Afternoon artwork

Earlier this week, after a busy first day at school the kids made themselves comfy on the floor for some quiet art time.

eve on the floor

Eve drawing a "Toyota chocolate caramel factory."

 

lex on the floor

Lex drawing a Crayola Factory.

 

crayola factory

The early version of Lex's crayola factory. This makes me laugh because the brown chute is "sending extra wax from the crayons into the river." Hmm... we had a little talk about factory pollution.

 

eve

Eve brought the little table into the dining room to make herself more comfortable. Then she drew a picture for another classmate at school. You would think it's a picture of the two of them together, but really it is a picture of the other little girl and that girl's mother, in a house. The girls grandpa drops her off at school and I'm not sure Eve could even pick her mother out of a crowd, but she drew a lovely picture anyway. :)

 

final factory

Lex ran out of room on the little white board so he expanded to the big one. Then he was wishing we had another white board so he could draw the warehouse!

 

Videos from today

This morning Eve took a pretend nap and Lex sang her to sleep. It was so cute, but when I turned on the camera Lex lost interest. I should have stayed out of their game. Oh well.

After dinner tonight Alan had a very silly conversation with the kids. He told them that he was a weirdo, and I married him so I must be a kook, and we had them, so that makes them loonybins. They laughed like loonybins!

Muscle development

collage

I am super proud of Lex today. He’s had a serious burst in muscle development lately. Development and interest. I’m sure one is driving the other.

Within the past few weeks he’s learned how to do cartwheels (not sure who taught him), how to go across the monkey bars, hand over hand, how to hang upside down on the bar with no hands, and just today he started riding his bike without training wheels! I’m sure there is more in there, but those are the big things that come to mind right now. It’s so amazing to watch.

At the beach yesterday he was playing on the playground and kept yelling for me to watch him. When I finally did (sorry Lex, I was busy) he zipped right across the monkey bars. There were eight of them I think. Hand over hand and across he went. I’ve seen him kind of do the short ones on our playset, but I’ve never seen the long ones! He did it over and over yesterday. Today he was on the swingset and I saw him hanging upside down, no hands, just hanging out.

hanging out

Just hanging out

A couple weeks ago he started doing cartwheels in the living room. They aren’t perfect, but he has the general hang of them. We were practicing at the 4th of July party and I think his cartwheel is better than mine.

No, there is no video of me doing cartwheels ;)

This afternoon we were riding bikes and then sat on the porch to take a break. I told him that Grandpa Tom is coming over in the morning and that he taught four kids how to ride without training wheels! (Right? My memory isn’t great so forgive me if that’s wrong.) I suggested maybe Grandpa Tom could help him learn too. Lex thought for a moment and then decided that today would be a better day. Sweet! We went out to the street, I held the back of his bike for a few strides, then his shirt, then he was off on his own. Full of confidence and smiles! We practiced a few times with me holding him briefly, but then he decided he no longer needed my help. With just a few minutes today and a small handful of other brief attempts, Lex is now officially training wheels free!

Sorry for the bouncy video, I was running along beside him.
He practiced his starts, stops, and turns for awhile this afternoon before we had to call it quits. I’m hoping he’ll show off his new skills tomorrow :) He is so proud of himself and I am too! My little baby is riding with the big boys now!

My neighbor down the street said “You realize tomorrow it will be the car keys, right?” Slow down!

This makes me so happy I decided to link up to this week’s Happiness Is… blog hop :)

Photobucket

Back to the beach

We went back to the beach a few days ago for another fun-filled day in the water. This time we took Mema along and some other friends.

a beautiful day

A beautiful day at the beach. Do you see Mema out on the platform? Sadly I missed the dive off, but my friend said it was perfect! :)

 

 

lunch

After a busy morning of swimming we took a break for lunch.

 

lex

Our afternoon ended when Lex decided he had swallowed too much pond water and his belly hurt. He sat in the little chair and moaned and groaned until I wrapped him up and took him home.

Red, white, and blue scones

When we were strawberry picking a few weeks ago I asked the kids what we should do with the berries. They threw out lots of idea, but Lex was pretty insistent on making scones. I wanted to make strawberry jam and I got my way first (yay me!) but when Lex kept asking about scones I finally agreed to make them. Not that I didn’t want to, mind you, but I really, REALLY like scones and I knew that making them would result in me eating them and that, dear readers, is what I didn’t want. However, when Lex started opening cookbooks and trying to find a recipe I decided to go with it. On July 3rd (old news, I know, sorry!) we made strawberry scones and when Lex suggested making red, white, and blue scones for the holiday I thought that was a genius idea and we threw in some blueberries. Yum!

We made Strawberries & Cream Scones from KAF. I doubled the recipe, but stuck with 2/3c. strawberries and added 2/3c. frozen blueberries. The batter ended up a little too moist, so next time I would recommend using fresh berries instead of frozen. As KAF suggests in the recipe :) They baked up just fine though and tasted amazing! I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a high-fat, addicting, super delicious treat! :)

strawberries

Strawberries, delicious strawberries

 

little helpers

Little helpers, washing and hulling the strawberries for jam.

 

snack time

Yogurt and fresh scones for snack. Yum. (yes, Sunday comics all week and underwear helmets are the norm in this house)

 

 

 

scones

I didn't put much effort into the photography of these... too busy eating, but they were quite pretty and festive.

Happy Fourth of July

Happy, happy Fourth of July! I realize that it’s now the 7th of July, with the 8th approaching rapidly, but alas, I will write a Happy Fourth of July post tonight. I have many more posts in my head, but life keeps getting in the way. Sometimes I have to resign myself to living life, unblogged.

