Stingray

Karen watched the kids for me this morning so I could go to my doctor's appointment. It went by quickly and relatively painlessly.

After I picked the kids up and got home, we ate lunch and watched IMAX Deep Sea. It came in from Netflix several days ago, but the kids didn't seem interested in it...until I put it in the DVD player. They loved it! We were all disappointed when it was over. Johnny Depp can speak to me anytime!
I remembered a site Karen sent me when we first started homeschooling. There's a project we've been wanting to try. Check it out HERE. We checked our supplies and needed a few things so off we went to Hobby Lobby.

I know most sting rays are suppose to be grayish, but my kids love being creative! Why buy plain old felt when you can go tie dye, baby?!
Britney hard at work while Cody played with the googly eyes:)

Drawing the nostrils, mouth and gills.

Sewing on the eyes.

Their nostrils and mouths make them look like they have the biggest smile! They look SO happy! I think rays are the coolest things ever!

There are a couple things I will do differently next time we make these. I flat messed up on a few things. We're going to make them again and stuff them. Won't they make the cutest little stuffed animals? :)

End of Summer Movie Marathon

We were sitting around the house yesterday trying to think of something to do as a family. I checked the Drive In to see what was playing. I had forgotten about their End of Summer Movie Marathon! I sent out a very last minute email to our friends to see if anyone would like to join us. Esther and the kids ended up riding with us! I LOVE having so much room in The Beast!

We got to the theaters just after 7:00. We paid our $15 and were able to get a pretty good parking spot. We started setting up and ordered some pizza while the kids kicked the ball around. Then we settled in and got ready for the movies to start.

The movie line up for the night was Cats and Dogs 2, The Other Guys, Despicable Me, and SALT. I had absolutely no interest in watching The Other Guys, although it was funnier than I had anticipated. The big winner of the night in my opinion was SALT. I want to watch it again.


Bobby and Esther figured the math. 8 people for $15 to watch 4 movies works out to less than 50 cents per movie per person! Can't beat that! :)

The last movie ended right at 3:00, and we were at Esther's house by 4:00. We chatted for a few minutes and headed home. We got in bed just after 5:00 this morning.

What a great way to pull and all-nighter!

Happy Gotcha Day

One year ago today, we added Tango to our family. He's double in size since then. It's hard to remember just how small he was.Sometimes I still can't believe we own a snake and that I spent my Christmas money buying him a new house! I'm surprised just how much I like that little guy:) He has a fantastic temperament and he's helped several of our friends get over some of their snake fears. He loves to be held and doesn't freak out if someone's jumpy or loud. He's just awesome.

Happy 1st Gotcha Day Tango!

The Coffee Pot

We're a coffee loving couple! Or should I say family? Britney has started to like a cup of joe now and then. Because of Bobby's work schedule, I wanted a coffee pot with a clock and timer so I could set it for him the night before he goes to work. We finally got such a device and I really enjoyed having it. Oh, and the automatic shut off. There's nothing worse than being two hours away from Panama City Beach when it hits you...Did I turn the coffee pot off?!

We had bought a second coffee pot to leave in the camper. Just a cheapo one with an on/off button. Well, our coffee pot with the nifty timer started going bazurk a couple months ago. No matter how we positioned the pot, coffee would flood the counter top. It was a pain and simply aggravating in the mornings when Bobby was trying to get ready for work. So I threw it away and now we're using the cheapo with the on/off button. I'm sad...

Now I set the coffee up the night before, and Bobby turns the pot on before he gets in the shower. He leaves for work but doesn't turn the pot off, so by the time I get up - which has been around 7:30 lately - that coffee is STRONG! I can barely get a cup down. On the plus side, my caffeine intake has been greatly reduced.

Update - Pumpkins

Cathy's

We went to Cathy's today to hang out, eat and swim...and LAUGH! Did I mention laugh? We had a wonderful time! We truly have the best friends in the world!

They formed "The Ring of Peace" and circled the pool over and over and over...until Karen felt a bit sea sick. After she got out, they Congaed around for a while.

Cody was ready to go!

The first group shot. There were others taken after Heather and Constance got there, but I was in the pool at the time so I don't have one of those. I know one of my very good friends could email it to me...hint hint:)

SPLASH!

Britney stayed and is spending the night with Kaitlin. I know they're having a blast tonight!

Our Third Year As Homeschoolers!

I'm so freakin' excited about this year! August 8th marks the beginning of our third year as homeschoolers! We feel so blessed and thankful for the opportunity to homeschool our children. We have a lot of plans and goals for the year. The kids and I have discussed new things they want to learn about and it's quite a list! I know that list will continue to grow as interests arise.

I'm working on a monthly outline of the things we want to accomplish and learn about this year. I'll post more on that later!

However you choose to educate your child, we hope you have a fantastic year!!!


**Don't forget, the tax free weekend is this weekend! No sales tax on certain school supplies, computers, and clothing!**

That boy!

Cody wanted to watch a movie before we went to bed last night. He decided on The Polar Express...as long as I would make him hot chocolate to drink. We were sitting on the couch watching the movie and Cody leaned over to ask me something.

C ~ "What's today?"

Me ~ "Tuesday"

C ~ "Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday...and?"

Me ~ "Sunday. What day are you waiting for?"

C ~ "Halloween."

We both started laughing like crazy. That boys loves to mess with me and he just cracks me up!

Solar Tsunami

Did you guys hear about THIS?

Britney says is sounds just like the plot to Knowing. Um...I hope it's not exactly the same.

Boiled and Broken

Tango shed a week ago and Cody's been eyeballing the skin ever since. He's asked repeatedly if he can boil it. Boil it? Ugh. That just sounds nasty and I wasn't too excited about the idea. That didn't keep me from pulling the pot out of the cabinet today.

