Zoo

We went to the Zoo!  Here's a weird bit of trivia, did you know that Hippo's secrete their own sunscreen?

My girls are little lions - ROAR!!!

Skyler thinks all birds are ducks (so she quacks at them all) and all four legged big animals are cows (so she moo's at them).  She does know cats and dogs too, so the lions got meowed at. 

Sometimes the statues are just as much fun as the real thing.

Whole giraffe family. 

Which one is real?

The jaguar shows us his teeth.

The girls were very excited to see the zebras.  Unfortunately, most of my pictures of them the fence is more in focus than the zebra. LOL!

This friendly donkey came over to get a scratch from the girls.

This grizzly bear is balancing an apple on the back of his paw to eat it.  Very cool to watch him eat the apples.

See what I mean about the fence?  I had camera envy today - my little point and shoot can't compare with the giant zoom and wonderful lenses of the more expensive cameras in this setting.

However, I do actually like that the fence is in focus in this picture.

My sister caught this cool shot too.  The male lion was super lazy and wouldn't run for his meat, wouldn't even walk very far for it!

Skyler wasn't interested in the lion and tiger feeding.  Instead she dug in the dirt and tried to make herself look like a tiger - imagine my surprise! LOL

Swans always remind me of the fact that Snuffy always said that if he had a son he wanted to name it Swan!  What???? R U Crazy???  The ugly duckling jokes alone would cause major damage to the psyche!  I love Snuffy but there is no chance in H-E-C-K! LOL

Any boy name suggestions?  We're getting down to the wire and a girls name has been chosen!

Laterg8r

Sniff Sniff

I crack up every time I see these pics of Serenity taking deeeep sniffs of our roses!

She doesn't look like she likes it very much, does she?

Notice the beautiful white rose!  I bought a six pack of them for $1.25 at the local dollar store.  After the fiasco that was the one and only paper rose flower that I made myself, I decided that buying them was a much better idea! LOL

What embelly have you tried making and vowed never to do again?

Laterg8r

PS - Just thought I'd share this picture of Skyler showing me her EYE:

Birthday BBQ

We had a Birthday BBQ for 2 of our girls (one early, one on her 1/2 birthday) and it was so fun!

We had a bit of a balloon mishap, apparently the cheap balloons are cheap for a reason! We put them in the pool to play with but they kept popping like crazy and blowing away with the wind! LOL

This is Serenity begging me to go crazy!

The girls decided to "dress like Buzz" and so they were in green, blue, purple and white. 

Apparently, hug your sister translated into "strangle her!"

Skyler tried to get away from her cake at first "FIRE" but as soon as Snuffy blew out the candles she was all about trying to touch it!  She picked this cake by screaming "Quack, Quack" at the Dairy Queen and pointing at this picture! 

 These pictures are proof that I will never be Martha Stewart - two uncoordinated cakes and neither go with the Toy Story theme! LOL  Their wrapping paper was Tinkerbell too!

Rayna chose Mario for her cake and had no trouble with the fire.  She was blew out the candles before the Happy Birthday song was over! 

 Skyler covered herself in ice cream and required a wardrobe change! 

 Rayna ate her cake like a prisoner - put her arm around to protect her plate and shovelled it in as fast as she could!  

 Skyler decided to open her first present one little strip of wrapping paper at a time!  Serenity ended up opening all the rest of her gifts. 

 How thrilled is she to have her own mini Woody & Buzz!!!  So thrilled that she didn't want to open any more gifts or put them down. 

 Rayna loves that Zurg talks.  Very exciting to finally have one of the bad guys around.

 Rex is so fun - he roars when you squeeze him! 

 Woo Hoo, Toy Story crafts - who knew they even had these!  We are Craftaholics around here! 

Amazingly, the girls didn't get one repeated gift!

What is the best birthday gift you ever got?

Laterg8r

Puppy Training

I love this picture and knew it had to accompany this story about how much Serenity and Rayna love to pretend to be puppies!

Love that BG puppy and Bo Bunny Paper (wish I'd bought more of it)!

How do you indulge the ones you love?

Laterg8r

PS - For those of you who don't know, my computer died on me last week so I haven't been able to visit anyone. Although, through the joy of autopost, my blog has gone on without me! So this week I will try to get a chance to catch up with all of you on my new and improved computer!

