Walker's Question

Today at church, just after we finished our last worship song.

Our worship leader, Jeremy lead us in some responsive reading.

After the congregation responded for the last time, Jeremy began to pray for us...

Just as he was finishing going to the Lord, he said Amen.

In that little silence part before the next part of worship

Walker softly says...

"Mommy, do pirates pray?"

I love my 3 year old named Walker.

Wes' Snake Tale

Because I think the world of my husband and really only for that reason am I going to share this story.

I am not by any means fond of snakes.

I don't even like to talk about them.

But

I have a very manly, masculine husband

and again, I think the world of him.

I think he is brave and I think he is an excellent decision maker when it comes to pressure and stressful situations.

He also has an adventurous heart, which I love.

That being said, his snake tale begins.

So Wes and a few other men took the Uptown church youth boys on a camping trip.

(For what its worth, I was with the youth girls at a hotel having our overnighter)

The boys were hanging out by the water at night doing boy things.

One guy, Patrick is playing with a frog. He spots a snake swimming closely by.

It is a brown water snake (not poisonous).

Wes, moves everyone back away from the water and (because he is who he is) chunks a large rock at the snake.

The rock hits the snake directly and chunks it under water.

A few seconds later the underside of the snake slowly rises to the water.

Dead.

Again, Wes makes sure all are standing back and (because he is who he is) pulls the dead snake out of the water (with a stick.)

Chops the head off.

Buries it (wasn't sure if it was poisonous at this point - it closely resembles a water moccasin)

And wouldn't you know it.

2 frog legs are sticking out of the throat.

Wes (of course) pulls the legs out.

A frog goes hopping off.

It was alive!

Looking more inside of the snake, another frog (alive) is pulled out and hops off.

This continues until a total of 4 alive frogs go hopping off.

Still. more.

There was a dead frog.

Then another one.

And THIS continues until a total of 5 dead frogs are pulled out.

So this snake had eaten 9 frogs before it swam near my husband and his life, would drastically end.

So what does one do at this point?

Well, if you're Wes Andrews you skin it.

So all of the boys skinned this pour snake.

Then what does one do?

Well they each took a section of its skin.

For their keepsake.

And then what?

Wes coiled it up.

Cooked it over a fire.

And they ate it.

A Caterpillar Tale

A few weeks ago, Wyatt caught a caterpillar.

He faithfully fed him fresh leaves each day.

And eventually he named him Walkey.

"Why Walkey?" I asked him one day

He thought it over and gave me a great answer:

"Because he has so many legs."

I thought each day about letting him go. But Wyatt was really treasuring taking care of something he fully had responsibility over. He sought out this creature for his bug kit - and now had the privilege to care for him.

Walkey remained in the bug kit, eating (as the jagged-edged leaves gave away) and seemingly...happy.

One day I asked Wyatt how Walkey was doing

"Oh. He's a cocoon."

Perplexed, I asked more about that when Wyatt brought his bug kit over to me and sure enough, that little creature had buried himself under a leaf and indeed, the beginnings of a cocoon was revealed. Bits of a cotton like substance was on top of the leaf and under it.

Well, we watched and watched. Each day I'd ask Wyatt how our little Walkey was doing.

"He's still a cocoon today."

We placed his little home near our dinner table so that we would not miss his big performance, metamorphosis, transformation!

2 weeks went by. I thought about googling several times to see how much time a cocoon needed.

This morning Wyatt was checking on Walkey and sure enough...

a brown little moth had stepped outside of the "cocooned-leaf".

We all sort of just watched him. He wasn't moving. Almost as if he was catching his breath before his journey continued.

Wes took the top of his container off and said that we should put him outside for when he takes his first flight.

Wyatt grinned and said.

"I'm going to change his name."

"To what?" Wes and I asked

"Flappey. That's his new name."

A few hours later I went outside to check on him.

Flappey was gone.

T and Lalla

A few weeks ago cousins T and Lalla were able to play together. They are sooooooo cute together. I must say.

It's been sweet to get them together at their growing stages. I believe this one so far has been the cutest.

Though I've thought that with each of their meetings :)

They were very curious about each other this time...

Sweet little cousins and friends.

Born 3 weeks apart to the day.