Safety City

Piper's 3rd grade class took a field trip to Safety City. I was able to go and help out. It is a pretty cool field trip to go on. The students learn street safety and fire safety. 

This is an aerial view. It is a miniature city. I was standing where the "5" is. My job was to make sure the children stopped their car completely at the stop sign. They were to do a shoulder check, which is to look both ways to make sure it was safe to proceed straight down the road. It was interesting to watch each of the different children. They all drove differently. Some were very brave and some were more timid. I could tell when they came around the corner what kind of driver they were and when I would have to warn them that there was a stop sign that they had to stop at. Some children, I had to warn way before others. 

From where I was standing, I could watch the children learn about bus safety. They learned how to cross the street in front of a bus. They learned how far in front (10 feet) of the bus they needed to walk in order to make sure the bus driver could see them crossing the street and not run them over. They also learned how to exit the bus. 

Like I said, it is a miniature city. Here is the gas station.

A realtor office. There was a McDonald's on the other side. Everything was scaled down to a smaller size, child size.

Just like a real city, Safety City had stop signs, street lights, and street signs.

Piper was in the first group to learn bus safety. The children lined up to learn how far in front of the bus to safely cross the street when they get off the bus.

There's Piper...she just learned how to safely cross in front of the bus. Now she is waiting to learn how to safely exit the bus.

After learning bus safety, Piper's group learned how to safely cross the street.

Piper was in the second group to drive the cars. There were all different kinds of cars. This is the one Piper got to drive. She has been looking forward to this for 2 years now! 

There were bumpers on the side of the car. They were needed as the children sometimes ran into the curbs.

Piper was SO EXCITED to drive! When she stopped at the stop sign, she said, "Do you wanna take my picture?" So, I did, of course.

There she goes!

Next, Piper got to learn how to safely ride a bike on the street.

After she stopped at the stop sign and did a shoulder check to make sure it was safe to proceed, she signaled right and rode on. 

When Piper got to the stop light, she got off her bike. She checked to make sure it was safe to walk her bike across the intersection. Once she was across the intersection, she was able to get back on her bike and ride it again.

After practicing all the street safety, State Trooper Sparky Dean asked questions to review all the street safety that the children practiced. Piper is the one raising her hand to answer the question. 

I don't remember what year this fire truck is, but it was the first one that our city's fire department bought. They no longer use it, but it is restored and sits inside at safety city. This is in the room where the children learned about fire safety. 

I didn't get to stay and listen to the fire safety part. There weren't enough parent volunteers, so I had to back to my post at "5". 

Rilian's Writing

Rilian is three years old. He already knows how to write his name and his sibling's names. Pretty impressive for a three year old, if you ask me! And I did not teach him how to do it. He actually taught himself!

Here is his name and Finn's name.

He wrote Piper's name here. 

What's more impressive, is how he writes it...he writes it upside down! Check it out...

Going to Work With Daddy

I think most children idolize their parents and want to grow up to be like them. My boys are no exception to that. Finn and Seven talk about growing up and working for Jeremy. We are owners of a landscaping company. 

One of Finn's friend's mom, requested a quote on cutting down a couple trees in her yard. Jeremy thought Finn would like to go with him, since it was his friend's house. Seven also got to go along. 

Jeremy took two of his shirts out and put them on Finn and Seven and tied them up so they would "fit". They had to look professional, right?

Seven looked so proud wearing his "uniform"!

 Finn was pretty excited, too!

Halloween

You may not care what we did for Halloween, which was two months ago. But I am posting it anyway. This is the next event in my pictures. I have been pretty busy and just now posting about things that happened over a month ago. Maybe, just maybe, I will eventually catch up with the current happenings. Plus, this blog is for me, too. It will be my memories in the future.  

We carved a pumpkin. What is Halloween without a Jack-o-Lantern? Seven looks really concerned about the pumpkin as Jeremy makes the first cut.

After the lid is off, it is time to dig in and take all the "guts" out. I LOVE the expressions on Finn and Seven's faces. They are such boys! 

Piper and Rilian digging in!

Piper was really fascinated with the innards of the pumpkin!

Once all the insides of the pumpkin were out, it was time to make the face.

This really cracked me up! I happened to look at Rilian and he was holding a sharp knife. In the picture, it looked like he was going to stab Seven, but I don't really think he was. It just looked like that. This picture just looks evil!

