Bugs & More Bugs

Warning:  This is all personal and very picture intensive.

A couple of weeks ago Liam came down for a visit with my parents over the summer vacation.  I decided to kidnap him on Saturday for a day with me (MWAHAHAHAHA).  I had heard that  they were having a World of Giant Insects at one of the local museums and thought that would be a great idea, right?  hehe

We started the day off with picking lunch up and going to the day for lunch.  It was nice, turned out a little warm and he was already full of quite a bit of energy.  Which was not a problem because we were at a park and he could run around & when we went to the museum next he could take it out there.  However, he comes the fun part.  While we are sitting there eating our lunch, he starting complaining about all the… bugs… OH NO!  The flies and the ants.  I tell him honey we’re eating outside it kinda comes with the territory.  Did he want to go somewhere else?  No we are fine.  Ok, so we manage to finish lunch & I ask him if he wants to go for his surprise now.  He’s excited and off towards to the museum we go… me now a little apprehensive, him super excited.

We get there and the first thing we see is a person dressed up in a termite costume.  I should give you a little back story here.  When Liam was smaller and he saw anyone/anything dressed up he would climb you to get as far away as possible.  Thankfully I learn that day he’s gotten past that fear, he was even a little curious.  As we enter, this was the next thing we see…

That’s right a huge praying mantis, which Liam thought was cool.  As we continue in we go into this room with more giant replicas of bugs like beetles and grasshoppers & he FREAKS out!!  When I say freaks out I mean he starts ripping my arm out of its socket pulling me out of the room saying in a very loud & determined voice “SARA!!! I DO NOT LIKE BUGS!!”  You can imagine my surprise as we had just seen this praying mantis and didn’t have a problem.  I tried reassuring him but he was having none of it.  I told him ok, well let’s check out what else is here.  This is what he found next:

Liam loves getting himself some tattoos.  When she asked where he wanted his, he said on his cheek because the girl that was putting them on had hers on her face.  He got a centipede.  It was so cute. (The funniest part about this was later after we left & got ice cream a lady about freaked out because she thought he had a real bug on his cheek) At least he was calm now.  We continued on a little further and then found,

Now I’m not sure if you can tell what this is so let me tell you.  That ladies and gentlemen are racing cockroaches.  You heard me correctly…COCKROACHES.  HUGE ones.  They had about six of them.  You got to pick which one you wanted to race and if yours won you got a prize.  Nice, right? LOL.  You see Liam standing there, you see how far away from the table he is?  That’s because he didn’t want to race the cockroaches. I asked him later why not, he told me it was because he was afraid they were going to make him touch them.  Can you blame him on that one?  NOPE, not me.  He was upset though that that meant he didn’t get a prize though.  In case you can’t tell how big they are, I’ve given you a little close up of the lovelies.  We left that area right after we found out it included snakes.  He informed me he really didn’t like them, in that case I agree whole heartedly.

Onward we went, and I think this may have been one of Liam’s favorite areas…

He was “digging” up dinosaur ones.  He kept moving to as many areas as he could to find more.  After this we went to the Planetarium show and it was here Liam turns to me & says, “Sara, after this I think I want to go look at those big bugs”. I grinned & asked if he was sure, which he was…so we did.

  And so ends our adventures in Bug Land!!

Late & Far Behind

I'm such a slacker and so behind on everything. I'm behind on my Friday Fun Challenge but I'll be back with it later. I've been a busy girl designing a website. I'll leave you with a pic of what my nephew & I did with a gingerbread house.

Intergalactic Planetary

I didn’t get to do much crafting this weekend, but that’s ok.  When I was up helping my sister shoot a wedding over the weekend I didn’t get to see Liam for that long either.  However the time we did get to spend together was full of giggles.  One part of it was when we went into his room to play.  He put on his CD, then this song began to play he says “Hang on I like this song” and then starts it over and busts into a dance.  I was cracking up so bad… it was too much!!  I had to grab my camera and take this.

