Reasonable?

I consider myself to be a very reasonable mother when it comes to bugs, snakes, dirt and such. I know I am very good to allow Joshua to bring all sorts of creepy crawlies and such into the house in mason jars to observe. He spent Memorial day at Grandma Clark's letting an enormous snail crawl on his face. Well Folks----yesterday I met my breaking point. Joshua came home from a field trip at the park holding THIS.......

For those of you who just gagged---I'm with ya'! Josh dug this common beetle grub out from under the wood chips at the local park. This picture does not do it justice. It is curled up in this picture so you cannot see it's entire legnth, his body is the color of puss, it has creepy red eyes and these big pincers on the front of his face. Eww!!!!! Joshua chose to show me this during a violin lesson I was teaching. I'm surprised I didn't drop my violin and run screaming from the room. Needless to say we gave him the "Steve Irwin" lecture. (Would Croc hunter keep a bug in the house until he died?) I made Jeff take the picture before we set him free-I couldn't look at him for one more second.
Anyway, for all you Moms or soon to be Moms pray that if you get sons they do not follow Joshua's path but become artists or dancers. YUCK!
p.s. Happy 9th Birthday today Joshua. This is one of the presents he opened this morning. How appropriate! We'll post more birthday pics tomorrow!



Look at that happy boy

Butterflies

Our kids got a butterly kit from their Grandma Shari last month and we have been watching our caterpillars grow into their cacoon stages. We are now awaiting their appearance as butterflies next week. Here's some pics of them growing day by day.

Random Stuff

I wanted to post random pictures and catch up on what's been going on around here.
Last week I left the house in a huff and puff close to tears becuase the house never seemed clean despite my more than average efforts for the week. I was so frustrated and thought we'd never dig out from the mess we'd made. I came home from the dinosaur park to find a clean house and this on the table. My mother could not believe her eyes. We were flabbergasted to find he'd cleaned the bathroom, living room and kitchen in his hour long lunch break (and of course left flowers and this note for the kids to clean). Needless to say it was the best gift I'd had in a long time. I know how lucky I am!!

Here's Caleb cute smile. He's always doing this now.


Brotherly love

This is how I nap with my babies and the kids all love to take turns holding him like this.

The favorite "peanut butter sandwich" with Caleb and Daddy as the bread. Caleb didn't like his first sandwich.