Louisiana Pets

We found many Louisiana pets all my boys wanted to take home and keep. There was a lot of pleading going on with these cute baby pets, but in the end the boys thought it was best to leave them in Louisiana because it was their home and they might miss it. Little Baby lizard. He was so fun because he would crawl around everywhere. Clay said it tickled.

Baby turtle. Justin had fun with this little guy. We gave him stay in the blue bucket hotel, equipped with a king size rock, for a few days but then set him free.

Baby toad? frog? I don't quite know. I guess this one can't really be called a baby because technically he would be still swimming with a tail in the water as a little tadpoles as a baby.

I can't forget to talk about the awesome Cable Trolley Cars we took to go to the insectarium. Hayden was in heaven! He couldn't wait to get on this thing and was almost in a trance during the entire ride, watching the tracks, the people getting off and on and thought it was funny that this type of train had to stop on the Red lights just like cars do. Hayden said, "We have to wait our turn, huh Dad? But, if we were on a Train-train then everyone would see those black and white stick things go down and they would have to wait for us to go fast fast by them"!

Justin was quite content sitting with Nathan gazing outside his window at the passing cars.

Louisiana

I know, I know, we have been back from Louisiana for a bit now and you all are on the edge of your seats trying to figure out just what we did down there. SO my apologies for taking so long!! ;) Louisiana's weather was just perfect for our visit. 90's with only a couple of days with high humidity, which is just fine when you have a pool you can dive into at anytime. And dive is just what the kids did, all day long. Seriously, my boys turn into water bugs whenever they touch H2O. Justin was loving getting in the hot tub, then jumping into Nate's arms in the pool and then getting out, running to the hot tub again to me and do the process all over again.

We taught the boys to dive head first and we were all impressed how quickly they picked up on it. The pro of the family would be Diana. She has a flawless dive in which I was able to capture in the picture above.

Justin was all about playing games. In the pool. Out of the pool. Throwing a ball to others in the pool. And teasing us by touching the water.... look at us.... get a reaction.... then giggle.

Clay is really good at diving down deep into the pool. There was no spot in the entire pool that he couldn't dive for Gold dollar coins that Steve was throwing.

Hayden is just too much fun to watch. His crazy dives and flips had us all dying of laughter. At one point we had the boys jump off the diving board trying to make the letters of the alphabet. Hilarious!! Clayton's side kinked neck for "P" was to die for and Hayden was quite proud that he needed no improvements on his letter "X"!!

Insectarium

While in Louisiana, Nate's parents took us to the New Orleans Insectarium.The amount of bugs this place had was crazy. Seriously, what are all the adjectives you could come up with to describe a huge selection of insects? Gooey, gross, creepy, dangerous, unique, colorful, sneaky, useful, scary, etc. I thought the bugs that most of these adjectives applied to were the ones to be weary of.

Not only did they have lots of live bugs in cases to view them in their "natural" habitat, they had tons of dead bugs in display cases. Colorful would be the word to describe all these different kinds of insects and the variety was amazing.

I thought the butterflies were gorgeous with all the colors of the rainbow.

One of the funniest parts of the day was when Steve gave Clay and Hayden sample cookies to try. These cookies looked good, nicely browned and soft and smell delicious, there was just one problem, they had bugs in them. Crickets were used in place of the chocolate chips in this cookie's recipe. Clay was timid at first because he is smart and knew something wasn't too right about everyone being so anxious for him to eat a cookie. Hayden had no problem, popped that thing right in his mouth with no complaint. Clay did eat his as well and after being told it had crickets in it all he could say was "I knew it, I knew you were doing something". We took the boys over to the Tasters spot and pointed out the crickets bodies on the cookies. Hayden looked at them and said "Oh yeah, there is a bug" at which he started to scratch the bug off the cookie in his hand. Once the bugs body was off good enough for Hayden he popped another bug cookie right in his mouth!

Wall Art Decor

I have had this project on my blog as one of my To Do items and now I can check that one off. My good friend Carli and I booked almost a whole day to get these puppies done...totally worth all the snacks, crayons, baby nap times, the word "NO" said to my boys over and over when they asked to paint, or any other obsticle we both handled so we could get our craft on while watching the five kids in total.
But how pretty did these turn out!!! PRETTY DARN PRETTY I say!!

They were a more challenging thing to hang, making sure all boards were even, and straight, but my skills prevailed ;)

I enjoyed making these, but I enjoyed the time spent with a good friend even more, and I think we did really good making these beauties for $16 and some change in total!!

First Grader

FIRST GRADER COMING THROUGH!!! STEP ASIDE!!!

My Clayton ready for his first day of 1st Grade. And he was ready way to early. The kid actually woke up ten to 6:00 and asked if he could start getting dressed for school. He really needs to enjoy a little bit of morning sleeping or at least allow me to enjoy it and not to ask questions till later on. Back pack? CHECK. Lunch? CHECK. Overly excited smile on face ? CHECK CHECK!!

Neighborhood friends and bus pals!

The day seemed long with Clay not home and my Hayden missed his brother and kept asking "When's Clay coming home?" Clay had tons of fun all day long at school and even said he was the best student for the day. I asked how did he know that and he replied, "Because when we were all in line all the other kids were playing with the walls and pushing each other and my teacher said 'Look at Clayton, look how he is being good' I kept my hands to myself and didn't bug anyone"

For that I say "AWESOME" now for him to work on being that good everyday he goes to school ;)

Justin

Justin Ron Cottrell

Hayden

Hayden Alexander CottrellHayden is the hardest thing ever to take pictures of!! He turns all goofy and does a crazy chesser smile that I end up laughing to hard to hold my camera still. If he is not giving me his pirate face, then it is his tongue hanging out and him saying "BLAHHH"... such a character this one is. I love his big dark brown eyes and his own little smirks he gives often!

Clayton photos

While Jessa was visiting us she wanted to get her son Ryder's one year pictures taken. I have a membership at JC Penney and took her there so we could get some of her son and my boys. Needless to say it didn't turn out like we wanted, AT ALL! I think the overly dyed blond and scary black underneath hair tech scared all the kids and placed everyone in weird position, that naturally any kid would want to get up from it. After being so frustrated with it all we decided to have our own photo shoot right in my kitchen when we got back home. Both Jessa and I had our cameras and were shooting away at Clayton, Hayden, Justin and Ryder. We pulled out different backgrounds (mostly my fabric, blankets, or towels) to make our own custom wall art, lined the floor with a fake base board, and used the natural light in my kitchen to make these pictures. I hope you like them.

Clayton Nathaniel Cottrell

Clayton thinks he is such a stud. Seriously what 6 year old tries to pose like this!! He cracks me up. He really liked it when Jessa said he looked like he was seventeen. I might be in trouble with this one!