Anyway, we had a great holiday! We started the day with a fun parade. Grampy Don drove up to join us in the festivities. It was HOT and sunny and we were all sweaty and happy.

Annual Old Fashioned 4th Of July banner

Annual Old Fashioned 4th Of July

fun with reflections

Fun with reflections while waiting for the parade to begin.

lex

Another pose he suggested :)

waiting

Waiting, waiting...

unicycle

Eve loved this guy! He kept high-fiving her as he went past.

nicu

A high-tech NICU float...

cows

and cows...

construction

and construction vehicles. We get everything in this parade! :)

After the parade we walked around the post-parade festivities for awhile then headed down to our local library to check out their cake decorating contest. All the local towns are celebrating their 250th birthdays so there were lots of festivities this year. I wanted to enter a cake in the contest but I didn’t get it together in time, so I definitely wanted to see what was entered. It was fun. We hung out for awhile and the kids patiently waited to eat cake :)

cakes -p1

Cakes

cakes -p2

This little girl made the pink lady bug cake for the "Under 16" category. She won 2nd prize.

cakes -p3

The kids waited patiently for the cakes to be cut. Fortunately we were in a library and they were exhausted so much of their waiting involved sitting and reading books :)

cakes -p4

There were some fancy cakes there.

eating cake

Their patience was rewarded, with piece of pink ladybug cake! Yum!

By the time we were done with the cake it was well past lunchtime. We headed home for a quick bite and some much needed rest time. For all of us!

After quiet time we packed up for the fireworks! This year we went to the local event (somehow we’ve always missed it in years past) so Alan and Lex drove the car down, loaded with our picnic supplies, and Eve, Grampy Don, and I all walked. It was great. Next year I think we can walk home too, but I was worried about getting everyone home after such a long day. I think I would have been carrying half of them! :)

We had a picnic, ran and ran and ran, and then ate some ice cream. It was fun. It was so hot and humid that the poor kids had sweat running down their necks. Whenever they got close to me I wiped them down with a wash cloth. They did great though and we all had fun. The fireworks were absolutely amazing! I’m not sure if it was their normal show or something special for the 250th, but either way, it was a great show!

running

We did a lot of running. We brought a frisbee and some balls and had a great time!

cloud watching

Eve took a break from running to watch the clouds with Grampy Don.

sitting

Grampy Don apparently makes a good seat. :)

me-n-eve

I was hoping to get a cool picture of the glow bands on our heads, but it didn't work without the flash and with the flash we got this. Oh well. Pretty girls anyway.

sparklers

One thing I really liked about the evening was seeing a bunch of people we know. Both kids saw classmates (one girl ran over to Lex, gave him a huge hug, then ran away!), and we saw Eve's old daycare teachers, and one of her preschool teachers. That girl had a bunch of sparklers and brought them over for Lex and Eve to try. It was so nice of her and the kids loved them.

After the show Alan walked home while the rest of us piled in the car. We don’t have enough room for five people, but he got home well before us anyway. My five minute drive took 38 minutes! Gotta love fireworks traffic.

This is just a sweet photo from the next day.

on the porch

Reading plant books on the porch.

We also made awesome red, white, and blue scones that I wanted to blog about, but not tonight. Soon. I hope. They were super yummy! :)

CSA

We went today for our first CSA pickup. I had to bug the kids to get them in the car (they are whiny today!) but when we got there they loved it so much I had to bug them to get them back in the car. (I’m kind of whiny today too!) The farm is just beautiful, the owner is super nice, and we had a great time exploring. As an added bonus, we came home with TONS of veggies! Standard stuff like romaine, spinach, and mesclun, but also some fun stuff like asparagus (so tall!), rhubarb, parsnips, radishes, and tatsoi. We’re going to be trying new recipes this week!

chickens on the hill

Chicken coop and water cube

chickens

This is a blurry picture, but don't those chickens look funny? See all the naked pink butts? Is this because their feathers haven't grown in yet? I didn't have the heart to tell the kids that those chickens would be in the freezer pretty soon.

water cube

We were all interested in the water cube. There's a hose attached and it runs down hill to the greenhouses.

sheep

These are the baby lambs we saw in March, all grown up.

broccoli

Broccoli and more!

on the trail

Following the trail up to the swings.

swings

Do these look familiar? Still fun, even in the summer.

flowers

I like these flowers. What are they?

veggies

Oh yes, this is why we went. I think we will have enough veggies to tide us over for a few days!

A new toy

I broke down and bought a Swiffer Sweeper Vac. So many people say it’s wonderful but I have resisted spending money when I can just use a broom. A good old fashioned broom. But my kids drive me crazy with their crumbs and I just don’t sweep enough, so I thought I’d give this a try. It works well, and my unexpected surprise is that the kids love it too! Eve vacuumed the floor after snack and after dinner today. We started talking about chores again (more on that soon!) and she asked if this could be one of her chores. A-OK!

sweeping -p1

sweeping -p2

Here is a totally unrelated video. They bicker a ton lately so I love catching them in sweet cooperative moods. We had a really nice afternoon today. I love when things go smoothly.

Summertime?

eve eating a popsicle

Eve enjoying the first popsicle of the season. We bought molds last week so I suspect there will be many more.

lex eating a popsicle

Lex loved them too. Yogurt, berries, sugar. What's not to love?!

kids

We always have enough to share.

lex at the montshire

They turned the water on this week. It was chilly today, but we had to check it out!

Eve in the water

Chilly air, chilly water... happy kids!

I think it might be!