Conversations with Mitchell and random pictures

Above:Mitchell and me at Six Flags.

Below: Mitchell at the park, he HATES this picture and I love it. He says " Mitchell stop being funny at the park!" when he sees it on a slide show video we made for him and MK.

Above: Mitchell calls this the Monkey Man. He says "He's a Monkey, He's a Monkey, He's a real Monkey Man!" while climbing this.

Tonight Mitchell and I went on a snow cone date. We went to a big snow cone stand and sat outside at the picnic tables. Mitchell said "I am on a date with you, just like daddy, he is on a date with sissy at home"

Mitchell is very caring about others. He gets upset when he sees other people cry. Tonight he said "we should bring a snow cone to daddy and sissy, they love snow cones"

While on our way back Mitchell picked up his Bible from the floorboard of the car. This is one of those baby Bibles that doesn't have pictures, it's just the new testament. He started flipping through pages and would ask me what story was on each page. I told him things like... this story says that Jesus loves children just like you, and this one is about Jesus giving food to hungry people. Then he started saying " this page is Esther, she is queen and daddy is king" (Stephen played Xerxes last year in the Summer Spectacular musical), this one baby Jesus- away in a manger, then he said this page says that "Dah-Dah (my dad) put a boy under the water" I was surprised by this one. I told him yes Dah-Dah did put him in the water, that's called being baptized. We do that to tell Jesus how much we love him and tell him that we want to obey him. He said "I want Dah-Dah to put me in the water but I DON'T want to go under."

Six Flags

My kids love going to Six Flags. We have been 3 times already this Spring because we have season passes. We decided to go today for Day 2 of Stephen's Birthday Weekend. When we pulled up Maggie Kate got so exited and shouted "yay, horses!" because she loves the carousel so much. Mitchell is sooo tall he is able to ride alot of rides. He is only two inches away from being able to ride the Judge and the Shockwave. Maggie Kate is the exact opposite of him. She is sooo tiny she can hardly ride anything but she loves rides and cries when Stephen and Mitchell leave us to ride something. Mitchell is a little apprehensive about rides but enjoys them once he tries them.
I know we have many more adventures to come at Six Flags. We always have so much fun together. I just love being with my family. They make my heart happy!

Maggie Kate

Maggie Kate is seriously the world's sweetest girl. She is happy about 98% of the day. The only time she gets upset is when she is ready to eat and when Mitchell takes away her bears. Maggie Kate is sooo different from Mitchell. It's really neat to see the difference between how a boy and a girl act. She is 100% girly girl. Here are some facts about my angel baby.

1. She loves babies and stuffed animals

2. She has a blankie that she sleeps with and carries around

3. She LOVES Care Bears

4. She loves to sing.

5. She acts out what she sees on movies, especially ones that we watch over and over again.

6. She loves her bubba and looks for him every morning when she wakes up.

7. She has slept in her bed all night long since she was 4 months old. We just lay her down awake and she puts her self to sleep in minutes.

8. She LOVES her daddy.

9. She acts like she is 3 years old.

10. She holds a crayon properly

11. She bites some one at school about once a week- which is so weird b/c she never bites at home

12. Her favorite color is yellow- she got that from Mitchell

13. She eats with a fork

14. She loves to play outside and drive around the power wheel.

15. She is tiny- she looks like such a baby b/c she is so short, I think Mitchell was about 5inches taller at this age.

16.She loves rides at six flags including the Conquistador and the Log Ride- b/c she is so tiny we look like crazy people taking a baby on rides at six flags

17. She will not keep a bow in her hair which drives me CRAZY!
18. She loves to pray at dinner and always prays for my dad first

19. My favorite thing that she says is "awh mannn"

20. She gives the sweetest hugs b/c she pats you on the back while hugging you.

Maggie Katie is such a blessing to our lives. She has the sweetest spirit and is full of joy. Gosh, I love that girl!

