Happy 10th Birthday Jake!!!

My baby boy is a decade old!

From left to right we have: Natalie, Makayla, Katie, William, Jake, Dallas, Trevin, Anthony

Jake is really into the game Battleship.
This is the USS Jake and it went down in a blaze of glory:)

This boy has been asking for a dog for years. I kept telling him he got a brother, then a sister, then another sister and that was good for now.
I ran out of excuses this year.

Totally worth it!

Happy birthday Jake! We love you!

Boys will be boys

Jake earned his Bear in cub scouts. Just in the nick of time too:)
Jake is having a great time in Scouts here. He has a fun cub scout leader, Brother Gadd. He's a big-kid himself. He understands energetic boys need for movement and knows exactly what to do for that.

Jake earned his archery belt loop. In order to get it he had to fish it out of the jello!
Made his day!

Good job Jake!

Fish on

Built it himself

Always a good sign

The possibilities are endless







(baby hammerhead)
Need I say more?

Just two things...

Yep, that sums it up:)

Where the Wild Things are

This is Katie's soul mate, Faith. They play together nearly everyday. And for anyone who knows Katie...Can you imagine having two of her around?
Faith decided to decorate Katie's face to go along with our Wild Alabama adventure.

So far we have seen an armadillo, poisonous snakes, wild pigs, a baby fox, the regular squirrel, Mike saw a deer, snapping turtles (many of which have been brought home for mom), a tortoise (also brought home for mom), dead possum, lots of frogs (also brought home) and to our delight a forest of fireflies. They are like twinkling Christmas lights throughout the forest. Right out our back door.
Mike caught a baby hammerhead shark. Jake stepped on a catfish head. The spike went through his foot about a half inch. OUCH! And we spent the night at the beach catching sand crabs.

We put up this HUGE snapping turtle as a house guest for a few days. We had it in the biggest, deepest bin we had. One night Mike and I heard something in the garage. We were a little nervous to open the garage door. When we did this is what we saw. It used it's tail to stand up and climb out!

Dream world for little boys and our little girls. Heaven for my husband. I'm not into the outdoor creatures as much, that is why I hold the camera:)

Come on, vamanos

"Everybody, let's go!"

The Lunch Bunch went on a Dora Explorer adventure.
Naturally, Natalie has her backpack, backpack.

Natalie sees the kids get their backpacks on every morning and she follows suit and gets hers on every morning too.
This morning she actually got to go somewhere.

My new friend Christy, in the picture is AWESOME! She has great ideas and is so much fun. She put together a map for the kids. I downloaded it, but I couldn't get it from posting sideways.
The kids had to find the pond, they each had a map. At the pond they needed to find a few bugs and feed the fish.

Then they had to find the park! Natalie loves the swing these days. I mean really loves the swing!

We found the path and sat next to the big tree for a picnic lunch.
Making new friends.
(P.S. it's so strange to have only one child to take to something. Jake, Dallas and Katie are all in school. That happened fast!)

Katie's field trip

We moved in at one of the funnest times of the year. Field trip month. Jake's field trip was to the movies.
Katie's field trip was to an agricultural park.

Don't look behind you girls...There is a big HUGE snake!

Hersey, the new baby calf was a little smelly.

"Oh, my!"

It was fun to share the day with Katie and her new friends. We saw all sorts of animals and learned about the 'olden' days. My favorite modern day invention, thank goodness I never had to live without it, indoor plumbing.