Craft Time

Last week when Liam was down he wanted to come over and hang out with me. He had a bunch of coloring sheets of dinosaurs that he had downloaded from www.pbskids.org (he loves this site!!). I had him load up his sheets & markers and off to my craft room we went. Since I rearranged my room it was the perfect setup for us to both "work" and get stuff done. I set him up at his table (I even had him where he was watching a movie) and I was at mine. There we were just coloring, when he turns around and tells me "I just love it when we hang out like this and work"... How cute is that?

Not long after that he came to check out my coloring (I guess to make sure I was still within the lines). He liked what I was coloring better I guess because he wanted to color the same thing, of course I gave him one. I asked him what he wanted to do with it when he was done coloring it. He told me make it into a card like you of course!! What was I thinking?

Here are our finished projects...The cutie patootie with his. The only thing I did was to cut the paper to card size, he picked out the paper. He choose to put the flowers on and where.

Stamps: Dorothy Anya (Digital)
Paper: PTI Kraft, GA Pacific White, Jillibean Soup - Lentil Soup - Ground Grains of Paradise
Tools: EK Success Punch, Nestabilities, Copics, Fluff, Sparkly Fluff, Mushroom Alcohol Ink
Embellishment: Possibilities Sticker

Love You This Much!!

I have to tell you when I'm around my nephew he makes me all lovey dovey. He's such a cuddle monster. You'll be sitting there and he'll all of a sudden tell you I love you or come over and give you a hug. He's such a sweetheart and I hope he never grows out of it.

Stamps: Apteetude with sentiment
Paper: Papertrey Ink - Dark Chocolate, Bazzil - Monochromatic Browns, Jillibean Soup - Grandma's Christmas Soup - Can Beef Consomme, Prism - Simply Smooth White
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black & Rich Cocoa
Tools: Copics (including Air Brush System), Nestabilities, Stampin' Up Word Window Punch
Embellishments: Hero Arts Jewels

Play Date

I had my very first play date as a grown up. My nephew was down this weekend and we got together with some friends of ours to go to the park. I'm friends with their parents and he the kids. We had a really good time, they were there for 2 hours, running and playing the entire time. I swear I don't know how they do it!! I wish I had some of it. I mean I know we did once but we should really be able to have it when we can really take advantage of it.
While you ponder that, here are a few of my favorite pics from our "date".

Craft Day & Candy Winner

Ok, yesterday I had the following conversation with my nephew:

Liam:  I don't have a mask.  I sure would like to have a mask.

Sara:  What kind of mask?

Liam:  A lion mask.

Sara:  Would you like to make it?

Liam:  YEAH!!!

And so proceeded to have our craft day.  Now let me explain some back thinking on my part (misguided as it was).  Here I was thinking, this is cool.  He will be working on his mask and I can get some work done in my craft room while he does it.  Let me resummarize that thought in one word....HA!!!!

I had to be involved in the entire process.  It was very fun.  First he wanted a front and back to his mask.  And this was to be no typical lion mask, he wanted his lion to be multicolored. (WARNING: My craft room looks like it has exploded.  Please ignore this fact)  Then when he colored the back and was finished, he wanted to put his name on it.

If this weren't all enough, I asked him, "Liam, would you like to add leaves?".  "No."

"Would you like to add flowers?"  Thinking there's no way a boy would want to add flowers.

"NO"  Ok, I was right.

"Would you like to add ribbon?"  Again thinking, he's not going to want to add ribbon.

"Yes" Huh? Ok.

Alright.  Now we have a multicolored lion that we're adding ribbon to.  I grab my scrap ribbon jar and then ask him which ribbon would he like to add.  He chooses the purple one.  Purple?  I think.  Hmmm? 

"You want me to find you some red since you said it was your favorite color?"

"No, I want purple"

By the way, he told me today purple was his favorite color.

And here is the finished product...

Now onto our last day of Blog Candy Winner.  Our prize basket winner is...

M.R