Happy 4th of July! Or, as Lex insists we say, Happy Independence Day! “Otherwise you’re just saying the date,” he says.
We spent the morning following Lex’s schedule (he was so pleased!) and didn’t fall off schedule until 11am! Pretty good, eh? :) We spent the afternoon eating popsicles and playing baseball outside with the neighbors. At 6:30, when we were all packed up and ready to walk down the hill for our local fireworks extravaganza, the sky opened up! A quick weather check showed the forecast had changed from chance of showers to 95% chance of severe storms. Lightening, hail, high winds, etc. We decided to stay home and Alan suggested a movie night instead. As we settled in the living room, “Animal Crackers” (Marx Brothers) on the TV, animal crackers in a bowl, and daddy doling out M&Ms, the sky opened up again and the downpour validated our decision.
Thunderboomers, rain, and massive giggles in the living room. Life is good, thanks to those brave men and women who founded this country and defend her still today!
Think I need to turn this compost!? :) At this point maybe I should just wait and see what’s growing. I know there is at least a tomato plant and a rather large squash of some sort.
I Can’t Wait I can’t wait to start following the schedule I made.
I can’t wait for the fireworks (there is no parade).
I couldn’t wait to start writing this poem,
and now that I’m done, my family I’ll show’em.
by Lex, 7/4/2012
Here’s Lex reading the poem to Eve. I had to grab the camera quickly so I missed the first little bit. It’s cute anyway.
We went down to visit Julie and her girls last week. It may be our last visit. Sob! I wish we had been doing this weekday visits for the past five years! The kids played with water balloons and made a huge mess in Molly’s room (and everywhere else in the house!) and were generally silly together. Kate gave me all her love and snuggles. Julie and I hung out and chatted. Good times!
At first they weren’t sure exactly what to do with the water balloons…
… but they figured it out pretty quickly!
Baby love! This is what I saw all day! :) It’s off center because I didn’t want to make her wait too long trying to aim the camera.
Lex made a water balloon snowman. He was very proud. :)
This is what water balloons are for! And big backyards. And summertime!
I love this one. Lex likes babies. :)
Julie is a genius! Look at the fun they have in their backyard!
They filled up a bunch and hid them around the yard. Then they had a water balloon hunt. These were the found ones.
For awhile we were blurring the lines between summer fun and Easter activities. :)
After the water balloon fun ended we all went out for a walk. Or a ride, depending on who you talk to.
This makes me smile. Why are we not neighbors?!
I couldn’t decide which of the following four to post! They all make me smile. :)
Kate was asking and doing the sign for her hat. :)
Eve’s turn to pull the heavy load. :)
I just checked her blog to see what’s new and found this: The sign goes up. Sob! Err, um… I mean, best of luck to them and happy new life in the old state.
Lex woke up this morning and announced that we need a summer schedule. Sometimes I wonder what is going on in his brain. Was he thinking “Life has been crazy busy lately! We need a schedule!” or maybe more like, “We’ve had a summer schedule for the past few years, we need one this year too. That’s just what we do.” I never fully know with him, but clearly he realized I wasn’t making one and so he took the initiative. We looked for last years on the pile of chaos I call my desk, but only found the envelope with the dates and days. So instead we looked at the blog to find a picture of last year’s schedule and he went from there.
He worked hard on it. All day! He even brought his first draft to the Weight Watchers meeting this morning. He diligently worked on it through quiet time and was extremely proud of himself when he hung it on the fridge. He set the date for July 4th, the first day we’ll be able to follow a schedule. He also made extra pieces for “specials” like fireworks on the 4th. I had a few chore items from last year and he made a few more.
He worked straight through quiet time. I had him move to the living room for awhile, to get away from the dining room table where he spent much of the day!
I am so proud of him and he is so proud of himself! It was a pleasure watching him work on it all day. He modified the schedule a bit from last year, but nothing drastic and nothing unreasonable. I wonder if we will do a better job following it this year!
He is so proud of himself! That makes me happy.
Summer Schedule – 2012 (I just noticed this was taken before he added the extra piece of bright paper to indicate we have a “see fireworks” special that day.)
Alan suggested we put him in charge of the budget next. We could use some scheduling in that area as well! :)
Eve attended dance camp this week. She had a great time, though she came home exhausted each day. On Wednesday she even took a 2hr nap after lunch! It has been quite awhile since she last took a nap.
Today was the last day and they had a little performance at the end for the parents.
Afterwards we had lunch at a diner nearby. The kids had waffles, I had grilled cheese, and Alan and his dad had something meaty. Everyone enjoyed.
