Mule day

Reading the paper this morning...and I see that it's the 26th annual Mule Day and Chickenfest in a town about 30 min away. Well, we HAVE to go to that, now, don't we?!?  

First up, a fun old police car.

Next up...tractors! Gage thought grandpa pauly wouId appreciate these!

Next, we came upon a some hound dogs. Blood hounds...coon hounds...hounds of all kinds. This guys name was Boceifus ...I bet he has quite a howl on him!

Then..we saw a sign for the old gordo jail. We anxiously rounded the corner and found this!

But...we asked and we were directed to the real old jail. It even has a sign. I was expecting a real OLD cell. Built in 1914, this had to be good...

Hmmmmm...this is it!? It's now someone's office. Not quite what we were expecting!!!! But, hey, these random things are what keep our little adventures interesting, right?

Next up....the mule parade! We got some shaved ice, found a shady spot, and waited for the main event!

There was a tractor parade an hour later...so we passed the time by riding the  most defunct looking carousel I have ever seen! You could not pay me to get on the other rides! They looked like death traps!

We could not wait a whole hour for the tractor parade. It's 88 with a real feel of 103 today..dripping with humidity. We were melting! But, as we got to our car...the parade started. So, we enjoyed it from the icy cold a/c in our car...as we guzzled cold drinks that I thankfully packed In a cooler.  

I couldnt help wondering how long this old fellow has owned this tractor. This is a Farming town...half the men there were wearing overalls. I have a feeling he's been driving that john Deere for a long time :-)

We liked the "piggy back ride seat" on this one!

This was a true, small town, southern festival. The only thing that was shocking was that they were selling roasted peanuts instead of boiled peanuts (which look like little cat turds, and taste like them too!). 

Chalk

Gage is usually sad that sidewalk chalk comes in pastels. That is problematic when we draw superheroes. Spider-Man is not pink. But....crayons is now making bold chalk colors! Yippeeeee!

Shaving cream fun

Mixing up some shaving cream paint. 

And...we got distracted by the shaving cream and decided to go practice shaving. Shaving 101. With Popsicle sticks.

But...we regrouped and went outside to make some shaving cream artwork on the driveway. This is a piggy, in case you were wondering :-)

Table sliding

When it's too hot outside to slide....we improvise.

Borax fun

First...we tried to make homemade bouncy balls. Borax glue cornstarch water. Ehhh...they were okay but not especially bouncy.

Rolling his bouncy ball...must have been a sensory experience with his eyes closed?

Next up...the old standby gak. Gage made handcuffs and busted out of them like the hulk.

And then gage was whining "ohhh..I'm going to be in timeout". I asked what he did...and he showed me this. Apparently he put gak down his pants and it got stuck. To his pants. Does gak come off clothing? We shall see...it's soaking in a hot sudsy sink now. Ahhh...kids.

Smooshy painting

Fun...and no mess. Yes, please.

Paint inside a sealed ziploc bag. It didn't keep their attention for long...but it was fun while it lasted.

Bye bye 1st grade

Off to her last day of first grade!

Hideaway.

No, we didn't have any storms...but they wanted to sleep in there anyway. Savannah even wore my nightgown?!

Fat cat.

Rock painting

Summer fun...rock painting. How cute are these little guys?

Tiny ninja

Last week gage brought this little ninja to school. He lost it. He was devastated. Waking up crying in the middle of the night because he was worried about "tiny ninja". We scoured the playground. His teachers scoured the classroom. A few days later His teachers announced that gage had lost something very special, and asked if anyone had found it. This boy - Christian - raised his hand and said he found it in the playground and would bring it to school the next day. But...no ninja the next day. Christian couldn't find it. But...two days ago we got a text from his mom with this picture. Tiny ninja was in the washing machine.  

Yesterday, tiny ninja arrived in the mail! With a picture Christian drew if him, gage, and tiny ninja. Gage is a happy boy!!

Yeah summer!

Savannah still has 2.5 days of school left, but we're officially calling this the start of summer. 

We started the day with on of our summer fun activities...marshmallow sculpture! They made some snowmen...animals..

And ate a lot of marshmallows.

Then...we tried out the university pool, which we bought a summer membership to. The  kids gave it the thumbs up!

And then...to top off a great day...I introduced them to the deliciousness that is...slushies! 

Bun

How cute is this hairdo? Our hair stylist - Miss Meagan - taught us how to do this in about 1 minute. Love it :-)

Boring field trip

Sometimes field trips are great, but this one was a dud! Then again, in the past year, we have visited the national air and space museum and the us space & rocket center. After those two..the southern museum of flight was destined to be a disappointment! 

But, I am happy that I can go with her on these trips. And...I was able to sign her out at only 11:30, so we went out to a great lunch with friends and did a little consighent shopping. That made up for the oh-so-boring air museum :-)

Field day!

I have come to realize that after all their testing is done, not much happens at the end of the school year. Savannah has a few field trips lined up to the movies, the park, the flight museum, a yearbook signing party, end of year party, and...field day! It was pretty much like I remember field day long ago.

We had fill the bucket relay races, three legged races, and all the old favorites. Here she is ready to take off with a cup of water to help fill her team's bucket.