Blogging Again- well maybe

I stopped blogging just because I have absolutely no time. But I really miss blogging so I am going to try again- no promises though.
So lately things have been crazy at our house- Stephen started a new job in November and we moved to the north side of town in Dec ( we sold our house and close in June!), I went to Australia for 10 days on a school trip and recently I was in a car accident, broke my finger, and had surgery. We also just started Summer Spectacular practice which is sooo much fun but also very time consuming ( practice 3 nights a week).
The kids are growing up so fast. They are learning so much in school and just surprise me everyday.
Mitchell Update- I will spend the rest of this post updating about Mitchell. My next post will be about MK.
Mitchell is two and 1/2. He has really been testing boundaries and limits this year but in the past couple of weeks I have seen a change in Mitchell's behavior. Lately he has been saying, yes ma'am, and yes sir, please, thank you (or just "thanthss" which I love), and now your welcome. He's favorite things to do are: play blocks, read books, watch home movies, sing, do puzzles, and play outside. He asks to go to the zoo or the park everyday so we try and go once a week. His favorite foods are tomatoes, strawberries, pizza, and donuts (actually sausage rolls- he would eat 10 if I would let him but I cut him off at two much to his disappointment). His favorite color is yellow which started b/c he loved Greg the Wiggle when he was one. He wants yellow everything! We literally have to open a pack of fruit snacks till we find a bag with yellow- luckily sissy doesn't care as much and she will eat the bags with out yellow. Mitchell loves his yellow blankie and he wraps himself up in it and calls himself "baby Jesus." One of Mitchell's quirkiest traits is that he loves villains and scary things. This obsession began at Halloween and has continued throughout the year. He calls them "scaries." Right now Mitchell is sleeping with Sylvester (aka- Sylbester) but he switches out guys about once a month. He also takes something weird to bed with him like a book each night as well as a "sipper of water." CONFESSION: Mitchell still has a passy. I know it is awful he will be three in August but I just don't have the heart to take it from him. He doesn't use it during the day at school, just in the car and at home and when he can sneak it past us. I will be dealing with that issue soon though. Here is a recent picture of my precious boy.
Life would be so dull with out you Mitchy!

Tonight might have been my most adventuresome night in Australia. I ate seafood. Here I am about to eat my first octopus. It was very chewy but wasn't terrible. I also had calamari, shrimp-with the eyeballs, and mackerel. It was all pretty good. I haven't had much protein since I have been here because I think the beef is disgusting and the chicken is always served cold (HELLO-has anybody in Australia ever taken microbiology before, cold chicken! I would rather eat an octopus) Working backwards, we went to the rainforest before dinner and hiked a pretty tough trail and then we same in the water falls where there was a natural slide from the rocks. You would get in and the current would pull you down a little stream and down the huge rock slide. It was amazing! Me and my girls had so much fun trying to go down holding hands. Then earlier this morning we went to the Botanical Gardens. It was beautiful! The plants were amazing. I wasn't sure how we could top our experience at the reef but this was just as fun and so incredible to see the different ecosystems here. My students are behaving perfectly and having such a good time most of them are going to be at about 8:30 b/c we are moving so quickly through the day and it is SOOOOO hot. It is 92 degrees but the humidity makes it feel like 108. Tomorrow we are headed for the Outback! I am so excited about sleeping under the stars, I wish my dad could see the stars they are going to be amazing. I will not be able to get Internet for a few days until we are back in Cairns so this will be my last post till Thursday.

My plate of food and I ate every bite!

THese giant guys are everywhere!

This is where we went swimming.

Plants at the botanical gardens.

Ginger

Another type of ginger.

baby pineapple

Australia Post #2

I took all these pictures with my mom's digital camera. I can not believe how good they turned out. The picture above is a parrot fish. The picture below is a jelly tentacle. I got so close to him.