 Rilian was getting up close and personal with the pumpkin while Jeremy cut the eyes.

Here's another evil baby brother picture! This time Rilian had a butter knife and he was actually poking Seven with it. Seven is laughing. But if you know Seven, life is just a big joke! So, of course he laughed about it!

Seven was digging the chunks of the Jack-O-Lantern's face out of the inside. Rilian was poking the mouth through after Jeremy cut it.

The completed face of our Jack-O-Lantern...since we have four kids, we let each one of them decide what each of the four parts of the face will look like. We get a pretty interesting face this way.

I had the kids pose with the completed Jack-O-Lantern. Piper decided to pick up a ball of "guts" for the picture and Rilian brought his butter knife back for the picture...I love my kids!

We have a light we stick inside our Jack-O-Lantern that changes three different colors. This is reddish color.

Then it changes to blue. I think I caught it in the transition. I couldn't get a picture of it turning green. That is the third color.

 Posing with the lit Jack-O-Lantern.

 My kids like being silly, so I let them take silly pictures after the serious ones.

 For Halloween, Seven was Darth Vader. Rilian was a dragon. Piper was Princess Peach, from Super Mario Brothers. Finn was the black Spider Man.

I apologize again for being so far behind in my blogging. I do realize Christmas is just a few days away. But maybe this will bring back good memories of your kids at Halloween!

Afro Circus

If you've seen the movie, Madagascar 3, you are familiar with the scene where Marty sings "Afro Circus". Very funny! It will also stick in your head...for a VERY LONG time...

Well, when Granny bought the movie, Madagascar 3, it came with Marty's wig. So, what did my kids do? They wore it, of course!

Rilian wasn't very happy about me taking his picture as "Marty".

 Piper, on the other hand, didn't mind at all!

You can thank me later if "Afro Circus" is stuck in your head now. At least you have two cute kids' pictures in your head to go with the song :)

Early Release

We own a lawn care company. My kids, just like most kids, look up to their dad. Often  they say they are going to grow up and work for our company. Jeremy had mentioned teaching them to mow the lawn. I guess they overheard and kept asking when he was going to teach them. 

Occasionally, they get out of school early for an early release. On this particular early release day, it was really nice outside and our yard happened to need mowing. So, Jeremy felt this was the perfect opportunity to teach the older three to mow. Finn was the first one to get a try. He tried really hard, but got too frustrated trying to turn the mower around to mow the next strip of yard and decided he had had enough.

Piper was next to try. She did a good job and stuck with it for a long time. But when she got something in her eye, she decided that was enough. Something flew up from the lawnmower and hit her eye. Her eye was fine.

Seven is a really hard worker. He stuck with it the longest. We still need to work on mowing in straight lines, though. But for a five year old, he did a pretty good job!

What do you do with your kids on early release days?

One Cool Kid

As if I wasn't already behind on my blogging, my laptop (where all my pictures are stored) has been down for a couple of weeks. I FINALLY have it back up and running. 

I took this picture of Finn one Sunday after church. Finn is a cool kid, but he happened to look extra cool that day, so I couldn't resist capturing it and sharing it with my friends.

I haven plenty of blackmail pictures of Finn, but he will be happy I also have this one. 

Entertainment Provided by Seven

One day we were at Granny's house and Seven was playing with tissue paper. He was quite the entertainer that day with a huge imagination!

Here is my Super Hero in a Super Hero pose. He said the blue and purple sticks on the front of his cape were his super powers.

 Then he made an umbrella and was sitting under it.

 A tiger growling...

Back to the Super Hero. Seven wanted me to video him jumping off the couch and chair.

Super Hero holding his umbrella and singing in the rain...

After the first two videos, Seven wanted me to video him as a tiger growling. He has a pretty impressive growl!

I guess after all that Super Hero stuff and being a growling tiger, Seven got hungry because he made a hamburger to eat.

Of course, the "video bug" was still with Seven and he wanted me to record him eating his burger. 

Must have been a really good burger! Then he added ranch to his burger...

Seven drew black spots on a white piece of tissue paper and became a cow...Moo!

Moo...Moo...Mooooooooo!

Seven then became a sheep...Baaaa!

I hope you have enjoyed Seven's entertainment as much as he enjoyed doing it! I love his imagination! I can't wait to see what he does with his life as he grows older.