My 10th grade soon to be 16 year old

Tyler got his school pics back for this year...doesn't he look OLD???!!!! And handsome? Gosh they grow up fast.

Matt's sculpture guy

Matt's school is having a contest for Month of the Young Adolescent. One of the contest's is to make a sculpture of something. Matt made a guy out of pop cans and bottles, then wrapped in toilet paper. It's really cool!! We've decided he looks like the Muppet, Beaker :).

Is drab cool now?

Tyler and his friends were here hanging out this afternoon, and all 4 of them had on some shade of gray, black and olive green from head to toe. I threatened to buy them all matching red shirts for christmas if they didn't start letting a little color into their wardrobes. They're all nice and well-groomed guys, it's not like they're pierced or grubby or anything....drab just apparently appears to be their choice in fashion.

Grace stayed home from school 'sick' today. HA! I had to use all of my summoning powers to get her out of bed this morning, then she was whimpering that her throat hurt really bad. She did feel a little warm and was acting (literally, I believe) kind of puny, so I let her stay home. Of course, by 8:30 am she was dressed and hopping over to Grandma's house. She is fine and will be going to school tomorrow.

Ben has to make a rocket with Rich for the cub scout rocket launch on Saturday. Lucky for me (yeah, right) Rich is going to take the other boys to the Iowa game Saturday, so I believe I will be sweating my buns off in the sun for 2 hours watching 200 rockets take off. I don't know what Ben's 'thing' in life will be....so far he's not interested in many sports, and cub scouts may not be his cup of tea either. It will be interesting to see what Ben will be like in 10 years....I can especially hope his temper tantrums will be quelled. :)

Matt has really been loving wood shop. He made a marble game, an exploding mousetrap in an box, a cool one-player handheld ping-pong game, and this really neat lamp. The jar is filled with black and gold sand, and he put a stained glass light bulb in it so the shade looks pretty and colorful. Please ignore the messy computer desk in the background!

Those flowers are hanging in there!

My mom is still tending to her flowers, while mine have been ripped out for a month because I was sick of watering them. Her perennials still look so pretty! I know the first is a clematis, but I need to re-ask her what the others are. I'm so not a plant person!

Poor Lucy

Since she is such a little brat at the groomer's and won't let them near her face without drawing blood, I pinned her down and snipped away wildly at her face. I didn't care where the hair landed or how much I cut off, I wanted it short and done quickly. I just have to say, I'm pretty sure "Dog Groomer" is not a job in my future. Notice how her right ear is longer than her left....I think I need to fix that :).

We let Buddy free

Ok, last Buddy post, I promise! When the kids got home from school, we let our friend Buddy go free. And after final judgement, Buddy is a boy after all! You can see the black dot towards the bottom of each wing, that tells us it's a male. We let him go over by Grandma's flowers, and after about 5 minutes of opening and closing his wings, he flew away and up into the tree. We saved our box just in case we find another caterpillar :).

Buddy up in the tree...dang I wish I had my good lens! He's the orange speck in the middle towards the top.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUDDY!!

Buddy the monarch was born today! And he's a she! Male monarch's have distinctive black spots on their wings, and our Buddy does not, so she's a she! This morning when I looked at her, the chrysallis looked really dark and transparent. About an hour later I looked up and she was a butterfly! When the kids get home from school we'll let her free. Sorry for the crummy pics, my good close-up lens is getting fixed, so I had to use the bad lens that won't let me zoom in.

Buddy, day 10

His chrysallis is beginning to turn translucent, which means it's almost time! Hopefully we'll have a beautiful butterfly in a few days!

Happy Fall!

First day of fall, and I had to take a picture of this beautiful tree down the street from us. This tree always turns bright red, and turns color a lot earlier than the other trees. I love it!

S'mores and Camping in the back yard

Ben and Jeff wanted to camp out in the backyard before the weather got too cold, so Rich set up the tent for them today. It's 8:14 pm and they are still out there....we're taking bets as to how long it will take them to come in and sleep upstairs :). Rich also made them a campfire (?...maybe a mini-campfire?) and we had Grandma Cathy and Aunt Linda over for s'mores. The boys did a couple of sparklers too.

UPDATE: They made it to 9:34 pm :).

Happy Halloween!

Ok, so I put up some Halloween decorations today. I know, it's 41 days until Halloween, but I so love fall! Ben and I spent an hour this afternoon stuffing the little ghosts, then we hung them and put up some orange lights. I got Grace's costume today also, she wants to be the Little Mermaid. I got her costume & the red wig, and will probably get the tiara and shoes later. Thanks Grandma Cathy...she gives the kids money every year to get their costumes!

Ben hasn't decided 100% what he wants to be...he thinks a ninja, but the second he spots something else that interests him he changes his mind, so I think we'll wait a few weeks to get his costume. Matt's our candy hander-outer this year, but he's dressing up as Slash, the guitarist from Guns N' Roses. Wouldn't have been my first choice.

Grace's day with Thomas the Train

Sunday Grace's friend Ava invited her to go up to Boone and ride Thomas the Train with her and her family. They had a ball! Ava's parents were too nice, they got her this t-shirt and a toothbrush that plays the Thomas theme song (which we have heard about 2,974 times now). It was a little chilly, but the girls had lots of fun together.
And on a side note, this has been freaking me out all day today. Grace and Barbie were sliding yesterday, and she left her on there. Every time I see it I think someone is out in the back yard.

Buddy's still hanging in there!

Literally! Day 4 of being a chrysallis and he is still looking the same.

Buddy the caterpillar

Ben found a caterpillar crawling on the back patio on Wednesday. We looked it up and found out it was a monarch butterfly caterpillar, so we decided to keep it and make a little house for it (out of a Hy-Vee Spring Salad container :) ). We put sticks and grass and leaves in it, as well as a little sponge soaked in sugar water. This is not the actual caterpillar, I found a pic of it online:

Yesterday, we noticed it hanging upside down from the lid, connected by some silky stuff. After batting on it a few times, then realizing it was probably SUPPOSED to be stuck to the top, we discovered that is the first stage in forming a chrysallis.Again, not my pic:

We put the container in a quiet dark place in my room, and when we looked at it today it had formed a pupa! I finally got it together and took a picture! He's that little peapod looking thing hanging from the lid.

The kids named him Buddy. We'll be keeping you updated with his progress! According to the web, we should have a monarch in 9-14 days, how exciting!!

My little Hawkeyes

Today was Iowa/Iowa State day at school. All the kids (except Tyler, who is home sick) got duded up for it, and Matt took it one notch further :)>.

New shutters

Rich put up the new shutters today. I'm not sure if I like them or not. I thought they'd be darker...they are little more 'berry' than the front & garage doors. I think they'll be ok though.

Any thoughts? Comments?

I couldn't have planned this....

Lucy got ahold of these plastic lips tonight...they had a sucker on the other side of them at one point. So funny!!

Ben, the hard-hitting politico

Ben and 2 girls had to work as a group on a worksheet about the presidential candidates. The last part was a question, "Write one question that you would like to ask the candidates".

Hailee answered: "Do you think you will win?"

Sophia answered: "Do you think lots of people (will) vote for you?"

Ben answered: "Do you want cookies?"

Missing our Eli

When I went to tuck Grace in tonight I noticed she had taped a picture of Eli to her bed. :( We're missing our cousins!

New park equipment!

We walked up to Hawkeye Park tonight to play on the new equipment they just put in. It's really cool! The ground covering is a soft squishy mat-like thing, and the climbing thing is so neat! The slide is weird though, there aren't sides on it, it's just a skinny gray thing....looks a wee bit dangerous to me. The kids had a great time!