Our Best Texas Buddies

We want you to meet our friends who live in Texas.

This is JD. He's 11 and he made this really cool fort for his army men. His mom wasn't real keen on my mom's suggestion that melting them would be fun. He gave us a bag of army men to bring home. Now Mom's rummaging for shoe boxes and popsicle sticks to make a log cabin for them. The matches have been hidden.This is Hannah Beth. She's 7. Andy LOVES her. He can't even say "Annabeff" without growing a smile.

Here's a rare moment when Cade (the youngest at 3 years old) and Andy played together. Usually it's Jonah and Cade who run around like a couple of wild animals. Andy's usually too busy hugging Hannah Beth.

Their cousin, Aubrey, came over one day and this trio founded The Club of Toothless Wonders.

Oh, and here's a picture of one of the two baths the Jewell kids took on the whole Texas trip. Mom figured that spending part of every day in Grandma's chlorinated pool should serve the purpose.

Postcard From Texas

Here's something fun we did in Texas:

This turtle came into Grandma's yard while we were swimming in her pool. Jonah was brave enough to pick it up

but Andy only wanted to touch its shell.

The turtle only came out to run away after we were far off. Whoever said turtles move slowly never saw this guy escape. You can see his portrait on Mom's photo blog.

Home School Physical Education

Look who's swimming to Grandma without a life jacket! While most of America's youth started school this month, we were hanging out at Grandma's pool in Texas. I'd say it was time well spent.

Sunflower Harvest

We planted some sunflowers in the spring. I especially took a liking to this one because the bigger it grew, the more personality it took on. By the time it got big enough to droop over like this, I thought it looked just like someone taking a shower. Can't you see him leaning into the tile wall, letting the warm water run over his face to wake up for work in the morning? When I brought him a cup of coffee is when I knew I had taken my floral romance too far. So I had to kill him. Then I let the kids pick all the seeds out of his big head.
And if that wasn't enough, we spread them on a baking sheet, lightly salted them, and browned them in the oven.

Toothless Wonder

Finally!

The going rate for a tooth in mint condition is apparently $3.00. What a generous tooth fairy! It worked out well because Jonah has three jars: one marked "save", one marked "give", and one marked "spend". He was able to evenly divide his crisp new bills into their little glass houses. I have a feeling that Washington is going to break out of his "spend" house the next time we go to the thrift store.

Snaggletooth

Oh, Snaggletooth, your tooth is loose
And makes you look so funny.
Let's pull it out and hide it
Under your pillow for some money.

Adventures in Paper Mache

We decided to get our hands dirty with paper mache this week. I wish I could offer you some great recipe for it, but we just mix flour and water until it's like runny oatmeal. Then we pour in a bit of salt, because I read once that salt keeps it from turning into a science project. We covered an inflated balloon with saturated newspaper strips (Andy's favorite part). After it dried overnight, I popped the balloon and cut out the mask shapes. The kids painted (Jonah's favorite part). Here are the finished products. Jonah's had these suits since he was about three. Looks like it's about time to trade in the Spiderman knickers for a bigger size.Nice. Don't you think?

Jonah traced over some pencil lines I drew for the web on Spidey's face. He did a good job, but I must admit, you're looking at the reason I've never considered permanent eyeliner.