Oh my goodness! The Great Barrier Reef is the most beautiful place in the entire world! YEsterday conditions were perfect. It was about 89 degrees and clear skies. The water was crystal clear and was about 80 degrees. We went on a day cruise with a company called Cruise Magic. We cruised out to reef which took over an hour. The view on the boat was amazing and no one got sea sick, thank goodness! On our way there we had a Biology class were we learned about the reef ecosystem. The Biologist on board described all the fish to look out for. My favorite was the parrot fish, they are called that because of their colors. My other fav was the butterfly and clown fish because they find a mate and are monogamous for life- made me miss Stephen though. So when we got there we rented wet suits (that was attractive-let me tell you!) and got our snorkel gear and jumped right in. We had to wear wet suits because the ozone is much thinner here and you burn in seconds and also it is jelly season so the suits protected us against stings. Snorkeling is like riding a bike if you have done it before you just know how to do it. I took this for granted and was shocked by the number of students who were not good at it and did not know what they were doing. THey kept swallowing sea water and alot of them gave up after 30 min or so. So I was so amazed by the coral. IT was so beautiful. There were so many different kinds and different colors. I went underwater and I don't think I came back up for a solid 2 hours because when I did come back up there was noone snorkeling except me and one other person. They had the area we could snorkel marked off and had life guards watching other wise I might have swam off into the deep blue without knowing it. So I realized that it was lunch time and went in to eat. I had some Delicious Cuos Cuos (shout out Theodore!) and some fruit that was amazing and then I checked on my kids and went back out. Then after another hour of snorkeling I went on the advanced snorkeling adventure with 7 of my students. They took us out on a boat to wall (just like in Nemo) where the reef ended so we could see large schools of fish which attract large predators (SHARKS!) We saw a white tip shark that was about 2 meters in lenght, he swam right by us. He was so cute and I was not afraid of him. We also saw giant jelly fish and Gill from nemo (a moorish idol) and nemo himself. I did not get to see a giant sea turtle but we did ride the EAC (eastern Australian current) which was really strong. I am kind of sore today from my 5 hours of snorkeling. Yesterday was so amazing, God is so creative!
Today we are going to the Daintree Rainforest to take a canopy tour and then to swim at the waterfalls.

I would like to take this time to thank the inventor of Skype he is my BFF. I have been able to talk to my kids and Stephen twice. It is so good to see them and hear there voices. I miss you guys!

Australia Post 1

Katie and a Kangaroo!

This guy walked right up to me. To bad he wasn't attacted to me because I didn't get to see his feathers

A dingo- they walk them like dogs on leashes all over the wildlife center.

Me and a cockatoo

For those of you who do not know, I am in AUstralia with 29 teenagers. We aer on a Biology field trip to Cairns Asutralia for the next 7 days. SO everyone say a prayer for Stephen who graciouslyt stayed behind to take care of Mitchy and Maggie Kate- also ignore my typos I am in a hurry because I ahve to pay for internet.

We arrived to Australia this morning at 10:00 Sunday (Auzzie time) which is about 6:00 PM Saturday night your time. THe flight was long but not terrible. The seats were very comfrtable and we had 80 movies to choose from on our own TV. I watch New Moon twice, The Blindside, and Most of the Lovely Bones. We all have great looking cankles now becasue of the swelling from the plane ride. Right when we got to Australia- remember no has showered in at least 30 hours we hoped on our chartered bus and headed to the Cairns Wildlife Center. IT was amazing. It was very small but had the most amazing animals. THis is me and Pipper the Koala. He was so soft and he cuddle withyou like a baby. I cried a little lbecuase it made me miss Maggie Kate.

THen we went got to feed Kangaroos and hug them. Kangaroos are my favorite animal so this was a great treat for me. THey ate out of your hand adn were so cuddle, the would just come up to you and put their head in your lap. We then went to see the croccodile show where Steve Irwin wannabe showed us how they feed the crocs. I am going to try and post video but my connection is not great here. After we left the Wildlife Village we went to our hotels to take much needed showers. Then we loaded up to go to an AUstralian Grocergy store.. It was intresting to see the blend of american and Australian products. I did pick up a pack of Wiggles training nappies (AKA pull ups) for mitchell. He is going to be so excited because he still loves the wiggles so much. We had to go to the store because Auzzies dont like people to cook their breakfast when they are on Holiday so there is no breakfast at the hotel. We then went to eat dinner at a pizza place where the kids ate and ate. SO far my assessment on the food is that it is weird. I am not a fan so far. We shall see. So now we are back at the hotel I have slept 3 hours over the past 36 hours so as soon as curfew hits and I check rooms I am off to bed. Tomorrow we will be takinga day cruise to the Great Barrier Reef for a day of snorkling and diving for those who are certified. I will try and post the next 3 nights before we head to the outback to go camping where there will probably be no internet service. THanks for checking in, Family: I miss you more than words can say. See you tomorrow.