Whipped Cream Hats

Last weekend was the first weekend we felt totally free, nothing to do, clean, or set up in the house.  So Jess decided it was a good day to take a trip to see the capitol building. Neely looked cute for the day.



 

 


 It was a pretty chilly day, and windy.

Except when Neely knocked over a super heavy post inside the building that was there to protect the huge emblem on the marble floor the post fell onto.  No damage was done, but my blood pressure wouldn't come back down for like an hour.  I felt like security guards were going to tackle us at any moment.

Thankfully they didn't, so we headed to find some lunch.  We tried S and B's Burger Joint and it was amazing.



Mine was a french onion burger and rocked my world, and I tried Jess's and it was just as good.  The fries were awesome too.  They tasted like the ones at our beloved Flancer's.  So if you're coming to visit us at any point, expect to end up at this place. 

Then we walked across the street and got cupcakes.

I loved it just for being in an old beautiful house.
T

 The cupcakes were okay too.

Then we finished the trip with one of my favorite things, a drive through an old neighborhood.







It was a foggy day, which made the Devon tower look pretty cool.  Neely gets so excited any time she can see it.  She thinks it has something to do with her baby cousin Devynn.  She usually calls it "Devynn castle", probably because she assumes Devynn is a princess, but once in a while calls it "Devynn towa".  

When we were home that night, the kids begged for "whipped cream hats".

A few days earlier they were begging for a squirt of whip cream.  Jess jokingly told them "if you help me....(I can't remember what it was, probably clean the living room up or something) I'll give you whipped cream HATS."  They got all excited and we realized they thought he was serious and that having a whipped cream hat would be hilarious.  He tried to tell them he was kidding but they begged and begged.  So he said since they'd already had their baths, we could do it another night right before the baths. 

So, Saturday night when they begged, we let the weirdos have their whipped cream hats.



They were overjoyed, and then they had their bath.

Scary

Yesterday Neely had the hiccups.  I heard Paige and Cason whispering conspiratorially about how they should scare her so the hiccups would go away.  So they worked on some scary stuff.  Paige made a mask and Cason drew a giant horrible robot capturing tiny Neely.  I heard them talking about it and trying to use them to scare Neely, who smiled and fake screamed.  I took a closer look at these creations today and they ARE pretty terrifying actually.

The Bad Apple

Our boy is an author this week.  He was coloring on Monday, and then told me that he wanted to write a story.  He's never mentioned anything like that, and I happened to have my sewing machine out for a couple projects I'd been working on, so I grabbed some paper and sewed him some books. 

He got started right away, and took quite a while to write a really cute story about apples.(This pic is actually from today, when he was working on a different story, but I didn't think to take pictures the first time he wrote one, so this gets the point across)
 
The first page I wrote for him and then realized by the second page that I could just tell him how to spell things so he would practice writing himself.  I didn't realize until well into the book that he wasn't putting the letters in any certain order, just all over the page.  :)  I remember when Paige thought it worked that way too, just as long as all the letters are there somewhere, it must spell what you were planning on writing.

He has since written 2 more books, but I was playing with Paige and Neely during these, so I wasn't able to follow along as closely to what they're about.  I do know one is about Mario and Luigi.
 
This drawing of them in the book, with their "M" and "L" hats makes me so happy.
 
 I still know the apple story though, since I was helping him the whole way.  It's the cutest.  There is a group of apples, all different colors.  I'll narrate it for you.

Front cover:
 ;
Apple Family (and below, that's right-BFF)

Pages 1 and 2:

Red apple:  "I have an idea!"

Build, build, build (the apples are building a rainbow bridge)

Pages 3 and 4:



The "Bad Apple"(he really called him that) shows up and zaps their bridge with his lightning power while laughing his evil laugh.  One of the apples trips and yells "WOAH!"

Pages 5 and 6(this is where the story goes a little off track, but it's adorable):

snowflakes fall(on the right) and the apples all say "AMAZING!" except the green apple who says "Well, this is boring."  Also, one of them trips again.  :)

Pages 7 and 8:

The apples decide to go after the bad apple.  They begin their trek, and one trips again, and another says "Well, this is pretty easy."  The red apple, who is the leader, says "Keep going!  As long as we work together!" This page just about makes me cry when I think about Cason writing and illustrating it.  This is TOTAL Cason stuff.

Pages 9 and 10:

They all team up, shoot colorful lasers at the bad apple...

...and defeat him, no problem.  See the screams of "NOOOOOO!" and the "X"s for eyes?  Page 9 includes the "BFF" again(appropriate, since 9 is the page of teamwork), and we finish off with "THE END" on page 10. 

Oh, wait, nope.  We finish off curtains on the back of the book.

 People needed to see this book, and I needed to write down the story before I forgot it all.  So, two birds, one stone. 

Treaure Hunters

Things have been good here.  Paige is lucky enough to have two 6 year old girls next door who she has befriended.  She went over to jump on the trampoline and have a snack on Sunday.

Homeschooling is still going really well. 

 

 

  Neely gave this monkey magnet eyes one day while we worked.  Ha.

Sometimes we do yoga together.

 Neely calls it "oga".

When Paige and Cason take breaks from school they snuggle with Neely...

 ...watch a show, play with toys, or make up cute games.  They all have been playing really well together.  Last week they were into treasure hunts.  I had to draw a map and hide a treasure.  This one day I hid a bowl of chips.  Ha.  We don't have chips very often.  For one we're trying to eat better but I'm also not a huge chip person.  This particular day we happened to have some barbecue chips Jess bought, because he IS a chip person.  So I put some in a bowl and hid it.  They checked out their map...

...and began the search.  I waited in the living room, listening to them discuss where to go.  I knew exactly when they found it because they got all excited.  Cason goes "NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL TREASURE!"

 

Haha!

Later that night Paige made a treasure map for ME.  I've never been so confused.