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Every day one of the students in the Youngest's class gets to take home a bag about a fictional character. Their choices are Dr. Seuss, Arthur, Winnie the Pooh, or Curious George. Each of the bags contains a stuffed version of the character of choice, a book about the character, a game or puzzle about the character or topic, and a shaped blank paper booklet in which the students get to write their own story about the character. The teacher changes the books and games so that if a student chooses the same character bag more than onces, the items inside are different.

Today was the Youngest's turn to bring home the character bag. He chose Curious George.



Here he is with Curious George and the book he wrote.

Sunset with Geese

The other week, after getting back home after the Middle Child's photo shoot, I heard geese honking. I could tell they they were in the sky behind some tall trees in our yard. Even though I couldn't see them, I could tell which direction they were heading, so I aimed at the sky, pointing my camera at a gap between the trees. As the geese flew by, I snapped a couple of pics.




The setting sun was turning the sky a gorgeous color and provided a beautiful backdrop for the silhouette of the geese.

I'm submitting this photo for the "Looking Up" photo challenge over at Shoot-N-Tell. Be sure to head over there and "look up" the other entries to see more interpretations of the theme.

***UPDATE***
My photo won an honorable mention in this photo challenge!

Weekend of Water Fun

Some friends of ours have a lake cottage that has been in their family for 3 or 4 generations. (It was either our friend's grandfather or great-grandfather who built it.) They invited us to spend Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend there with them. We've been there with them before, and we jumped at the chance to go again!

Saturday was pretty cool, but some of the older kids were brave enough to do some tubing.





Meanwhile, some of the younger kids were just thrilled to ride along in the speedboat.

(Oldest Son was trying to warm up after tubing.)


When not tubing the kids spent much of the time in and out of the paddleboat, canoe, and docked pontoon boat. The cottage's lake frontage is wonderful for kids because you can walk out 100 ft, and the water is still only about 5 ft deep ... very shallow. However, we did have the kids wear life preservers when playing around by the shore, on the pier, and in the boats.

The Oldest and Oldest Son taking some of the younger kids for a canoe ride


Attack of the water gun soldiers!




The weather was warmer on Sunday, and all of the kids except for the Youngest took turns riding on the "hot dog." We adults and the kids who weren't riding the hot dog enjoyed cruising on the pontoon boat as it pulled the hot dog behind.




(This one is my entry into Paper Mama's "Excitement" photo challenge.)





Some of the kids even got to spend some time fishing off the pier and some of the docked boats.







What an awesome, fun weekend!

Racehorse

Hubby's parents and grandparents live in a town where there is a horse track. A couple of years ago we happened to be there during racing season. One morning Hubby, his dad, the kids, and I went down to the track to watch the horses train. I snapped this pic as one of the horses galloped by.

I know it's not the best pic, and I can't crop it any more or it will be even grainier (I took it with a digital point & shoot.), but I think it's pretty neat how I captured the horse with all 4 hooves in the air.



"Horses" is the theme over at Unique Exposure. Head on over there to see more of these beautiful animals.

Butterflies

Perceptive Perspective has "Critters" at its photo theme for this week.

We have a bunch of coneflowers planted in the flowerbed in front of our living room window. This year a whole bunch of butterflies discovered it and decided to make it their playground. Sometimes when you walk past, atleast 6 butterflies fly up out of the flowers. Today I snapped some pretty nice pictures with my telephoto lens.



This one is my favorite because I love how the depth of field almost makes the flower with the butterfly on it look like it is floating out of clouds.




Be sure to visit Perceptive Perspective to see more awesome critter photos.

Mountain Goats

Simplicity's photo challenge this week is "White."

Nanny goat and kid at Logan Pass, Glacier National Park


Visit Simplicity to see more white-themed pictures.

Hello, Toad!

The kids found a toad in the grass yesterday and caught it. They used the bottom of a cardboard apple box and made a whole environment for it, complete with grass, rocks, and an old ice cream bucket lid full of water and a bit of sand. Quite the digs!

I asked our oldest son to take the toad out of the box and set it in the grass so I could get a good picture of it.



The challenge at You Capture this week is "Get Down Low". You can't get much lower than this since I was lying on my belly in the grass when I took it!

Mr. Toad was very cooperative during his portrait session. I think he only hopped away from me once when I was taking his picture.

I asked Oldest Son to put Mr. Toad back in his temporary home when I was done photographing him. No, I did not want to touch the ugly little creature! Oldest Son had no qualms about it though!



Check out You Capture's "Get Down Low" photo challenge to get the low down on more pictures taken from down low.