Caterpillars and Spiders(Monster spiders)

Friday after school we were walking home from getting Megan from the school bus, Megan saw this cool looking Caterpillar on the bridge railing. We walked home grabbed the camera and walked back. This is our fun little orange Caterpillar. Megan wanted to keep it as a pet but we decided that it would be better if it could get it's own food because it knows what it eats. Megan didn't want it to die in her care.

It had these really cool black spikes sticking out of it in a couple spots on the back, then it had these long white hairs all around it's body and they were very long.
The girls having fun watching the caterpillar.
Kaylee touching the caterpillar. It's a miracle. If any of you know Kaylee she is usually so scared of any living creeping, crawling creature. Dogs, Cats, Horses, Goats, flies, gnats, spiders, specks of dust that possibly look like it might be a little bug.

I have to say though that lately she has been so very brave and has been touching different bugs. Here she is touching the caterpillar. The other thing she loves to touch lately are slugs. We have a gazillion slugs where we live and they are of all shapes and sizes. We have had some that are about 1-2 inches around and about 5 or more inches long(when it is oozing along). We had one get in our house in the basement through the window(don't know how that was possible), we put it on a wet paper towel and watched it. The girls loved it.

Elizabeth loves to walk around when we are outside looking for "lugs". I love how she says it and everything becomes a slug-dead leaves, dirt, nothing-I'm just thrilled that Kaylee isn't screaming when she sees it and runs far away.

Now on to the spiders. We have a million spiders where we live and they love the trees especially and we have tons of trees right around our house. Scott sprays everywhere on the outside and inside of the house to kill the spiders but it hasn't helped this year. They get to be gigantic.

Elizabeth calls them "monster spiders" and loves to watch them. We've adopted about 7 or more that we have to check on as we walk Megan to the bus and back each day. In the morning there is usually dew drops or it has sprinkled in the night and all the spider webs have dew drops on them and the girls love finding them(not very hard, just open your door and there are a bunch right in your face), they think they are so pretty.

One spider was on our front window last fall and we watched it everyday to see how it was growing. It started out pretty small and then was gigantic in just a couple weeks. The girls loved watching it eat and respin it's web. We have another one in that same spot this year and one out our kitchen window. The one on the kitchen window is the picture I have here. It doesn't look as big as it really is. It's hard getting a picture of a spider on glass when the trees and sun are reflecting in the window.
This is a closeup of the spider. That's from the outside of the house and like I said it reflects the trees really well.

Sack Lunches and Frog Pajamas

Megan is getting sack lunches for school and is loving it. I have a huge pile of brown paper bags and each morning when I make her lunch I draw some picture with her name on the front of the bag. I've also bought a bunch of different foods to put into her lunches so she will actually eat them. She gets picky if we eat the same foods over and over again for lunch and I don't have a way to pack some of the lunch foods she likes so I became creative with food for her. I went to Costco and bought tons of stuff in bulk for her so that it would hopefully last for a while.

Kaylee has been very sad that she isn't getting the sack lunches as well so the other day (I think Monday) I promised her I would make a sack lunch just for her. She requested that I make balloon letters of her name just like I did with Megan's that day and I put flowers on it. She was so excited. She had half of a sandwich in there, a juice box, chips and some fruit and a treat. She loved it so much. She couldn't stop dancing and grinning.

Elizabeth just wanted a juice box.
Kaylee peeking over the bag with excitement, she can't wait to open it and see what's inside.
I love her beautiful smile.
Silly face. I was trying to capture her reaction to her seeing what's inside but instead we got this silly expression. A deer caught in the headlights look.
Ummmmmm, nummy juice boxes. Liz kept shaking hers wanting more and more to come out.