Playing tic-tac-toe with silverware and sugar packets.
Yummy waffles!
It was just after 1pm when we got home, well over 95° outside, and I was ready for a cool house and some quiet time. Unfortunately the crowd in my driveway was not! Both neighbor kids and a parent were walking up the driveway, ready to invite my kids out to play. Of course they wanted to play! We spent the rest of the afternoon in the kiddie pool, washing rocks, and riding a skateboard. A good time was had by all.
More rocks. They were all very proud of this hard work they were doing. :)
This girl loves her rocks!
I love a good splashing water picture!
They had fun riding the skateboard down this steep driveway.
This looks like a muscle man picture! Look at those… umm.. ribs?!
Eve eventually got out of the pool and joined the boys on the skateboard hill.
When the neighbor left to get ice cream and I denied my poor children (I really didn’t want to be out in public with them, for fear of an overtired meltdown!) we came inside, showered off the sweat and sunscreen, and settled in for the evening. Lex finished his thank you notes and got his birthday presents back and they were content for the rest of the evening.
Lex finished his thank you notes! On his own terms. As he prefers life in general. :)
Alan reinstalled Ubuntu on my computer, in an effort to get other software working properly, but as an unfortunate side effect I lost my copy of Picasa. Turns out Picasa no longer supports Linux, therefore I can’t download a new copy. I am very sad about this. Ubuntu comes with a “comparable” program pre-installed, but I’m discovering very quickly that the program is in no way a suitable replacement. :( I’m going to have to do some research and find something else. In my spare time. I say all this because I have a whole series of photos of the kids being silly in their new pjs and I’d love to make a collage, but alas, I no longer have that capability. Sigh.
It’s the first day of summer and a heat wave is upon us! The temps reached the high 90s, that I saw, and we returned to a popular pool that we haven’t been to in years! The kids had a blast, I met old friends and new, and we were all exhausted in the end. Tomorrow is supposed to be another hot one, but we have non-pool related plans. I’m sure we’ll be back there again soon though. It’s a great pool!
We had a lovely day today. A very nice start to the summer, as Lex and I were discussing. Since Friday was the last day of school, Saturday and Sunday aren’t technically school days anyway, today was really the first day of summer vacation.
We did have to get out the door in the morning, but our departure time was 9:15am instead of the usual 7:50am. Our morning started at dance camp. Our first attempt at the summer camp scene. Eve and her friend from preschool signed up together. Eve put on her favorite dancing dress and we put bows in her hair and away we went. She was a bit nervous in the beginning, but I think she had fun.
Bows and mini buns, a perfect hairdo for dance camp. (a little lopsided, but she said it was perfect anyway!)
Lex and I hung around for about 10 minutes, but the campers were just sitting on the floor singing songs. Lex wanted to see some dancing! :) On Friday they will put on a short performance, so I promised him we would at least seem some dancing then. When we left Eve’s friend had sat down next to her and both girls were happily singing a good morning song with the teacher.
While Eve was at camp, Lex and I went grocery shopping. It was different. Usually we drop him off in the morning and Eve and I run errands, but this morning we dropped her off and Lex and I ran errands. Grocery shopping with him is easy peasy though, because he brings a book and sits in the cart. We were in and out in no time! We even had enough time to pick up our CSA share AND go home and put the groceries away before we had to pick up Eve again. I was psyched!
When we picked up Eve she was TIRED and hungry. We made it home, had lunch and stories, said farewell to my parents, and then crashed for the rest of the day. Lex zoned out into his Mindstorm set, Eve laid on her bed listening to an audiobook, and I got lost in the computer for awhile. Eventually Eve came downstairs for snack and we all migrated into the dining room, still listening to the audiobook. I spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen prepping the fruits and veggies from our morning outing, Eve sat at the table and colored while listening to the audio book (“A Wrinkle in Time” and she really got into it this time around!) and Lex was in and out showing off his Mindstorm creations.
Raspberry fingers! Classic. She munched on raspberries and strawberries all afternoon. :)
Here is Lex’s Mindstorm robot. If it detects an object within 40cm it fires little wooden balls at the object. You can hear it saying “object” when it detects something and “alarm” if it determines that something to be within 40cm. Lex did all of the programing on his own. At one point he said, “I could turn the sounds off and use it to guard my room!” That cracked me up! I can imagine myself walking in to his room one day and having a Mindstorm robot suddenly start shooting little balls at me. Ha!
After healthy dinners all around we finished the evening with little frozen yogurt (from the CSA pickup) sundaes. Ahh… summer vacation!
There are only three little dishes because poor Alan was not home to join us for this yummy dessert. :(
