Summer Catch Up 2

This summer has been hot.  In between vacations we have spent a lot of time outside with water play.  We got a new pool witch all three kids love.


In fact, they love it so much (and I don't want to have them tracking wet feet and suits through the house) that we have often reverted to picnic lunches or dinners outside.

Summer Catch Up 1

Wow.  We are now back in the "real" world.  We have been on and off of vacation for the last two months and in and our of internet connections.  However, we are back home and ready to cherish the last few weeks of summer vacation.  For you all, I will spend this week catching you up on our summer.

The first trip we took was to Toronto, Ontario to see some wonder friends and to attend a stacking tournament.  Jon and Michael had a blast at the tournament and introducing our friends and their three young sons to sport stacking.  They won lots of medals at the tournament and held mini tournaments at our friends' house all weekend.





If you didn't catch it, our friends Julie and Kevin have three great boys as mentioned above, but they also have a sweet daughter one year older than Becca.  We had a couple of changes that weekend to have some mini girls parties.

Here are the ladies hanging out in the bath together.


Followed by some fun coloring, mostly using purple.


And don't forget a tea party


with some great dollies


and some pretend tea for the ladies too.


However, when all you have are brothers to play with most of the time, why not spend some time in the comfort of car racing too.

Money!!

We have a jar that we keep in the kitchen that collects loose change.  Michael had it out the other day to count it since they spent the last couple weeks at school learning about money.  Now, Jon and Becca want to play with it all the time.  And of course I'm thrilled to find something "educational" for them to play with that keeps their attention and keeps them out of trouble.

So being the brilliant mom that I am, when Becca asked at first to play with the money I had visions of me on the floor 20 times a day picking up all the coins.  So I got out some baking pans and it worked great.  The two of them will sit and dump the money into the pan and then slowly put them back in the jar (or the cup I got out to supplement because sharing the jar didn't work so well).  Then it all gets dumped out again.  What fun for preschoolers!

We Have a First Grader in the House

I can hardly believe it, but Michael is officially done with kindergarten today.


He told me when I picked him up that while he will miss school, he thinks he has done enough for a while and is ready to spend some time with his family. :)


(I know the real reason he is so excited to be done with school for the year: Tim got out a new computer game that he said he would wait to install until school was done.)

I Can Cut

Becca continues to amaze me with the motor skills she has developed much earlier than her brothers.  I contribute it to a mix of the fact that she is a girl (and girls tend to be more coordinated toddles) and the fact that she sees her brothers do amazing things and doesn't want to be left out.  One of the skills she figured out completely on her own was how to use scissors.  She asked to cut one day while I was working on a project and cutting some things out.  I gave her some paper and the scissors and thought I'd see what she could do before I stepped in to help.  All by herself, she showed me her skills.

1. Use two hands to pull the scissors apart.


2. Stick the fingers from one hand into the holes.


3. Add the paper and cut!

Fun With Hats

Mother's Day

I know Mother's Day was a couple of weeks ago, but wanted to share the layout I did with pictures from the day.  I love my kids so much!!!