Chickens, Turtles, Butterflies, and Blue Tailed Skinks....

What do Chickens, Turtles, Butterflies and Blue tailed Skinks have in common?  They are all things that our boys love to chase.  Here are a few summertime fun pics. 

Here is Eli on the tractor. This is one of his favorite things to do. Climb on the tractor, Ride on the tractor, watch the tractor drive around, and pretend that he is driving the tractor while it is in park.

Feeding the Geese at McKay Park in Jeff City.

A blue Tailed Skink.

All of the turtles Sammy brought us.  The boys love to "rescue" them.  We keep them for a bit and then find a good place to let them go where Sammy won't bring them back.

We got butterfly nets in the dollar section at some store.  Shiloh took to it right  away.  We have so many butterflies and moths around here. He would spot one and do this funny little stance and sneaky walk.  It is soooo adorable.  He got pretty good at catching them too.

Here he is with one in his net.  Victory!

This is a brown thrasher.  They are very shy birds.  You don't often see them in the wild, but we happened to have one that nested in our bush right by our barn.  We got to lift the boys up to see the babies and the momma.  It was such a fun experience.

Another favorite thing at our house is chasing chickens.  The chickens don't seem to mind it too much either.

Our next door neighbors lease out their 20 acres to Chris for his cows and for bailing hay.  Chris and his family and his dad also live in Tebbetts.  They are so good with our boys.  Every year at bailing time, they let us know when they are going to do it and they take our boys for a ride in the tractor while they cut, stir and bail the hay.  It is quickly becoming a favorite tradition of our two boys.

In the summer, we do bath time every night, and sometimes twice a day.  My boys get sooooooo dirty playing outside.  One night we started the tub.  Shiloh can get in by himself, and apparently, Eli thought that we were taking to long to help him and he just climbed right in with his clothes on.

I hope you enjoyed the randoms of this summer!

We Love Missouri: Rock Bridge State Park

 

We decided that we needed explore the state we live in a little more thoroughly.  We always say to everyone that we love it here, and we do, but we realized we hadn't done much exploring.  So we have a goal to see more of what Missouri has to offer because, well, we want even more reasons to love it.   The first place we decided to check out is Rock Bridge State Park.  It is just about 45 minutes away from us, and we couldn't have picked a more lovely day to go.  We also didn't even see the half of what the state park there had to offer, so be forewarned, we will probably be revisiting this title down the road.   You can see the main attraction  in the above picture.  It is this massive rock bridge (duh!) in which a stream goes through.  The really amazing part about this whole place is there wasn't a "Stay on the designated path" mentality.  There were paths, but park rangers said to feel free to go under the bridge and explore off of the path as well.  If you know me and Kenny at all, you know that is definitely the way we like it.

Before we started our trek, we had a picnic lunch.  A cute fuzzy caterpillar joined us as well and was a highlight for the boys.

There was a little stone plaque right by the picnic area that the boys got all sorts of use out of while Ken and I finished eating.

Here is a view of us heading into the tunnel.  The boys had a blast throwing rocks into the water and keeping their eyes opened for bats!

We decided to have a go with some of the boardwalk paths.  What you don't see in these pictures...there were soooo many stairs, sometimes 20 or so at a time and they went up and down and up and down.  Eli loved it!  Which is great.  He didn't want to stop.  He wanted to just keep going.  No nature admiring for him, just pure climbing and energy disposal.  Needless to say, he kept me warm and a little out of breath.  Notice cute Shiloh's walk and how big he was carrying his own backpack and both sippy cups.

The story that you can't see from this pic:  Shiloh having a freak out just prior and Eli rolling his cup off of the boardwalk for attention, and me, daringly mind you, climbing over the fence and onto the mountainside to get the cup to avoid further screaming from Eli.  We lucked out because a tree root stopped it from rolling off the twenty or more foot cliff into the stream below...  The things you do for your children and, maybe more importantly, for a little peace.

Just outside the Devil's Icebox, a very chilly cave with bats.

