Miss Laurie Lou is 3!

My sweet pea is 3.

When did this happen? (About a week ago.)

Yes, that's true, but WHEN did this happen?

Where did my baby girl go?

She's still a little peamite and my baby girl, but she's potty-trained. She names her baby dolls. She loves shoes. She has pierced ears, which she asked for, and she has a sense of humor. She loves Dora, Minnie Mouse, and animals.

She can also hold her own with her brothers when needed.

It's usually needed quite often.

How can so much personality be rolled into one little person?

Moving on to the birthday party.

We had a simple family party. We grilled burgers and dogs and let the kids play in the pool. Ian got his Martha on and made pink, purple, and orange (Dora colors!) layered cupcakes with homemade chocolate buttercream frosting. The frosting didn't turn out as planned, but it wasn't bad. *Lesson learned: Follow directions. They're there for a reason.*

Opening presents with help from big brother.

Showing off her loot. A princess crown and jewelry from Granny.

I finally made her tutu that I planned to make last Christmas. Better late than never, right?

Check out the ensemble she put together before she left for maw maw's house. The tutu, Dora sandals from Granny, purple socks for gloves, and her winter hat. BEE-U-TI-FUL!!!

I almost forgot the cake part. This was after lighting the candle the second time. She was a little excited and blew out the candle before we could sing to her. (I just realized I didn't put 3 candles on her cake. Oh, well. Blame crazy mom syndrome.)

Yay!!! She got it on the 1st try . . . again.

The girl loves chocolate. What can I say? She gets it honestly.

She also scored a new swimsuit from dad and a new beach towel from her brothers. Maw Maw and Paw Paw gave her her very first fishing pole. It was a pink Dora fishing Pole. Did I mention this was Dora party? Anywho, she proudly tested out her pole yesterday when we took the kids fishing. 

And you know what? Those little rubber fish that come with the pole for casting practice really hurt when you get whacked in the head with them while you're trying to drive to the fishing hole.  

Bad Hair Day

Tell me who doesn't want to wake up to this every morning?

It was wild from the front view . . . .

and the side view!

Her hair is usually pretty crazy every morning, but this day was exceptional. It needed to be documented for posterity.

Hmmm. . . .

This was Lauren's chicken feeding outfit a few days ago.

Looks like she's ready for a roller derby.

I've expressed to my children that when I'm too old to dress myself, they are not aloud to pick out my clothes.

Decorating for Thanksgiving

To kick off the the Thanksgiving celebration this week, Lauren tried to liven up her room (and a few other random objects) by decorating with the festive fall color . . . orange. She found the nearest Sharpie she could get her hands on. Mom has tried diligently to keep these out of reach, but that didn't deter the decorating prodigy.

Wall art. I think this is called "Blustery Autumn Day".

Body art. She didn't leave the table out either.

LOTS of body art.

Awww . . . she even decorated her bed.

Her tricycle. I guess she was trying to break up all the pink.

She even took the time to decorate her brother's baseball. I don't think he fully appreciated the gesture.

Squat rocks and such

This post may seem random because I'm playing catch-up again. I'm the queen of procrastination. But I really don't think that's a good thing to be queen of. Here goes . . .

We finally have eggs! Yay!!! After waiting and waiting and more waiting, our ducks and chickens have finally started producing eggs, which is our whole reason for having them. It sure isn't because I like having poop all over my yard.

Look at these beauties! The large white ones are duck eggs, the brown ones are our standard chicken eggs, and the little white ones are bantam eggs. We usually get at least one duck egg, 2-3 brown eggs, and one bantam egg per day. Not too shabby.

Ian was mowing the grass a couple of weeks ago and I heard Lauren start to cry (of course she has to be outside with dad) so I went to check on her. I opened the back door and this is what I found. Apparently she stumbled across an ant bed and went to dad for help. I was impressed. :o)


Scout stuff:

Our cub scout pack went to visit a local museum this past week. I had no idea this little gem was practically in our back yard (seriously, it's right across the cotton field from my house).

It was put together by one of our scouts' grandma and she has done a wonderful job with it. The museum is actually a combination of three old houses put together and is the home of quite a collection of antiques and memorabilia.

Here's our motley crew on the front steps of the museum before they were given the grand tour.

A few of the antique telephones on display.

I'm sure glad my iron is the plug-in kind. :o)

I think Grandma Gregson had one like this.

And old butter churn and some aprons. We were also shown some butter presses. I wish I had taken a picture of those. They were really neat.

More scout stuff:

Here are my 3 little Tiger Cubs showing off the leaves they collected for our leaf rub project. These guys are 3 peas in a pod.

Here are the Tigers and Webelos donating teddy bears to the police dept. We did this service project last year and it was a hit.

The Tigers and Webelos meet the mayor. This was the same day as the bear donation. Right after this picture was taken, Zack said to the mayor, "Hey, you got any gum?". I don't think he was quite prepared for that one.

That's about it for this catch-up session. I still need to post some football pictures, but that will have to wait till another day. Ciao!

First day of school and other miscellaneous things

After a very brief conversation that started out going one way and ended up going in the exact opposite direction from where I was headed (boy, that was a LONG intro), the boys decided they wanted to go back to public school. So, we talked about the pros and cons of both and let them choose.

Here they are on the first day of school---Todd-5th grade and Zack-1st grade. The guidance counselor was having some computer issues on the Friday before school started and didn't have the boys assigned to a teacher. We thought we had it worked out by Friday afternoon, but when they got to school on Monday morning, they still didn't have a teacher. In the end they both ended up with the teachers we were hoping they'd get. Woohoo!

Other random news------

My mom gave me a small batch of butter beans a week or so ago. Lauren had to help me shell them. I cooked them that night for supper and they were so good! Lauren loved them too. I hope she'll keep her good eating habits. I haven't been so lucky with the two oldest.

This is what happens when you give this child a dark chocolate fudge pop. The boys didn't like them, but she didn't care as long as it was chocolate.


Back-to-school primary activity------

Todd helped the primary presidency plan a back-to-school activity for one of his Faith in God achievements. They played several water games and had a yummy treat afterward.

Lauren didn't care anything about the games. She just wanted to get her head wet. She kept going around to the water buckets and sticking her head in.

This is duck-duck-goose using a wet sponge. When you yell GOOSE! you squeeze water out all over that person's head. I think the kids liked this one the most. They played a water relay game and water tag also, but I forgot to take pictures.

Here's the best part----the yummy treat!!!! They had brownies with vanilla ice cream on top.


They all had a good time, but it was SOOO hot that day. The water games were a good idea. At least the kids were cooled off. I can't say the same for the adults.