Gracie’s 6th Birthday Party

Gracie is our friend’s daughter who turned 6 this weekend.  She and Kasey have spent a lot of birthdays together.  So this year’s birthday was at the Artsy Café, downtown. 

The first thing they did was color a butterfly necklace, made a frog wall hanging and then made a bead bracelet. 

Kasey always makes the funniest faces.  Anna, next to Kasey, is another one of Kasey’s good friends, she goes to the babysitter with Kasey. 

Here is Gracie, the birthday girl!

Here are all the kids together, making funny faces.  Have you noticed that Kasey is the only little boy at the party?  Yes, he is.  He loved it!  I think I am in for years of trouble with this little boy of mine.  Everywhere he goes, he always goes right for the girls!  And, they go right for him too. 

Gracie likes frogs, so she had a really cute frog birthday cake.  Yummm!

And noise makers, I made sure to send the noise maker to Grandma’s house.  Kasey was spending the night with Grandma after this party.  I hope he drove them crazy with the noisy thing! 

Grace blowing out the candle.  We had a lot of fun at the party and Kasey said it was the FUNNEST party he had ever been to.   

Kasey’s First Day of Pre-K

Kasey started Pre-Kindergarten about a month ago, August 17.  I’m such a bad blogger since I’m just now getting this posted.  Pre-K is preschool before Kindergarten and it’s 4 days a week, Monday through Thursday.  The kids that live in the country go to Pre-K in the morning and the town kids go to Pre-K in the afternoon.  It was also Mark’s first week back to school teaching after being off for the summer.  Both of them were apprehensive about going back, so I had them pose for an “I don’t want summer to be over” picture. 

Both of them making the funny face.

Don’t you feel sad for both of them?

Here is Kasey with his happy face on ready for school!

Kasey goes to the babysitter in the morning, Miss Margo, we love her so much.  He gets on the bus from Miss Margo’s and rides to school which is about 1/2 a mile.  The first day, the bus didn’t pick him up.  I didn’t go to Margo’s to see him on the bus, because I was afraid he might have a problem with it, like he wouldn’t want to let go of me.  So I called Margo after he should have been on the bus and she told me that the bus didn’t make it.  She called the bus barn and talked to them, but it had been over a 1/2 hour, so I told her I would come and get him and take him.  He was pretty upset. 

On my way over I called my mom, but she wasn’t home.  So I called her cell phone":

Me:  “Are you at the school?”

Mom:  “Yes, I wanted to see him walk into the school!” Silly mom, she just couldn’t help herself.

So we both walked him into school into his classroom.  I took a quick picture of him as I was leaving!

He really loves school, seems to love everything about it.  He talks about it a lot.  He went to preschool last year and he wouldn’t even tell me what he did, he’s say, “I don’t want to talk about my day”  But now, he says he has a great day and he just loves it!  I’m so glad, I think his teacher is really good too.  Her name is Miss B.

My little boy is growing up.  Sweet but sad….

DaVinci Exhibit in St. Louis

Mark and I went to St. Louis this weekend to a Cardinals game (they won against the Atlanta Braves 4-3!).  Before we went to the game, we stopped off at the DaVinci Exhibit at the Bank of America building, which was about 2 blocks from the stadium. 

Course, with Mark being an engineer, he really enjoyed it.  Were allowed to take pictures in the exhibit. The exhibit was about Leonardo’s drawings that were made into replica models.  Some were interactive and you could make them do things, others had signs that said “Do Not Touch”.  Those were the ones Mark would always go for and I’d say “You Can’t Touch Those!”.  I think everyone did that because they didn’t really have them protected.

This was a car idea.

 

This had a handle on it that you turned and it would pull the wheel in toward the device and push the pole up for an easy way to lift long things.

This was a hammer, you turned the handle, the hammer would lift up then fall down and hit the anvil.

This was a paddle boat. 

You would turn the handle on this, there was water in the bottom, it would be picked up through the spiral tube at the bottom, then deposited in the top. 

A bridge that could be easily assembled.

This was a model of a underwater breathing apparatus.  Like a modern day dive helmet. 

This was a water life preserver.

These was a pulley system.  The first one you couldn’t hardly lift the bag of sand, the second one with the 2 pulleys was pretty easy, the 3rd one was much easier and the 4th one on the far right was the easiest to lift.

This was a bike.

A parachute!

A helicopter.

This was a tank idea.  The cannons would shoot out from all directions, the lid would close down to protect those inside the tank. 

 

This was a war device, there are metal cutters, an animal or something would pull the device and the choppers would chop down anyone or anything that got in its way. 

It was a really neat exhibit.  I always knew about DaVinci’s famous paintings, the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, but I didn’t realize all the engineering ideas he came up with and all the drawings.  It was a really neat exhibit and well worth the $14 to visit it.

Grilling a Brush

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you grilled a brush on your BBQ Grill?  Well, I have the answer for you, right here…

Not just one but TWO brushes! 

 

 

Mark put the grill brushes in the grill, moved them off the back porch so we could clean the porch off.  Then went to heat up the grill today for some hot dogs. 

Kasey ran in from the porch, yelling “Dad, the grill is smoking!”. 

Mark said, “Yes, I know Kasey, grills smoke.”

So Kasey went back outside and the grill was still smoking, a lot, Kasey ran back in and said “Dad, you better come out here, you have to see this!”

I called Mark and Kasey from work to see how they were doing and Kasey immediately told me what Dad did.  He was sure HE would get in trouble for that one! 

I think it might be time for a new grill. 

Balloons, Balloons, Balloons

Saturday, we went to the California, MO first ever Balloon Invitational.  We had heard about it from a friend on facebook (don’t you LOVE facebook!) anyway, we decided it sounded like a fun thing to do.  I really like seeing the pictures of the balloons in Albuquerque, NM and would like to go to that someday. 

It started at 7, we got into town early, but it was so hot, we didn’t want to sit around in the field waiting for 7.  Killed some time in McDonald’s because they had a play place.  Sure is funny the places you go when you have kids huh?  It was cool and kept Kasey occupied for a while, so that’s what is important.

The first balloon to air up was the Missouri Lottery one.

 

There it goes!

The rest of them getting ready for flight.

Kasey wanted to go play games, but the games were all done.  He sat down here

…. and then did his grumpy I’m mad at you pout! 

The balloons were really cool in the sky.

I think there were 20 or 22 total.  I am not sure I heard the total count and didn’t count them.