Blake's first performance

Blake had his first piano recital on Saturday. Just remember he's had only 7 lessons so far! He performed two short songs: 'Swinging Monkeys' and 'Elevators and Escalators.' He had no fear of performing at all and did an excellent job. We are very proud of him. I will post a picture of him later, so you can see how little he looked next to all the other players. But listen to him perform below.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Fall fun

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Being the dooms-dayers that they are, the media was predicting a bad fall for colors. But the colors were bright and vibrant afterall. Above is the crimson maple in our front yard, and I think it is the prettiest it has ever been. Jennie, we used our "foliage" setting on our camera to shoot this one! We also raked some leaves and of course jumped in them in the backyard. Here are the boys hard at work and jumping and having fun. Click on the photos to see more.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting



Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

'I eat turkey!'

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Drew's class at the YMCA gave their Thanksgiving performance on Thursday. They sang a few songs, and we had Thanksgiving dinner. Here's a picture of him in his hat he made. Click on the photo below to see more pictures from the event.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Happy Halloween!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Take a ride on a mini-train

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I stole this idea from my friend Jennie, so thanks Jennie for pointing me to this website. See posting on 10-14 for more information on this train.

Out of the mouths of babes

Drew was being really silly before bed tonight. He was up on Blake's top bunk and threw a pillow at Scott, and just thought it was hilarious. He really cracks himself up. He was still laughing about it as Scott was trying to put him to bed and reminiscing about his funny act, he said, "I laughed so hard, I lost my mind."
Not sure where he picked up that phrase.

My goofy family

Arrrrrgh!

We had a party at our house on Saturday, so the family "themed" that night. Here's a picture that Blake took of Scott and I. Not bad. Of course, our heads were cut off in the first one he took, but "you can see the rat really good," Dad told him (note rat by my knee in this one. Blake insisted it had to be in the photo).


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

And of course, Blake and I had to mug for the camera. I think Drew took this one (with a little help from Dad). Hence, why it's a bit out of focuse.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Online scrapbooking

Howdy, partner!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Blake and Drew are Buzz and Woody from Toy Story this year. Here they are before a Cub Scout Halloween event.

Picture that makes me go ahhhhh

Drew's class took a field trip to the Watershed Nature Trail. This is him (in green jacket) with Zachary and Danny, two of his buddies from school.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

A ride on some tiny rails on a tiny train

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Glencoe, Missouri, has this great miniature train ride if you have kids. Drew really enjoyed this ... I think almost as much as Uncle Don. The trains are operated by the Wabash, Frisco and Pacific Association. They are 12-inch gauge steam trains. Volunteers keep the trains running and also help out with selling tickets and other things. The ride is a 30-minute round trip ride that's a little over a mile long. It travels through some woods along the Meramec River on the miniature train.
Here's Drew doing "his train" There's lot more pictures, so be sure to click on the top one and look at them all at Dropshots.

http://www.dropshots.com/sklingsick#


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

What's a pine needle taste like?

Get ready for a flurry of posts.
We'll start with Blake's Cub Scout campout. We camped out at Silver Lake in Highland. It was fun though the campfire on Friday night started a little late for our two early-to-beds. Drew fell asleep on my lap at the fire, and Blake was ready to go -- right after he had a marshmallow. Only one other Tiger Scout came from Blake's den. Jop is from the Netherlands and is living in Edwardsville while his Dad works for a year in the states.
Here's Jop and Blake eating their Candy Cannon loot:


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

The highlight for Scott and I was when Blake tried a pine needle. This man named Luther who is very involved with the Scouts conducted a nature tour on Saturday. This guy knows EVERYTHING about nature. Anyway, he was telling us this story of some pilot in Bosnia that survived on grass and leaves and other things. He also told us that if we had to survive, pine needles were edible. So Blake decided to try one.
Here's his reaction:


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

The kid won't try carrots, green beans or broccoli (pretty much anything green), but he'll try pine needles! Go figure. Next time I serve him his chicken nuggets, he's getting a side of pine needles. Apparently, he likes the White Pine variety.

