"You get what you get, and you don't get upset!"

An older neighbor girl has been "visiting" our home for the day. Supposedly, we are babysitting her; however, a certain part of me feels we should be paying her because she has spent the entire day entertaining my two older kids.

They built a massive tent. One could even call it a circus big top tent.

They hunted, caught, leashed, and trained an assortment of wild animals. Animals included eagles, dinosaurs, bears, kangaroos, armadillos, and giraffes. 

They created leashes out of pipe cleaner and leashed their animals to the posts of the "big tent."

As the three trained trained their pets to eat, they informed the random assortment of animal puppets, "You get what you get, and you don't get upset!" This is not a Wendy or Ben phrase; which made it interesting to hear come repeatedly out of Cameron's and Andrew's mouth. 

Of course, they did more than fun and games. The cleaned the house and did chores too! 

In the end they earned their movie, pops, and popcorn.

Whew what a day!

Ben

Bunk bed use

Wendy and I bought the boys a nice "ladder bed" (bunk bed). They were both super excited about it. Which of course means that now their favorite two places to sleep are in the recliners and on the floor.

Andrew coloring

Andrew appears to have inherited the trait for always wanting to do things right. Andrew rarely ever draws anything freehand. He does however like coloring already drawn items. When I color with him he points out any time that I color a fraction outside of the lines.

Introducing Spencer Hunter Stuart

First Photos and Videos

WARNING: Lots of baby photos taken by adoring parents!

Hospitals now give baby and mom bonding and skin-to-skin time right after the birth. This meant that little Spencer Hunter got an hour with just his mommy before the nurses weighed, poked, prodded, and assessed. During that time he gained a nice baby red glow. 

Hospital Photos

I left the camera with Wendy while she and Spencer were alone at the hospital. It is good bonding time for them; as well as a good time to try to get more pictures of a little one. 

Enough with the photos!!

Solo photos at home

Once Spencer got home he did not receive any break from having a camera lens pointed his direction. We carried from window to window to find the best lighting. Besides a few truly quizzical looks he didn't mind too much as we kept addressing his main concerns of eating, sleeping, and diaper changes.  

Boys Bathroom

 Master Bathroom

Office

Bedroom

Excited for Christmas

Andrew has been excited for Christmas since Halloween. This morning he was disappointed to learn that Christmas being after Thanksgiving did not mean the day after. Setting up Christmas helped his disappointment.

Lighting pumpkins with Uncle Scottie

Wendy and I grew some pumpkins in the backyard garden this year.  Karoline happily helped our two boys empty their carving pumpkins and cut in fancy designs. We had ghosts, a normal pumpkin face, and a cat with a moon. Scott helped the two boys light the pumpkins outside once they finished. 

I have to say that Andrew and Cameron's pumpkins look a lot more fancy than any pumpkins than I ever made as a child. 

Car drying

We cleared out the garage enough to move the car in. Andrew noticed that the car was wet from the rain and spent the next ten minutes drying the car off.