Weeks of Sept. 20, Sept. 27 and Oct. 4, 2015

There's a lot of catching up to do...it has been 3 weeks since the last blog.

Katie is starting to really be able to help in the kitchen.  Audrey is always right behind her wanting to help out too so the kitchen can get quite crowded and messy.

Daddy and his girls making beautiful patterns with pattern blocks before breakfast.

We found a fun kid's yoga video on youtube.  The kids listen to a story and act out the characters while stretching and balancing.  All the kids really enjoyed this activity.

We took the girls on a hike around the lake.

They took their nature scavenger hunt bags and butterfly nets.

They found most of the items on their scavenger hunt list.

They also found fungi!  They were quite excited about this find.

We threw rocks into the water and Daddy taught them how to skip rocks.

We found raccoon prints in the mud by the lake.

The weather is going back and forth so some mornings we get to wear sweatshirts and hoodies and other mornings we're in shorts.

Racing across the yard is a new favorite game.

The big kids had a lot of fun with their math lesson.

Our monarch butterflies came out of their chrysalis!  We got to watch them for awhile before they flew off.

Our yard was covered in caterpillars last week!  We found four different types in one afternoon.
We think this big green one is a luna moth.  We brought him inside and he's made a cocoon.

One of the monarch caterpillars from our garden making a chrysalis.

Picking gourds out of the garden.

Daddy has enjoyed a wonderful vacation and we got a lot of work done around the house.  The girls helped him chop down our stump that has been there since the big ice storm in 2007.

We had our 8 year anniversary and visited our park.  It was such fun!  The girls loved walking through the woods.

Our bench where he proposed.

The traditional tree picture with my girls.

We always visit Taco Bueno on our anniversary, just like we did after our wedding.

All of that walking and a belly full of bueno makes one tired girl.

Katie got to start tin whistle practice at CC Monday.  She's practiced a lot this week and is really having fun with it.

 She also got to dissect a crawdad.  I was so excited about this science activity.  We were worried Katie might be grossed out but, she really enjoyed looking at the little crawdad and taking it apart.

While Daddy did some lawn work we took all the kids for a walk down the trail.

 After lunch the little kids napped while the big kids drew pictures of all their nature finds on the trail.

We took a trip to the zoo.  Audrey really wanted to see "baby kitties" which we took to mean the tiger cubs.  She found them on the map and spent a lot of the morning leading us around the zoo to the "baby kitties".

 Of course the best part of the zoo is the train ride!

We went to the lake again and scouted out the campgrounds.  We found a nice campground with a playground and walking trails.

It was chilly with the wind blowing over the water but it was a lot of fun walking along the bank.

Katie's birthday falls on a week where we don't have CC so she wanted to bring cupcakes to CC tomorrow.  The girls worked hard making chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing and pink sprinkles.

Audrey also took a big step this weekend and is in a big girl bed!