Museum of Natural History

OK - OK - I haven't blogged in *forever.* So I thought I'd write something quick so I can at least have something on record for November. However, I don't want to miss anything - so I'm posting from the middle of October when we had a friend staying with us for the weekend.

Curtis Shull came to our house on a Friday night and went home on Sunday night. We had a busy and fun weekend! On Sunday, we decided to go to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

They have an exhibit where you can be like a paleontologist. They have "bones" buried in "rocks." I don't know what the hard substance is - something like rubber or rock. They gave them each a chisel, brush and they had to wear the safety goggles.
Pryor wasn't too sure about the safety goggles - but since Curtis and Grady were wearing them - he decided he would too!
We stayed at this exhibit for a while. Sometimes they would all work together on the same site and other times they went off on their own. After they "dug up" these bones, we looked at the dinosaur bones and then decided we'd had enough of bones! It was a quiet ride home - we were all exhausted!

All About Alice

I have been remiss in posting! Our fall has been a bit hectic!

We signed up Alice to participate in a cheer leading clinic. It was a one night affair, and afterwards parents were invited to see what the girls had learned.

This first movie is from that evening. The "clinic" was a fund raiser for the high school cheerleaders who taught the girls the cheers. I finally got Alice in a position where I could film her, and one of the high school girls stood right in the way! Oh well! I think you can see Alice in the second row just to our right of the cheerleader in the center of the shot.


Just to break it up a bit, chronologically what happened next was at gymnastics class. Alice is really enjoying taking this class with twin girlfriends from school. I think this picture was from the second class. She climbed higher on the rope than I ever did in school! I think she has subsequently gone even higher!


The second part of the cheer leading clinic was to be able to "cheer" at a JV High school football game. The Saturday morning of the game it was rainy and miserable! You could tell who the die-hard girls were - just the fact that we were even *at* the game!



Alice was a bit overwhelmed at the whole affair. The high school girls gave each girl a pom pom to use - and I think that was the best part for Alice! I think next year we will definitely do this again!

Pryor Potty Posting

Well, I think Stephen and I are entering a new phase of our lives...Pryor has gone one whole week without potty accidents! He got the red gun above after one whole day of staying clean. Today, he got the blue gun (same idea, different color) for staying clean for one whole week!!

I questioned whether it would ever happen because he has been SO stubborn about going potty. However, he has almost completely figured it out. Whoo hoooo!! Now this is a cause for celebration!

Alice can ride a bike!

Alice wanted me to take a video of her riding her bike. She was so excited to *finally* get it down.

I don't know which is more cute - her riding her bike, or Pryor talking in the back ground! We did three "takes" before she was satisfied. Pryor (and Grady) kept talking!

Well, this first shot was supposed to be erased and you can see why at the end! Pryor was talking about the digger in the next door neighbor's yard - you can hear the noise. He's saying we can't go over there because the digger was there.

In the second video, you can hear Grady next to me (trying to be quiet - HA HA) and Pryor chatting again. I told Alice we could video one more time!


Fortunately, this video met with her approval. I was supposed to erase the first two videos but I just couldn't! Too funny! Hope you all enjoy!

New Teachers

We had Open House this last week and got to meet Grady's and Alice's teachers.
Mrs. Jockel has been teaching for many years and is a former Marine. She had the children do a sound off as they lined up for the door. If I had realized what they were going to do - I would have videoed it! It was pretty cute!
Mrs. Rich has been a great teacher for Alice so far. She works closely with the other first grade teacher (whom Grady had last year) so she is having a similar experience to Grady. He is *always* pointing out that he has already studied/learned/seen whatever Alice talks about first grade. Ah, siblings!
They had a book fair at the open house and you would have thought it was Christmas! The children were so excited about going to the book fair. In fact, Alice was in such expectation that she couldn't sleep the night before and was up at 6:45 AM that morning. I felt like telling them that we could get books at the book store any time they wanted - but didn't want to ruin their fun.

Breaking news!

Well, I never thought the day would come but: Pryor spent the whole day today in the SAME big boy underpants! Whoo hoooo!!

We have started and stopped his potty training several times. Even a week ago, he wore underpants all day on Saturday, but Sunday I woke up sick and didn't have the energy to trick him into using the potty.

Well, on Tuesday a friend came over and I suggested to Pryor that he wear big boy pants since Kent was coming over. It was a huge struggle, with lots of changing underpants (and several being thrown away dirty) but we finally had the milestone today!!

He got his "gun" - a noise-making, light-up gun that he has been eye-ing on the kitchen counter for a month! Once he kept clean all day he got one. Now, when he stays clean for a whole week he'll get the other one. I think it will be a while before he gets that!

Westmoreland County Fair

We went to the Westmoreland County fair and had a fabulous time! There was a huge field filled with all sorts of tractors and equipment. The children had a field day!
Alice was just as anxious as the boys to sit in the seats. Unfortunately, the horns still worked. So it would get *very* noisy if a child figured out how to blow the horn!
Pryor thought he had died and gone to heaven! We had to peal him away from this area to go explore the rest of the fair. We came back to the tractors at the end, and literally had to carry him to the car. He was not happy to leave!
The children's tent had several activities, one of them being "milk a cow." My parents took me to the Illinois state fair when I was young and I remember when milking a cow meant touching a live cow! This "cow" at least had real milk.
Stephen and Grady put together a "treasure box." We thought we'd be there for ever but it only took them about fifteen minutes. Grady was so excited to do this! Especially with his Daddy!
Here is the terrible twosome having at this project. Of course Pryor wanted to "help." We could only "milk the cow" for so long! HA! I love this picture because the way they were sitting really highlights their casts. Of course this was a week and a half ago when they still had the casts on. Ah, those were the good old days! HA HA!