The highlight for the kids by far was the Candy Cannon. One of the scout leaders wrapped up gobs of candy in some newspaper, shoved it in a pipe with some gunpowder in it, and out blasted the candy. The kids loved it. Be sure to listen this video with the sound because the guy's pretty funny, dragging it out and getting the kids into a frenzy. "Did I tell you about the candy coming out of the cannon and going up ... oh, I did."
"Just fire it!" You have to watch it in two takes.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

One last game

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Scott and Blake got in one last Cardinal game before the season ended. And thanks to A-B and their Aunt Beth and Uncle Don, they had a fantastic game. Blake and Scott toured the dugouts and ran the bases. Plus, Beth's seats were upgraded to the box! Blake was excited because he finally got to buy a souvenir because they had Anheuser-Busch bucks to spend at the game.

Check out these cakes!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

We were at a wedding this past weekend that had the best cakes I'd ever seen at a wedding. The bride and groom like to travel, and each cake was dedicated to somewhere they had been together. Here's the Baha cake. It was my favorite. Blake and Drew loved the Antartica cake because it had penguins -- edible penguins! Click on one of the photos to link to the rest. There were 5 cakes.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

"Picking" apples

How bad did the April frost hurt the apple crop? On Drew's field trip, we went to the apple farm to pick apples. We "picked" apples out of a box under a tree. AND the apples were from northern Illinois. Heads up to Mills Apple Farm for keeping the orchard open for school tours and importing apples, so the kids could go home with a bag of them. You could also buy apple cidar -- from Peoria.

Corny fun

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

We visited the Godfrey Maze about two weeks ago. This year it has a Western theme. There's two paths you can take and if you can answer quiz questions (we chose the pop culture ones), you can get clues about which way to go. They give you a flag to hold up if you get lost. One of the "wranglers" comes to help you out. We did both mazes in about an hour without getting lose. We played in the corn pit (think sand pit, only with corn) and the corn kernals get everywhere! We also road the cow train and shot the corn cannon. A great time if you have a chance to visit it this fall. Click on one of the pictures to see more.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Drew starts school

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

Interview with a 3-year-old:
Drew (running up to me when I picked him up): When we got to class, they handed out Guessing Buckets to some boys. You get to bring your guessing buckets home.
Me: What do you do when you get them home?
Drew: Nothing. You just have to guess what's inside.
Me: Okay. How was school today?
Drew: Good. We had snack goldfish and teddy grahams. And juice.
Me: What was your favorite part of school?
D: Playing in the gym.
Me: Who'd you eat lunch with?
D: Alan Busse sat across from me. I sat by Alexa when I colored. And Danny sat at the table, too.
Me: Did you make any new friends.
D: Well, I don't know there names yet. But there was another Mitchell (Blake also has a friend named Mitchell). But he wasn't the same as Mitchell. He had weak teeth (giggling).
Me: Weak teeth?
D: Yeah (giggling). He had weak teeth.
Me: What do you mean weak teeth?
D: He had weak teeth (still giggling).
Me: Weak teeth?
D: They were purple. (still giggling)
Me: OKayyyyy ...

Drive-in visit

I brilliantly didn't bring my camera, but the kids made their first visit to a Drive-In movie theater on Saturday. We saw Underdog. It was cute, the kids liked it. "There's no need to fear, Underdog is here!" or Drew's favorite: "There's no need to fear, Underwear is here!" That was in the "bloopers" during the credits. The kids went to sleep after that movie, and Scott and I saw Hot Rod. 2 hours of our lives we'll never get back. We went to the Litchfield Skyview Drive-In. We popped the hatch on our Honda Pilot and all piled in the back to watch the movies.
Only $2 a person to get in (under 5 was free so Drew got in for nothing) and the Snack Bar was reasonably price. We only spent $16.90 the whole night. That was for 2 movies, a tub of popcorn, a box of gummy bears, a bag of peanut M&Ms, a soda and 2 waters. Not bad!
Hopefully, it won't be their last visit to a Drive-In. The Skyview Drive-In in Belleville is up for sale. As far as I know, the Litchfield one plans to stay open. Next time, I'll bring a camera!

Soggy camping

We went camping out in the country at my parents house this weekend. The weekend started out a little wet. We hastily put up the camper in between rain showers. Also, my parents lost power the first night. So much for having AC in the camper though we didn't really need it because the storms had cooled it off.
The kids enjoyed tractor rides with grandpa, fishing and just visiting with Grandma and Grandpa Wilke.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting