Walking With Dinosaurs

Thanks to Grandma Cathy for getting us all tickets to see Walking With Dinosaurs! It was really cool....a guy narrated the story of the dinosaurs, how they lived, what they ate, etc., and life-sized dinosaurs walked around the stage. We were all a bit scared of how high we were sitting...Eli didn't want Heidi to lean forward in her chair because he thought she was going to fall :). We all had a great time!In this picture above, you can see the narrator guy behind that rock thing. Show's you how big the T-Rex is!

Thanks!

Thanks Grandmother and Grandpa Kinney for the cute Halloween bowl. It will be fun to put candy in!

The pumpkin patch

We went up to a pumpkin patch/apple orchard today with Ben's friend Jeff & his mom, and a bunch of other mom's and kids from Ben's old school. They had a million and one things to do, it was huge. There was a huge 'pillow' thing that was like a giant trampoline on the ground, it was so cool! Ben and Grace liked the corn pool the best though...it was a giant pit of corn you could jump into. Grace was picking corn out of her underwear the whole afternoon :). We also picked some apples, although by that point in the afternoon they were so tired I was just throwing any apple in the bag that looked decent on the tree.

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!