Characteristics to Develop

Sorry, no pictures of the kids this week, just mommy musings. Each of my children inspire me and exemplify for me characteristics of God that we should try to emulate.

Grant is obedient, and likes to keep me (and everyone) on the strait and narrow.

Sadie exemplifies charity. She shares the love of Christ with everyone around her.

Henry's determination is admirable. I love to watch him try to crawl. He never gives up. We call him the butterfly crawler.

I'm gonna go eat worms ...

 
While visiting downtown Boalsburg, Nathaniel managed to convince Grant to try a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. I'm not sure Grant grasped the meaning of every flavor. He unknowingly popped an earthworm-flavored bean in his mouth and I happened to capture his reaction on camera. Priceless.




... And speaking of worms, Henry crawls like a worm. I don't have a picture of my little monster crawling like a worm, but I did capture these gems. I love that smiley kid.

... And speaking of eating worms. This week started out as one of those kick-you-when-your-down weeks. On Tuesday, after an overwhelming day, I came home to a malfunctioning toilet, water-logged carpet, and bulging basement ceiling. It wasn't one of life's finest moments and I was once again reminded to count my blessings. Good thing I have these two angels to help me keep life in perspective.

Fall Traditions

State College is a great place for autumn traditions. One of our favorite traditions is trick-or-treating at the sports museum on campus. The student athletes crowd the museum to hand out candy to costumed kids. This year Grant dressed up as Thomas the Train (he was also Thomas the Train 2 years ago at the sports museum trick-or-treating festivities) and Sadie dressed up as a princess (Sleeping Beauty, to be exact--which is what she dressed up as last year). Henry dressed up as a monster. Don't worry--he wasn't a monster last year.





Taking a wagon ride to the pumpkin patch at Way Fruit Farms is another autumn favorite. We got to share this tradition with Nana and Papa this year.

Guess who is learning to crawl? Too bad he can only crawl backwards. Let's hope crawling backwards doesn't become an autumn tradition.

Lego building is quickly becoming a weekly tradition.  This week's creation: a monster truck that ejects its rider when it crashes into a wall. Hours of priceless entertainment.

Birthday Fun

We celebrated Grant's 6th birthday this week with a Kraft mac-and-cheese dinner for the kids (but they ended up just eating the spaghetti and meatballs we made for the adults), chocolate cake with rainbow-spiderweb frosting (thanks to Grandma Kiki), and a Wild Kratts Birthday Party.

Grant helped me plan all the games involving Animal Power Discs: Cheetah Tails Tag, Caracal Cat Balloon Catch, Aardvark Dig, Platypus Egg Carry, and Bat Bug Hunt. The party was exhausting for the parents, but based on Simon's excited recap of the party to his mom, it was a blast for the kids.

We have had so much fun with Grandparents visiting the past two weeks. A visit to the pumpkin carving festival stands out as one highlight. 

One last milestone note: Henry's first tooth made it's presence known this morning. We're enjoying the sitting phase and dreading the soon-to-come crawling phase.

Let's Wrassle!

Sadie and Grant at their finest. Who needs a TV?

Yinzers!

So these next several posts are going in reverse chronological order.
First up, our most recent trip: Pittsburgh. We drove down last Saturday to visit cousins Stacy and Kristin and her awesome kids. Cameron was selling over in Altoona or someplace, and Spencer is still in Afghanistan. (PS - Stacy & Kristen please send pics since Nat did not take any good ones)

We spent Saturday afternoon at the Carnegie Science Center.

All the kids had a ball.

There was a cool submarine docked in the river that we got to explore. Most of us felt a little claustrophobic. Grant apparently enjoyed it immensely.

Although we don't have a picture, if you want to imagine Grant's face immediately after the very loud demonstration of the 10 ft tall Tesla coil, picture the exact OPPOSITE of the above. It was a little scary.

Now the title of this post needs a little explanation. "Yinz" is apparently a Pittsburgher contraction for the PA Dutch expression "you-uns", which is a distortion of "you ones", which is essentially a northeast rural version of y'all. So Pittsburghers are often called yinzers. I had heard about this but had never seen it in action. Until this trip. We went out to eat all together, and with 4 adults and 5 kids 1 1/2 to 7 it was a little hard to seat us. The hostess was very nice and kept coming over and apologizing and explaining that they were trying to get some tables together. At one point I swear, she used "y'all", "yinz", and "youse guys" all in one sentence. That pretty much made my night.

Of course, after dinner we made the obligatory dash through IKEA and found a b-day present for Grant. We all chilled at Stacy's place until late, hoping the kids would pass out once at the hotel and let us sleep in. Bright and early, 6:30 the next morning the kids woke up and started demanding breakfast. Four showers, a packed car, two unintentional detours, and a 30 minute wait outside IHOP later we were all satiated.

Tutti-fruity destruction

Tenille thought it would be 'fun' to visit the 'Cathedral of Learning'. Right, Nat thought, that'll be really 'fun'. :/ He ate his sarcastic words.

The internets took this picture. It is huge.

The Cathedral of Learning a functional classroom and office building for UPitt. It's basically Hogwarts inside.

There are 20 some-odd 'Nationality' rooms each decorated in intricate detail as an homage to a distinct cultural heritage. Really amazing stuff. Israel had a cool Qumran Isaiah Scroll replica, Wales had some illegible plaque in Welsh, India had carved stone columns, Englan had lots of stain glass crests, etc etc. Each one was like a mini-museum of cultural WIN.

Gryffindor!!! I mean Lithuania!

Grant gets excited to learn he is 1/32 Norwegian, in the Norway room.

"All stern of look and strong of limb," Grant takes in the noble African room.

Sadie slept through the whole Cathedral experience, so here's a consolation shot of her and her golden locks.

Rag-a-muffin

New sprouts

Nathaniel is proud he has gotten the green back in his thumb. He swears it is the apartment living that turned it black. That doesn't account for the Springville garden disaster though... but that's another story. Here are some pics of the latest in tender vegetation around here.

Nathaniel's few-odd dozen Ginkgo seedlings after having spent the winter being cold-stratified in the fridge. He thinks he's going to be able to sell these on Ebay someday.

The half dozen Orchids Nathaniel bought and made us transport back from our last visit to Candace are all still alive AND they all have new growth!

Tenille is exceptionally proud of her first seed-grown plants EVER! Pansies, heh...

The piece de resistance... an 8x4 foot half-raised bed Bob helped Nathaniel build. It's all planted with a few kinds of tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, zuccini, canteloupe, and various herbs! The tomatoes are already starting to fruit! Tenille is actually EXCITED to eat TOMATOES. This is huge people. Yoooge.

*Wink*