Help from Grandma

My mom arrived the afternoon of October 2nd, and as soon as I picked her up, I drug her around Tucson with me while I tried to get all the last minute things I needed before Grace's party the next day. We then came back home, emptied the car and went to go get the kids from school, and when we got home I immediately put her to work baking cakes and cupcakes and making my frosting for Grace's cakes (I honestly don't know why she comes back because she does nothing but slave away while she's here). The kids had to help her, so they took turns on the stool making the cakes, and then took turns licking the beater and spatula...

What can I say - making cakes with Grandma is SO much more fun than making them with Mommy!

A Special Assignment

Our Preschool Sunday School Champion knows Grace is a "crafty gal," so she approached me a couple of weeks ago to see if she might ask Grace to decorate the offering box for her Sunday School class. I agreed, and Grace was thrilled to be asked to do such a thing! She was told she could decorate it however she wanted, so when we got home, we got out the paint and some stickers and she got to work.

I think she did a pretty good job! And believe it or not, the only thing I did for this project was rinse out the paint brush between colors, and put a layer of glue over the stickers that wouldn't stay stuck.

Of course, we had to do this while Tristan was sleeping so he didn't feel the need to "help".

Then, of course, they had to get cleaned up...

This is what happens when Daddy is left in charge of bath time...

Birthday Parties

Now that it's been a month since the events, I thought I'd share some cute pictures from two of Grace's classmates' birthday parties! I don't know why, but I just can't seem to find enough time to blog very regularly anymore - hopefully that will change in November after soccer season is over and we'll have a few extra days of free time in the evenings.

The first party we went to was a pirate themed bowling party. They decorated "treasure boxes" and then did some bowling. Surprisingly Tristan did pretty darn well!

We also had another party to go to immediately following the first. They had a pinata at this one, and the kids loved taking a whack at that!

My big guy was the first to whack off a piece of it!

Soccer

Grace had her opening ceremony for soccer earlier in the month, and then had her first games a few days later. She seems to enjoy it most of the time, but other times tells me it's boring because there's only one ball... I've been told this is normal and that she'll get the hang of it after a while - which she is, the more she plays.

#9 Grace Samuelson

The Grasshoppers

At least she looks cute when she's playing, right?

Beautiful Butterflies

Just wanted to share with you some of the beautiful things we see around here. We have two flowering bushes in our front yard that have been abuzz with loads and loads of butterflies (and bees too). There are so many different colors fluttering around those bushes it's like living under a rainbow!

These are only two that I could capture, but I think you get the idea.

T-ball

Okay, it's once again time to try to get caught up! I've been busy the last few weeks trying to get everything ready for the hearing and vision screenings at the school, and am pleased to report that it went much better than I anticipated. I guess it helps to anticipate the worst and be pleasantly surprised when it goes so well - I had planned on it taking 6 days to screen about 200 students, but with the great help that I had it only took 2 days!

So let me take you back a few weeks. Tristan had a mini-sports t-ball camp for 6 weeks (1 day a week). He thought it was great, but got bored sometimes with the repetitiveness of the whole thing. You could just about hear him say, "I know how to throw a ball, I've got a rocket for an arm - get on with it already!" But it was good father son bonding time. Grace's soccer practice was cancelled one day so I was able to go get a few pictures...

Daddy giving pointers

Go team!He even earned a medal!

Morton Arboretum

After visiting the Children's Museum, we headed back to cousin Bonnie's house, grabbed a snack and headed to the Morton Arboretum. We didn't get to do a whole lot there because we arrived in the midst of a downpour. I was hoping to show David the Children's Garden and go on the guided tour, but we were about the only ones in the park! We did drive around to see the grounds, and after the rain let up, we got out and toured some of the animal habitats they had on display. Each year the Arboretum does a different "special attraction". When we were there last year, there were a bunch of different insects and animals sculpted from tree branches - at least that's what I think it was, all I know is that they were very large and looked as if they were made from that sort of material. Anyway, this year they had 11 animal habitats scattered in different areas of the park, all related to what animals live in those areas.

In the Prairie they had a coyote den, an ant colony, and a spider web

In the Wetlands they had a Great Blue Heron Rookery, a beaver lodge, a pollywog pond, and a skunk denAnd in the Woodlands they had a squirrel drey, a raccoon den, and a fallen log (unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of these because it was still pretty wet when we got out to see them).

We also saw a beautiful bird feeding in the wetlands area and many beautiful flowers and trees. For those of us that live in the desert, we find anything that isn't brown to be quite breathtaking...