Turtle

The boys have been talking about the wonders of pets lately - especially pet turtles.

And then what do you suppose their Aunt Louise found crawling dusty under the swings at the walking track?

An adorabley tiny painted turtle.

They named it Heidi (Hide-y) or Camo (short for camouflage) because it loves to hide.

 They have played with it for hours.

I didn't even know it was possible to play with a turtle for hours!

Thanks for the great pet, Jenny Lou!

Strawberry Boy

I bought a little pot of these pink flowers on clearance at Lowe's last year and they came back again this spring and they are going crazy!

I think they're beautiful.

 Caleb's favorite after-school snack these days is to pick as many strawberries as he can hold, then wash them and cut them up and eat them on yogurt.

 If we're out of yogurt, he just mixes them up with some sugar, like at Grandmother's house.

 The veggie garden is filling up. 

I added some more cardboard and pine needles.

 We have a boxelder bug infestation.

Today Caleb picked dozens of them off the plants and dropped them in a bowl of soapy water.

He says they probably need more boxelders in heaven and he's sending them straight that way.

Field Day

This morning, Eleonora and I (and later the cousins) headed over to the ball fields to watch the boys' field day.

 I love that both boys' teachers had class shirts made at the beginning of the school year, and they wear them for all field trips and activities.

 We were just in time to see Caleb win first place in the sack race.

He's #14, just to the right of the older boy in the blue shirt.

 Thank you to the Traceys who gave the boys "hopping sacks" for Christmas a few years back,

which has resulted in lots of practice in this particular event.
I should also note that I competed in the sack race at field day with this same gym teacher, probably in the same field, and I remember my mom and baby Heather coming to watch me!

 Eleonora was quite the celebrity with the boys and their classmates.

 Both brothers managed to give her a smooch as they moved from field to field.

 See Josiah in the pink shirt?

 Here he is with his good buddy and his sweet teacher.

Jennifer and I were distracting him right when his sack race started, so there was no double Shibley victory this year.

 After that, the girls all headed over to Amanda and Evelyn's for a little weeding fun.

Jennifer played with the four girls on the trampoline while Amanda and I got down to business.

Eleonora and I stayed for lunch and tasty treats.

These girls only pulled up two sunflowers and picked one green tomato.  Ha!

Chattanooga Zoo

On Tuesday, we loaded up the van (that my mother so generously let us borrow) and headed for the Chattanooga Zoo.

 That's a lotta carseats. 

 Here we are about to get started.

 Checking out the apes.

 Some strange animals.

 Two mountain goats.

 She's not so sure about this carousel thing.

 We ended up on this sleigh instead.

I have a picture of the two of us in this very spot when she was a tiny, overheated baby.
I'll have to hunt for it!

 We ended up at Lupi's for delicious.

 If you want to taste one of the most delicious tastes of your life,

get a spicy chicken calzone with extra dipping sauce.

Delightful!

Thanks for a lovely day at the zoo, ladies!

Tuesday

Happy Tuesday!

Eleonora and I are headed to the zoo.

Today I have an assortment of pictures for your viewing pleasure.

 This is some of the fabric we used to decorate pillow covers at Craft Weekend.

 And here I am making many pillow covers out of many yards of fabric.

A chance to use my dormant math skills.

You should have seen Jennifer and me trying to figure out how much of this fabric to buy at Hobby Lobby while three little girls frolicked about our ankles. 

 Flowers from my yard for my Secret Encourager (Secret Encouragee?) at Moms4Moms.

 Our yard had tons of iris foliage growing behind our porch when we got here, but I have moved them all around and this year, they have bloomed like crazy!

My second year using the cardboard gardening method.

I put strips of cardboard between my garden rows, then cover it with mulch of some sort.

Last year we bought straw.

This year I have pilfered 7 trash bags full of pine needles from our walking track.

Ha!

Eleonora Learns

 Eleonora loves the music on Starfall.

Here she is dancing along to the ABC's.

 The Beatrix Potter book on Eleonora's arm was part of a set Josiah recieved at a baby shower.

 The boys would never give them a chance, but other little girls who have visited have read them.

 And Eleonora loves them!

Bays Mountain

We had a wonderful time in Kingsport!

We ate so much delicious food - ice cream, strawberries, roast beef, potato salad, slaw, cornbread, green beans, creamed potatoes, corn, biscuits & gravy, sausage, pies, and more strawberries.

We also took a visit to nearby Bays Mountain.

There were all kinds of things to see there.

I couldn't find one of Eleonora's shoes when we got to the park, so she spent her visit mostly perched on her Poppa's shoulders.

I don't think either of them minded a bit.

Aunt Cathy was visiting from Texas, so it was an extra special visit.

Thanks to Grandmother for a lovely visit, as always,

and to Poppa for taking us along and being our tour wilderness tour guide.