Elizabeth will be 21 months on the 18th of this month. A couple weeks ago we bought a bunch of pajamas for her because her room is cold in the winter and it's getting to be the rainy season when the upstairs will be cold. Our house(we rent from a friend and get a stinkin' amazing deal until we can afford a house in the area which will be probably never) was built in 1890 and has really old windows upstairs and the furnace is in the basement with two vents to the upstairs. One in our bedroom which is on the main floor and one huge vent in the middle of main level-the entry way, living room and kitchen/dining room is all kind of connected- needless to say it just doesn't heat up the upstairs. We have a wood burning stove that works really well in keeping the house warm but keeping it going in the middle of the night doesn't really happen. Anyway we bought her new pjs but I thought it would be a little while until she fit into them because they are 2T.

Well her 24 months pjs are too short on her so we pulled these out on Monday and she loves them. She was so excited about the frogs on them. The feet are frogs too!!! She just looks sooo big to me, I can't believe how big she is now. She is talking galore and saying the funnest things all the time. It just amazes me how she went from a couple babbles to a word, to a couple words then boom straight to these huge long sentences that she puts right in context.
Liz being a cute little froggy. She was ribbiting and jumping around following after her big sister's examples.
They were all being frogs. Kaylee fell back and was giggling right as I took the picture. I think they tried playing leap frog with each other. Liz wanted both Megan and Kaylee to climb on her back so she could carry them around. It was so funny.
Here is the little froggy feet. I think they are so stinkin' cute and I love the color on her.

Tonight she is in her new Monkey pajamas. She didn't get a nap and was so tired that she was falling asleep at dinner and wouldn't eat anything. So I got her pajamas, Scott put them on her and then magically she was wide awake crawling all over the floor acting like a little kitty and pretending to paw my legs. Then she ate all of her dinner super fast and ran around like a monkey. Scott said the pajamas were magic, I believe it!!!!!

Crazy Weekend

I have been sick and I am so ready to be over it. I had promised the girls we would go to the football game on Friday night. It was so nice and warm and would have been perfect instead of going in the cool, humid rain. But I just felt awful and Megan was acting like she was exhausted and sick. So we ended up staying home and the girls went to bed and I laid down and relaxed and tried to sleep. Scott didn't get home until about 10:30-he helps do security for the football games. Well Saturday the girls were up super early and I just felt awful. So Scott was awesome and told me to relax and feel better. So he took the girls for a daddy daughter date. They went to the store and got some groceries we needed and of course he bought season 8 of "Smallville" (we are big fans), and took the girls to lunch.

It was so nice because it was quiet. I got to read a book, take a nice long bath and then shower and get ready. Then they got home and had brought me lunch too and Scott bought me a ton of chocolate from Costco and a big thing of novelty popcorn(So good).

Scott had a Stake Leadership meeting so he left for that around 3:00 with a friend. Our Stake is really spread out, it goes all the way over by Rainier, OR and across the river to WA and down the coast to Seaside. Usually all stake meetings are held in Rainier or Longview. Occassionally our church building is used for the west side meetings. Well he got home around 7:00 and we had dinner and the girls were in bed by 8:00. Then we watched a couple episodes of smallville.

Sunday was absolutely crazy. It was Stake Conference and luckily this time and no more times do we have to drive an hour to Longview, WA. They bought equipment and put a camera in the stake center in Longview and web-camed it to our building. It was awesome. The girls were so tired though and Scott kept falling asleep and I still just felt sooooo sick. I was tired and my body ached and I had zero energy to be wrestling with 3 little girls for 2 hours. Well we got home and ate lunch then scott told me to lay day and take a nap.

I grabbed my Ensign to read for a little bit but I think I read the same first sentence a gazillion times and then fell asleep. Oh my goodness, I slept for 4 hours. I was so stinkin' tired. Elizabeth woke me up crying that she was stinky so I had to change her and bath her because her bum was sore. All the girls wanted in the bath too. Scott was so sweet, he did all the dishes and made lasagna. What an awesome hubby. I love him so much. He's sooooo good at taking care of me when I don't feel good. I think if Beth didn't wake me up I would have slept all night.

Today we walked Megan to the bus and it was raining outside. Not hard for here but definitely a hard rain storm for other states(like Utah). We got home and were all drenched, can't wait for the real rain to come in a couple months. Oh boy!!!!!!