Here he is dropping the skin into the boiling water

It boiled and Cody stirred it for about 5 minutes.

The aftereffect was as nasty as I had anticipated.

After boiling it, he put it in a bowl with cold water. He stirred it around, and God love him, he wanted to keep it in a specimen jar. Ahh....my little evil scientist!


Cody's had this ball for years and has occasionally talked about wanting to get the car out. He was a bit more urgent about the idea today so to the kitchen we went.

We used a knife to cut the ball open

and dug around until we were able to get it out. I have little pieces of bouncy ball ALL OVER the kitchen table. :)~

Sleep Over

I wonder why it's called a sleep over. There's not much sleep involved. The laughing, talking, eating, and playing take its place. But that's okay. I wouldn't want it any other way:)

Late night Sonic picnic

You know Cody. He had to dress up and try to scare the girls:)

Sleeping beauties

We all stayed up late and slept even later. I finally got up and made pancakes, which were quite good if I do say so myself. We just took Sarah and Tori home because they have a swim party to attend. Swimming sounds nice during this freakishly hot summer.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Band Camp

Tori called me yesterday to invite us to watch Austin High's band perform this evening. This past week was band camp, and they were showing off what they had learned. Tori is a band manager and Sarah plays the trombone. Brit and I went early so we could watch some of the practice and the awards being handed out. We left the boys at home. It was HOT and I know Cody would have been miserable.

Tori and Brit

All my girls
Sarah~Britney~Tori

They did a great job! I know they all worked hard this past week in the HOT Alabama sun. The girls went home to get packed and cleaned up. I'm going to go get them in a bit and they're spending the night with us! Party at the Lackey house!!! WOOT!

BOOKS!

I've been wanting to go to Creative Learning Connection for several weeks. We love books! It's funny how I didn't enjoy reading while I was growing up. I've read SO much more since we started homeschooling. CLC had a used book sale this evening and Gretta emailed me to see if we were going. It seemed like a perfect way to spend time with some of our best friends and look for books to add to our collection.
We had a great evening! We met David, Gretta and their kids at Moe's for dinner. We've been wanting Moe's for a long time and this what their first time to eat there. It was a fantastic meal and we had a blast hanging out together. We always do:) Then we went to Fresh Market to look around. I love that place. The kids got their bags of candy and Bobby and I got our favorite flavored coffees. Yum. Oh, and of course the double dipped malt balls. Then we went to CLC. We had a great time looking through the books, but sheesh it was crowded. We spent just over $40 and bought a huge stack of books! We got several reading books for Cody and a handwriting workbook. He also got Mr. Wizard's Experiments for Young Scientist and Science for Fun Experiments which he loves! It's 1 o'clock in the morning and he's doing an experiment by himself right now. I'm not sure if he'll really like the Mr. Wizard book, though. We'll see. Britney picked out Economics Principles and Policy, AP U.S. History Crash Course, The Handy History Answer Book and Writer's Inc Student Handbook - She's in her room reading that now.
Gretta was able to find several items on her list. We're looking forward to going back when it won't be so crowded:)
Then they came to our house to hang out some more. We drank coffee and the kids played Wii and watched How to Eat Fried Worms. Britney practiced her drawing with pointers from David. We talked and laughed a lot. Before we knew it, it was midnight. I swear we could talk for days without running out of things to say!
Ah...we love our friends!!!

Pumpkins and The Eater

The pumpkin plants are doing very well. We need to weed, but every time I get out there to do it, I get attacked by mosquitoes. I hate those suckers!

We see this little guy just about every evening. I tell him every time I see him to stay out of the backyard. There's a German Shepherd back there that will kill his fuzzy little booty. I tell him not to eat the pumpkin plants. I hope he's a good listener.

Tango : )~

Not the best pictures, but they will have to do tonight. He was much easier to photograph when he was smaller and could easily fit in one hand :)

Tango

Tango just shed. That's one of the coolest things to watch! We measured the skin and it's 30"! He's definitely not the little baby we brought home almost a year ago. He had been growing about an inch a month, but he grew 2 1/2" in just under two months. I don't know the reason for the growth increase. I haven't been feeding him more. I've actually cut back a little. I'll try to get some new pictures of him tomorrow. He's so handsome right after he sheds. His color is so vibrant.

ZAP

We went outside to watch the heat lightening tonight. It was AWESOME!

Company Picnic & We're Hosed

Today was the company picnic at Bobby's work. We got there and ate Whitt's barbecue. Hmmm....I like barbecue, but it's something we don't eat often. Then we walked around looking for things the kids might want to do. They had people painting faces, but after Cody's pink eye, I'm kind of against the idea. Bobby's thinks I'll get over it someday, but I guess it didn't matter this time. Neither of them wanted their face painted. They had all kinds of inflatable bouncy things, but the kids weren't very interested in them. There was an inflatable rock climbing thingy that Cody was SO excited about trying.

Here he is getting into the harness.

And off he went!

He LOVED it!

Then he slid down this...slide.

They had this booth - like a dunking booth, but instead of being dropped in water, you got sprayed. There was quite a line for this but they both wanted to do it. I mean it was HOT out today and they were ready to cool off.

Bobby pushed the button to spray Brit :)

Then the kids had snow cones mixed with every flavor. The guy called it The Ultimate Sugar Rush! YUMMO!

It was so very hot, we decided to head home and spray each other with the water hose:)

Ah...The Sprinkler... 'cause we are just that cool.

Of course Logan and Cassie got in on the action. They love playing with the water hose!

GREAT DAY!