Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Happy 2nd Birthday, Levi!

Levi turned 2 on August 13. He was so excited. All day long he kept saying, "I be 2!" His day started with chocolate chip pancakes and a dinosaur candle.

We moved on to present opening chaos...

then escaped to the basement! Levi got to choose the games and what we played all day long.

For his birthday supper, Levi requested peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Cyle and I decided we needed something with a little more substance so we made brats and corn on the cob. These actually are some of Levi's favorite foods. He ate the entire bratwurst and all of the corn off the cob. No, he didn't miss the pb&j.

Especially because I made him peanut butter and jelly bars!

He loved blowing out the candles. In fact, once he had his cookie, we had to put a dinosaur candle on it and light it. Once it was in front of him, Levi told us, "Sing!"

He wasn't quite sure about the dessert.

But did really enjoy it! Happy birthday, my little two-year-old!

Clarey Asleep


Cyle's been playing around with our camera, using more of the features and different settings. He took these one evening as Clarey slept.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Happy 4th Birthday, Clayton!

Clayton turned 4 years old yesterday. He had a great day. It started with chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Continued with a gift opening frenzy. Then he got to spend the day choosing exactly what games were played. He was really lucky this year because Dad and Nonna were also home all day to celebrate. For his special birthday supper, he requested crab legs. (Actually he asked for lobster, crab legs and crawfish for dessert...)

He changed his mind and asked for apple pie.
Then he decided he wanted to have a pie eating contest. We weren't allowed to use utensils...




Clayton thoroughly enjoyed the contest and was easily the winner. The rest of us just weren't willing to lick our pie off of the table.


It was a great ending to a great birthday!

Welcome, Clarey Gelane!

On August 4th, we were blessed with Clarey Gelane.
She was born at 11:18 a.m. and weighed 8 lbs 3 oz.



Clarey is now one week old. Levi loves to give her kisses. Clayton says she doesn't really look like a girl because her hair isn't long. She sleeps better when the kids are making all kinds of noise than she does when it's quiet. She's content and happy most of the time. Such a sweet girl.



Today we tried to get a picture of all three kids. As you can see, it was total chaos. I did get a few good ones of just Clarey.


Sunday, August 1, 2010

A frog, a crawdad and a HUGE catfish

There is absolutely no denying that I live with three through-and-through boys. This weekend is the perfect example of boys doing what boys do.

While playing in the woods, Clayton caught a little toad named, "Froggy." He's carried it around, tried to feed it a dead fly, "let" it drive his dump truck, and even put it in his swimming pool for a a swim. He also has a play frog that swims around his little pool. So when he put Froggy in and Froggy swam, Clayton exclaimed, "I didn't even have to turn him on because he's real!" Right now Froggy is living in an oatmeal container on our back porch.

This is our fish tank. It is home to Doggy and Dorothy. As of yesterday, it is also home to Clayton the crawdad.


Cyle took the kids for a bike ride. They were gone for a very long time. I couldn't believe they had ridden their bikes that long. Actually, they hadn't. They stopped to play in the creek. And while there, they caught a crawdad. Clayton the boy carried it home in a cup they had also found. Both boys were so excited. They couldn't wait to put it in their fish tank and keep it as a pet. It couldn't fit in the house we had in there, so Cyle and Clayton found a rock house. Clayton the crawdad wasted no time in digging out the rocks and burrowing in. He only comes out to eat. We're feeding him bacon bits. I'm a little nervous about it eating our other fish...Clayton the boy is, too. But not enough to put Clayton the crawdad back in the creek.

Last night Cyle went fishing at a local farm pond. He came home earlier than I expected and I was greeted with him calling in the kitchen door, "Can you get the camera?" He caught this 15lb catfish with his bare hands. See how wet the bottoms of his pant legs are? That's because he went in the water after the line broke and grabbed the fish by the tail.

In this picture you can see his excitement. At least this animal we don't have to feed. We're having him for supper tomorrow night.