And here she is celebrating their big win!

Here are a few of her best buddies- Sara Beth and Hallie.

Sack races...a 

And tug of war, another classic. I loved that when they did boys vs girls one if the big high school basketball players who was volunteering to help snuck in the back of their rope to help them win and wandered away before anyone noticed. I thanked him for that because the girls were thrilled and he said "hey...I gotta make sure my girls win too". 

They had a blast...and she was totally wiped out that night. So glad that I could be there with her!

Bucket butt

The kiddos were playing with the hose/pirate ship/squirt guns/etc. today.

Guess who got her butt stuck in a bucket? Yep...savannah.

"Butt"....her brother was there to help her out...of the bucket :-)

Of course, after this they kept taking turns sitting in the bucket to get stuck on purpose ;-)

Give me the hair clippers!!

Someone needs a haircut!!!!

ID cards!

We joined the university pool for the summer -- but guess who had to get student ID cards for their memberships? Yep..these two were very excited to have their own "action cards"!

It's the official countdown...gage has 6 days if school left and savannah has 8 1/2!!

School lunch

This week is teacher appreciation week...so we had a lunch catered for teachers while parents volunteered to sit with kids during their lunchtime. But...we couldn't find enough volunteers..so those of us who did help were covering 4 tables of kids at times! Well...when the cat's (cat =teacher) away, the mouse (mouse=kids) will play. I think the kids have a little more fun when the parents are in charge instead if the teachers ;-)

Can you tell the kids were having fun? And, can you tell that gage loves having lunch with Savannah's class.  Gage says that he loves Hallie (next to him) because "she's crazy like he is". 

Art show

I am tired. There is so much end-of-the-year school stuff that I am trying to stay on top of lately - permission slips galore, dress up days, teacher appreciation week, duty free teacher lunch for the pto, running the the field day concessions stand, buying the concessions, collecting concession money, ordering field day tshirts, finding pto volunteers for various events coming up, book fair, money due for this..money due for that..yearbooks, yearbook signing parties, end of the year parties, flight museum field trip, movie field trip, lunch in the park with parents....Argghhh! 

I have not bothered to sign Savannah's school folder in two weeks (I've figured out by now she's always above green for her behavior chart). Savannah has not brought a lunch from home more than 2 or 3 times in as many weeks (usually she brings lunch every day). Her backpack is falling apart. I taped it together with clear packing tape. Things were literally falling out the bottom. A zipper is broken. It will have to last for the next 3 weeks. We haven't read a library book in a week..and we often read 2 per day (3 times each). The few we did read...we only read 1x and I made her promise not to tell her teacher. Three times is the rule. We are ready for summer. I have lost my motivation for all this school stuff!!

But...tonight I dragged my butt to art night and a spaghetti supper at Savannah's school. We had mystery meat spaghetti and then wandered the halls in search of Savannah's art.

Gage ate a slice of garlic bread and a cookie out of his $6 spaghetti plate -he want a fan of the meat sauce on it (who can blame him, really?). Some of his preschool friends were there so they went crazy over seeing each other outside of school. All he wanted to do was race through the halls to find his friends. His highlight of the night was using the kindergarten bathrooms and learning they had urinals "you know mama...those stand up and pee potties". Kijdergarten is going to be awesome, apparently! It's the little things in life, I guess :-)

Savannah was very excited to show off her artwork, though!

This is some kind of healthy food artwork her class made:

This is a picture that was chosen as a finalist for her school as part of google logo contest. It was sent to google but it was not the big million dollar winner. It's all things that make your life easier - a bathtub that washes kids itself, and...I can't remember what else.

A jalapeño for cinco de mayo

 Soup can

And...a beanstalk. 

There you go. We survived artwork and the mystery meat cafeteria spaghetti!  

Rodeo

We were all excited for the rodeo tonight! Not that they look especially excited in this picture ;-)

We got there early enough to get good seats. Thank goodness...it go really crowded. Savannah was happily singing along with all the country songs.

Again...not looking terribly excited?!? He actually had a blast and was screaming his head off like a banshee, clapping, and falling apart laughing at the rodeo clown.

And then...the announcer said something like..yes kids it's time...all kids...blah blah blah...catch...blah blah blah...come on in!!  Well...every kid in the place jumped up and ducked under the fence to get into the ring. So, I told the kids they could go but I had no idea what they were doing in there -I thought they were going to catch something the cheerleaders were throwing (they kept throwing tshirts and stuff). 

Well, I was wrong...they were trying to catch a calf!! When I figured that out, I ran over to the at the fence and told them.they decided they were going to stay inside the ring so my parting words were "okay...stay together...and come back here is you get scared". Yes,mother of the year right here!!!

Well,,,savannah said she touched the calf but I don't know if I buy it. Gage was the only one I could keep track of because his boots light up when he runs.

Here's the herd if kids...chasing the calf!

And here's gage returning from a hard day of roping dogies :-)

Our little cowboy and cowgirl started getting sleepy, so we packed in a little early. They are asleep in the hideaway now..again..they think it's fun to sleep in there now. It much be 5 nights thus past week they slept in there...and only 2 if those were tornado nights! Crazy kids :-)