Making Memories

Since returning from our camping trip to Virginia, Charis and Matthew have been working on a scrapbook to capture their memories of the trip. They had collected a few leaves and flowers while there, but once we arrived back home, they had browned and turned to crisp so we were unable to use them. I allowed them to find some leaves around our house to use instead. Here is Charis shading a maple leaf and Matthew shading an oak leaf. The expressions on their faces were priceless as Mommy showed them how the leaf "appeared" by coloring on the sheet with the side of a crayon!



Next project is a pine cone. We found a perfect little pine cone but I am not sure how to "capture" it for the scrapbooks. I thought of just taking a picture, but I want to be more creative than that. So, maybe we'll pull out some finger paint and let them roll the pine cone in the paint and then over a sheet of paper. The "mommy" in me is not quite prepared for the challenge of clean up afterwards though. And with only one pine cone, they'll either have to both be the same color (which the individuals happen to enjoy expressing their individuality) or it must be washable paint to do one and then another color.




On another note, here's a little creepy crawly who decided to visit us on our door jamb. Imagine me nearly tripping over Faith who was behind me when I open the door to take a picture of the oak tree below and come face to face (yes, he was eye level) with this:
Not that I am petrified of a daddy-long-legged spider, just spiders in general. I can pick one of these up (with bare fingers!) and remove them kindly (you should have seen how many I had to remove from the tent during our camping trip!), but any other spider, no matter how big or small, must be squashed with a shoe! I actually left this one to stay or go as it pleased. He was gone by afternoon, when the temperature warmed up a bit.

*~*Foto Friday*~*

I don't have any fall decorations beyond what the Lord has given us in His beauty and creation around our house. Here again is the oak tree that I have been taking pictures of each week. This was taken on this past rainy Tuesday. The red cluster is gone and now the tree is doppled with browns in the midst of the green.

Getting a little Froggy!

How close is this picture to the ones you see on billboards or copier advertisements? This little fellow was sitting on my back door step, where he nearly became nothing more than a messy green glob of goo, had I not stepped over him. My first thought was a leaf; I am glad I took a closer look! And now you can too:

We prodded him to move from the step to a safer spot. He jumped on me and on Charis, which was a wierd feeling of dampness and yet he'd not pee-ed on us either. (Don't worry, we still washed up good, just in case!) He then landed on the trampoline where we got the great shots. We turned the fun into a science study, showing the kids where his nostrils and ears were and examining his pads which allow him to stick on whatever he lands on. He did open his mouth, so we were able to see his tongue, but he didn't eat anything for us to see him in action.

The Oak Tree: Going from green, to red, to brown in just a week.

Hokies to the Heart

Yes, we are Hokies! Virginia Tech is our college football team and we proudly play the song and wear the colors. Maroon and orange go well together as fall colors and, of course, fall is football season! Go, Hokies!