted to ride too, but she did not want to.

The boys had a lot of fun!

The petting zoo was next.

After looking at cows and sheep, the boys had had enough of that part of the fair, so we headed back to the rides. Lily loved the Ferris Wheel and both boys liked the rides that they had to walk through and go down a slide to get out of.

After being at the fair for 4 hours (Seriously?!?!) we headed to Yoder to eat dinner at Carriage Crossing. It was YUMMY!!

We didn't get home until after 9:30. It had been a long day at the fair, but definitely a fun day!