Shiloh in the cave.  He got to see a few bats and was very excited about it. I didn't go in.  I have seen enough bats in my life that I was content to just let them alone.

This is a view looking up from Devil's Icebox. The walls were covered in moss and ferns and it was just gorgeous.

We loved this outing.  The boys had a blast, Ken and I had a blast, and we got to discover more about where we live.  I am actually really excited to see more of this state park and to explore the other state parks that are close by.  Stay tuned for more posts about why we love where we are.

Tadpoles

There is a little place that we like to go called Runge Nature Center.  It has paved and unpaved walking trails, ponds, and indoors there's an area for bird watching, aquariums for fresh water fish, animal puppets, a nature library, snakes, turtles, lizards, and animal shows, but all my little boys needed from there on this outing were.... TADPOLES.  We started a little walk.  This little pond is about two minutes down the path.  It is ritual to get on the rocks and look in the pond.  Sometimes we see bugs or a frog.  They were so intrigued with the tadpoles.  They stayed there staring for about a half of an hour.  It was cute.

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Here the boys are after we had almost finished the hike.  Eli had been a stinker the whole time, when it came to pictures, so this is the best one of him.  It isn't a great pic in the first place, but Shiloh's smile so  sweet that I had to add it in.

Caught Up - Spring is Coming

Last Week we finally got some Real Rain and not Rain/Snow. In fact, we got over 7 inches of rain in 3 days.  Our stream was running again so it was time to get out and go out exploring.  The boy's favorite thing is to throw rocks into the ponds.

Catch Up - Finishing Off Summer 2013



Summertime Walk on the Katy Trail.

Sandbox Fun

Garden Harvest Time, and Canning Time

Tractor Drive in Tebbetts.  There were over 70 Tractors for the boys to see.  Tractor is one of the first words from both of our boys. Tuh Ter for Eli

Sticker Fun.  It has been so neat to see Shiloh and Eli play and interact more and more as Eli gets older.

A Few picks from a Photo Shoot in our yard by one of our Friends Sharon

A beautiful day!

 So, since this outing only a few short days ago, it has turned into normal winter weather, but we had a few days in the 50's and 60's here and there.  We decided that on Saturday we would take a walk on the Katy trail and take advantage of the abnormally nice weather.  We have been on few walks on the trail, but it spans almost the entire state, so we decided to drive to a spot not far from us that we hadn't explored yet.  

  It is mostly a biking trail.

Sam forgot to inform us that he is afraid of bikes.

If I would have known, I would have left him at home.

Wrangling two kiddos is enough work, but to add an unmanageable dog that barks and growls and yipes at every biker is just annoying.

That aside, the outing was great.  We decided to go on part of the trail that had a neat bridge over a smaller tributary river, and then takes you right along side the Missouri River, or, as it has been dubbed in our house by Shiloh, the "big big river", or sometimes, the "big big tubbie"

 

  

Shiloh LOVED Running up and down this big bridge!  It was such a neat bridge and I will definitely keep it in mind for some sort of photo shoot. You can see in the first pic the little red blob, which is the double stroller, and me and Eli.

 Here I am pushing the boys along.  Ken and I took turns with who had the CRAZY dog, and who had the big stroller.  I do have to say that since we thoroughly tested the stroller out on a four and half mile trek, that I am quite certain it was made for paved roads, not dirt and gravel trails, however nice and well maintained they may be.

Shiloh loved looking out at the big big river.  There was a steep hill right there and then a nice sandy beach below.

 Kenny decided to take an adventure with Shiloh and Sam to the sandy beach and river below. I stayed behind to feed the little guy.

What the above pictures don't show: Shiloh being covered head to toe with sand, Shiloh trying to scoot closer and closer to the River all whilst Kenny is yelling at Sam for jumping into the river and then rolling in the muddy sandy yuck at the edge, Kenny throwing Sam back in the River to get the aformentioned guck off, and finally Kenny having to drag wet Sam and sandy Shiloh back up an enormously steep sandy hill....

Gotta love the adeventures of 2 year olds and dogs.  Never a dull moment, I tell ya!