Catching up with the Cato's, Part 2

Oh how we have missed the beach!

Catching up with the Cato's, Part 1

Love these happy blueberry faces! 

I have really been slacking on the updates since we moved.  But it's been with good cause!  We have been enjoying the river, beach, library and just running a-muck all over this hill we live on!  Trampolines to jump on, swings to tackle, goats to play with, rooster attacks to guard against...

Wait,  WHAT?!? 
Yep.

From Jackson's telling of it, the "black-and-white chicken" doesn't like animal crackers, and so that's why he attacked.  That makes TWO TIMES this week I have seen my son with blood running down the side of his face.  A LOT of blood!  The other time was a hammer mishap.  I'm ready for the injuries to stop for a minute!

Here are a few more snapshots from the past few weeks. 

Megan and Madison held a karate match for the parents to enjoy.  Just like everything else these two come up with, it was pretty much hilarious
!

The kids also got to make sock puppets at the library.  Sadly, the glue didn't quite do the job and these puppets are no more. Maybe if they had waited until it was dry to use the puppets...

Here is our wonderful children's librarian with the girls.
We love Miss Dori!

Look how cute they are!!!
We had a few days of warmth and sunshine, so the kids decided on a picnic lunch in the back yard.

Sweet memories!


 Jordan and Trent were invited to join a group of 1st grade homeschoolers for a day of fun!


Stephanie had set up stations for all of them to visit with bowling, painting, necklace-making, the hot plate, and card-making.  I think the kids loved playing with the parachute the best! 

Here Jordan is doing the hot-plate station.  She had so much fun!

I have more pictures of the river and the beach, but this post is getting too long!  I'll try to get those up tomorrow!  

Home from Alabama!

 

Guess who's back?  

We didn't travel to Alabama, but our Flat Stanley's did and they had an AMAZING time!  This was to be the third state visited, but by the time they were done traveling around with the Prater family they had visited a grand total of TEN STATES!  

We got our package a few days ago and I still can't believe what the Prater's put together for us.  Have a look!

The Prater's live near the US Space & Rocket Center and so the package had an outer space theme.  Jackson LOVED that! 

Here they stopped at the Chocolate Crocodile and the oldest hardware store in Alabama.  I loved the little tidbits of information that they included for each stop!

They also visited the Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas.  This is a place that the Duggar family has visited.

Then the Stanley's got to tag along on a road trip to Texas, where they visited a Six Flags and The Alamo!  Jordan was so tickled about the cowboy hat on her Stanley in this picture.

They stopped off in Louisiana to visit the WWII Museum.  Can you even believe how awesome this is?!?

Next stop:  Gulfport, Louisiana, which is along the Gulf of Mexico.  Look at that beautiful beach!

Megan saw this and said that she couldn't believe that her Stanley had traveled all over the world!  Then I told her that this was Paris, Tennessee--not Paris, France.  But it's Paris nonetheless!  A miniature Eiffel Tower still counts, right?

On the way to Ohio they stopped in Kentucky, which was neat because we were just telling the kids about the Kentucky Derby.  It's funny how much of this was in our study this year (The Alamo) and how much will be in our studies next year (WWII and astronomy.)  Yay for extra resources!!!

Finally they made it to the Prater's home state of Ohio.  

Thank you so much, 

Prater Family!