PPS - Check out this awesome prize I won from Callista:

Super cool organic makeup and cleaning stuff.  It came with the cutest little polka dot makeup bag too!  I can't wait to use all the creams!  Thanks again Callista!  Go check out her blog HERE!

It's 2 Quiet

First, I want to say a super duper Happy Birthday to my little Sister Sarah!  You rock and I love you!

Second - this LO about the mischief 2 little girls can get into with just a bit of water! (click on pic to make it larger)

I love this Tim Holtz mini film strip stuff!

Did you see how much water is dripping off the bottom of that chair?

Loving doing the pictures from a few years ago - so cute that Skyler now wears the PJ's that Rayna is wearing in these pics!  Where does the time go?

Laterg8r

PS - For those of you who don't know, my computer died on me last week so I haven't been able to visit anyone.  Although, through the joy of autopost, my blog has gone on without me!  So this week I will try to get a chance to catch up with all of you on my new and improved computer!

Serenity @ 3

These are some sweet pics of Serenity on her 3rd Birthday. 

Instead of journalling about her party I wrote about some of the things she likes to do and what she is like at this age. 

For some reason I have a hard time scrapping birthdays so I decided to just get down to it!  I find that I am inspired more by pictures of our everyday lives but birthdays are important too! 

Is there anything that you find hard to scrap?

Laterg8r

PS - I scraplifted this LO from Jana. 

Swimming Lessons

Serenity and Rayna's swimming lessons were a success, they passed!  We weren't sure if they would because they hate getting their faces wet, but what they won't do for us they will do for a perfect stranger LOL!

At first Serenity cried a bit before each lesson but soon she got the idea that I would be there the entire time and the teacher would not try to drown her!

She made the funniest faces when she was doing her back floats, but she still did them.

She also shook her face back and forth in the water whenever she blew bubbles, but she blew them!

We are so proud of her for facing her fears!

Rayna got lucky and no one else showed up for her class so she got private lessons!

She goofed around and giggled through most of her lessons.

When asked what she thought the 'no diving' sign meant, she said, "it means the teacher will catch you if you fall in on your face" LOL!  Very trusting!

When I asked them if they wanted to take swimming lessons again this summer they said, "YES!" Yeah, now I just have to find a good time!

I think learning to swim is an essential life skill, just like driving, so I insist that my kids learn both of these things.  Can you think of any other essential life skills?

Laterg8r

Look Whoo's 2

Still loving owls and decided to incorporate them into this page about Rayna's 2nd Birthday.

Rayna has such a big heart!

Do you do that for your kids?  We don't.  We figured it would get very expensive with 4 birthdays a year.  We are lucky because my mom usually gets the grandkids that are NOT having the birthday a small prezzie too.

Laterg8r

Take time to Smell the Flowers

I love these old pictures of Serenity and Rayna smelling the flowers in our front yard.

I used denim that I cut off the bottom of a pair of pants that I made into shorts to make these lollipop flowers.  I scraplifted this LO from Maggie Holmes in CK and she used scrunched paper and lace to make her flowers.  I am gonna try that!

Have you been taking time to relax and enjoy the summer?

Laterg8r

Backyard Pool

We have a small backyard pool that makes the girls so happy!

Although, as my mom can attest to, it is nearly impossible to get a non-blurry shot of one of them!  Even harder to get all three of them looking your way at once LOL!

See what I mean?

Yes, I let them play with the badminton net in the pool and the paint brush LOL!  I had to draw the line at the chalk though!  They do have fun "painting" the wall and sidewalk with water, especially after they have chalked it.  Very messy but good!

Serenity fell into the pool side ways but even that didn't slow her down!

Whenever we asked Skyler if she wanted to come out of the pool she'd say "NO" and move as far away as possible.  Even when she was chattering with cold!

She sure loved splashing away, guess it is from watching her sisters at their swimming lessons!

ACK, don't drink the water from the bucket!

Rayna hates stopping the fun to have her picture taken lately so I say, "Don't you want mommy to do a page about you?" and then she'll actually stop and let me take a few!

Perfectly good pool behind her but she'd rather make the wagon into her own personal mini pool.

From this picture you'd think Sarah was chucking balls at Serenity's face LOL!  Nope, she just warned her to protect herself and then Serenity wouldn't stop doing it.

Look how she jumps to try to catch the ball!

What a hoot when Nana and Auntie Sarah come to play!

Do you have a fave summer backyard activity?

Laterg8r