Nature

The kids and I went on a bike ride yesterday. It took us about an hour and a half to ride about 1 1/2 miles. Blake is a slow poke. But we were almost to Cherry Hill (our destination and turn around spot) when we stopped b/c right there on the sidewalk almost under my bike was this:

Well, it looked almost like that. It had a LOT more red/orange but not in stripes, they were in this triangle pattern. Yikes. Anway, he was busy. The frog stuck half in and half out of his mouth was not. So, we stood there and watched this go on for a few minutes and I think Blake, who is very fond of frogs and toads, got sad and decided he wanted to help the frog. Before I could do anything he reached for it. Luckily that frog was in his mouth. He whipped around Hailey screamed and we all jumped back. Blake decided to let the snake have the frog afterall. Poor thing. We went on and played at the fountain and looked around for a bit and then went back that way b/c of the snake. He was still there with the frog still half in and half out. I wonder when he finished his dinner.

On a different note here are Aidan's pirate party invites:
The outside anway. The inside says: "Aye.....ye be invited fer some birthday spirits at Captn Tyler's Buccaneer BashChart yer course fer the "location" ? Day of monthWe be a meetin at "time" fer some swashbuckling fun, grub and kiddie spirits.Wave yer flag if ye be attendin or hav yer mum send message by yer phone to "number"Sees ye there.....aarrgghh!

I did the inside printed on sand colored paper with some pirate doo daas, printed it out, and then ripped 2 of the sides a bit and then taped it inside this card. It looks cute. OH, and in case you're in love with this kit like me, it's available at ES called It's a Pirate's Life by Nikki and Jen. Tooo cute!!

AND my sister (thanks Chickie!) helped me come up with a behavior chart for him to earn extra goodies for his party. Here is how it turned out ( I know you're dying to see it).

He puts a smiley sticker over each thing as he's earned it. So, the first one is for his treasure cake (instead of a plain cake- I know I'm a MEAN Mommy) and he has morning, day, and evening to get through. If he gets through the morning without ^$#@%^&^%, then he gets a smiley face on the first treasure box. The boats are for the pirate ship pinata, and the swords are for the foam pirate swords. Neat huh? I thought so. He's pretty optimistic.