Homemade train

I've been trying to encourage Raymond to use his imagination more lately.  He seems so much more interested in computers lately and I don't want use of technology to take up his whole day!  So you can imagine how proud I was of him for constructing this homemade train out of the recycling bin!  Yes, beer bottles was his choice of freight. 

Nature Walk

It was a gorgeous fall day here yesterday and so we went on a nature walk (you know, in our urban neighborhood) and collected some items to use to make art!

Raymond's giraffe- sorry, you'll have to turn your head, haha.

Raymond's lion face- roaarrr

A Day in the Life of US!

Raymond's activity for the day: Making a puzzle!  He drew a picture and I cut it into a puzzle for him.  He was pretty excited by this.  It is turning out to be quite challenging, actually!  Probably because he didn't have too much color on the picture.  

And here is what Mommy did while he worked on his puzzle- tried out a couple of recipes with the green tomatoes from the garden.  One is a relish and the other is a green tomato bread (like zucchini bread but with green tomatoes.)

Family Fun

We spent!   the afternoon walking a trail at the nature center.  What a fun day.  Here is a cute picture from a really strange angle, though.

Another not so great picture- but you can see how pretty it is there at Powder Valley 

A Very Hungry Caterpillar Storytime Party

Here is a preview of Lucia's birthday party photos- more to come.  It was a joint party with her friend Joseph, who turned one two days before her!

The Eric Carle Butterfly fruit tray

Daddy blowing up balloons with the birthday girl.

The Eric Carle Caterpillar veggie tray and  sun made out of hummus and peppers.

The foods the caterpillar ate in the book are on the mobile.  The baby books on the buffet...

The dessert bar.... yum!

The party favors- homemade playdough to take home.  You can kind of see the invitation on the wall in this picture as well.

In the corner is a caterpillar with the kid's pictures and a box to collect books in lieu of gifts.

The birthday girl enjoying her blueberry custard cake!

Thanks, Aunt Linda!

Aunt Linda sent this awesome wagon for Lucia's birthday and some books to share with Raymond!  The kids obviously enjoyed the gifts!!  They couldn't wait to open it!

Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

Turn your favorite photos into a photo book at Shutterfly.com.

Catching Up

The kids broke the camera cord so I haven't been able to upload these in a while- but here are a few pics from the last month or so.

Lucia RARELY ever laughs.  She is a very serious baby.  So, I was thrilled to catch this on video.  Only Raymond can make her laugh like this!

 Here we are enjoying our homemade cherry cheesecake ice cream!  It was really a pretty healthy treat, too!

Gotta have a picture of sleeping babies, right?

Poor Raymond has had a rough summer.  Here is a picture of the burn he got when a light bulb randomly fell out of the ceiling fan fixture in his room and he went to touch it.  How crazy?!  Poor little guy. Then there was  getting a stomach virus on his 3rd birthday, followed immediately by hand foot and mouth.  Then we all got sick with some fevery/stomach ache thing and then a few days later he got fifth's.  And now the poor little dude has a cold!  All in just 3 months!  Hopefully he can catch a break soon.  At least we haven't had any broken bones!

Bathroom Remodel

 It is finally done!  The Buyles have spent the last nine weeks working overtime on a bathroom remodeling project.  We've all helped in various ways!  (See below: Raymond "helping" by doing the puzzle of the tiles). But Kenny has gone above and beyond!  He has been working two jobs and spending every minute of free time on the house.  Thanks, babe! It was a long nine weeks without a bathtub to bathe the kids and having to go to the basement to use the toilet but we survived.

The demolition took a lot longer than expected.  Kenny also had to do a lot of prep work  underneath.

Putting tile up!  Raymond thought it was a puzzle.  Every time he would see something new done, he would get so excited!  He is also in the "why" phase.  So we've answered why we are building a new bathroom in a hundred different ways.

The hard worker in action.

Here we had layed out the pattern on Kenny's truck outside.  We tried different ideas with the stripes and  decided to go with two rows of four.  Thanks to all for your help with that decision.  It turned out great!  

Almost done.  Unfortunately we were stuck in the phase forever it seemed.  We kept having to "redo" the grout!  The first time, it dried too fast before Kenny had a chance to smooth it out.  So, we had to scrape every grout line out.  Then, my mom was helping and ran into the same problem to a lesser extent.  So, we got to scrape it all out yet again.  

The floor before we put the vanity and toilet in.  The first vanity we bought was messed up, too.  So Kenny had installed it almost all the way, then had to take it out and return it!  He was pretty frustrated, as you can imagine. We ran into problems with the floor as well.  The tile kept popping up, even after we grouted.  So we got to scrape the grout out around many of the tiles and glue them down again, then grout again.  URGH.  

BUT, The final product was SO WORTH IT!!!  WE LOVE OUR NEW BATHROOM!  I could sit in there all day!  Here it is:

New towels to match!

Hungry Girl

A Hot Fourth of July Celebration

We braved the heat on the fourth of July to go to the parade in Webster Groves.  We had a great time, but were pretty exhausted from the heat.

When I grow up...

Raymond brought up the following yesterday:
"When I grow up, I want to be a worker."
"What kind of worker," I ask.
"A train worker.  I will build trains and tracks." He replies.  "And when I'm done, I'll do chemistry."

Water Babies

So, one of our kids loves water, the other is terrified!  Raymond hates having "water poured over his head" as he tells us EVERY SINGLE TIME we try and give him a bath.  So, I took my sister in law's suggestion to  try goggles.  It worked a bit.  He liked the idea at first, but then got scared as usual.  The experience sure created some funny pictures.