Crafty EJ

I guess all my years of mom-led art projects have rubbed off a bit on EJ because she has been organizing art projects all by herself lately.  One day, she helped Birdy and Bear "draw" with glue on paper.

Then they took it to the sandbox and shook sand all over it.  The result was a cool (but messy!) bit of art. She came up with the idea and execution all by herself- I was so proud!

Next, she really, really wanted to invite her friend G over to make sock puppets. She gathered supplies (including old socks) for a week or two and they had plenty of fabric scraps, yarn and ribbon to choose from.

They even got to use the hot glue gun! The girls used their finished puppets to perform a very silly puppet show for Mom, Birdy and Bear.

Pioneer Play Date

The girls and I were inspired by our visit to the This is the Place park and some great new books from Grandma to have a pioneer day.  To make it extra-fun, we invited some of our friends to dress up like pioneers and come and join us.  We read the pioneer books and learned about what it was like to cross the plains.  While we were reading, the girls took turns "churning" and making butter.

The girl's favorite activity was doing the laundry.  We got some dirty clothes and washed them the pioneer way (you know, if pioneers used a bar of zest soap...).  They had so much fun and washed until we ran out of line to hang them on! Now if only it really got the clothes acceptably clean I'd let them do it every day!

In true pioneer style, we made our own toys. We made super-easy and fun yarn dolls. The girls did a great job making them and they were thrilled!

We topped off our play date with slices of bread and fresh-made butter!  Side note- I had intended to make home made oatmeal bread, but my bread machine "walked" off the counter while it was mixing and broke beyond repair! Luckily we had a loaf of regular bread to save the day!

Splash Pad Play Date

Fairy Houses

 A pic from Bek on facebook reminded me of how her girls love to make fairy houses. We have an awesome new back yard full of great fairy house materials, so I kicked the girls outside with instructions to make fairy mansions.  This is one of their creations.  Then, they got inspired to raid the recycling bin to make fairy "camp sites".

 It was a super fun, creative day. 

P.S. Fairy camp sites + days of rain + sprinklers = Soggy garbage on my porch that I'm not allowed to throw away.

And just in case you were wondering about what kind of creative awesomeness the boy was getting up to while all this was going on:

You're welcome....

Sprinklers

AG Store & Dallas Temple Adventure!

We've never lived near an American Girl store before, so I decided we needed to visit before the summer was over.  As you can see from EJ's face, it was VERY exciting.  She walked around in awe, with her hands tucked under her chin.  Predictably, she was super-excited to see all of Kaya's stuff in real life!

The girls got to explore the store and see all of the displays of all the cute AG doll stuff.

They even found their "twin" dolls!

My bookworm EJ was especially impressed by the wall of books!

The Dallas Temple is about 1 exit away from the AG store, so we swung by for a visit. The kids have never seen this temple before, so it was fun for them (even if it was a bit drizzly!).  

It's a hard temple to photograph. Or maybe I just don't know the good "places".

Bear was especially impressed by the fountain in front and it took a LOONNNGG time to persuade him to leave it!

In this last pic, I told the kids to stop goofing around and "be reverent".  Bear was the only one to really take it to heart!

Of course, no trip to the Dallas Temple is complete (for me, anyway) without a trip to In-N-Out!

Train Day!

One rainy day in Heber we decided to run through a rain shower to wave to the train as it pulled out of the station. We wanted to stay and look at the steam engine and other cars they have around the station, but it was too rainy, so we went to the DK (where else?)

We got ice cream and watched the model Harry Potter train until the rain stopped. Incidentally, Bear rejected his ice cream in favor of my onion rings. That's my boy! Then, we went back to the station to have a look around.

The girls got to explore the steam engine a bit. This pose was their idea :)

I think we can safely pinpoint Bear's new found love for all things train to this very day.  He started out (predictably) terrified when the train honked it's loud horn and pulled out of the station.  He wouldn't let me put him down pretty much the entire time we were exploring the station. Apparently train cars sitting perfectly still are pretty scary.

Eventually, he warmed up (although he wouldn't let me put him down, still.) I took the picture above while I was holding him so that I would have evidence that we were there :)

I think he finally decided that since the scary train hadn't eaten his sister's by now, it was OK to pose for a picture, as long as it was FAR away. 

Finally, a picture all by himself. He's even smiling!  We eventually were able to get pretty close (like 6 feet away) and he had fun making all of the train noises.  As I'm typing this, he is shouting "Train, Train! Choo Choo Hug! Ding Ding Ding! and trying to crawl on my lap so I think it is safe to say that the initial terror has been fully replaced by true love.

Fire House Field Trip

 During our whole preschool year, the other Mom's and I would talk about how we should arrange field trips for the kids, but we never actually did it. I happened to be near the fire station one day and popped in to see what it would take to set up a visit for 20 or so kids.  Turns out not much :)  We gathered this great-looking bunch of kids (minus some in strollers and the camera-shy) and got our very own tour of the fire station.

First they showed us their living quarters- big leather recliners for each of them in front of a giant screen TV, fancy fire man dining table and super-awesome kitchen. No wonder you see firemen as chefs on Chopped and other cooking shows. They have restaurant-quality kitchen equipment and time (mostly) and budget to cook stuff :)  We also saw where they sleep when they aren't out on a call. 

 Then they demonstrated what a "call" alarm sounds like. The firemen talked it up like it was so loud, so the kids were covering their ears in anticipation. In reality, it was more like a loud doorbell :)

Then the kids got to tour the brand-spankin' new ambulance. It was really cool for them and they asked a ton of questions.  Then it was off to check out the fire engine!

They all got to climb up and look inside and the fireman took us all around the outside and pointed out all the things on the fire engine. 

We even got to see the "jaws of life"!  I was impressed even if the kids weren't!  Our trip ended on an exciting note when they got a call and had to leave with sirens on! 

Everyone (even Bear) had a great time. I'm really glad we did it and I'd highly recommend that you do it in your city!

Swimming!

Between two weeks of swimming lessons and our weekly group trip to the pool, we've been swimming lots this summer (and we have the tans and mad swimming skills to prove it!)  The girls are like little fishies in the water.  Bear? Not so much. He started out being very afraid and has lately worked up to floating in his floaty at arms length.  He is really content to just play "fountain" in the baby pool- pouring water from a cup into the pool.

Wonder why there are always so many pics of EJ on this blog? It's because she is more cooperative and generally sits still longer than Birdy :)

Summer Fun List- Week 3

You and I both know I have a bunch of blogging to do about our fantastic trip to UT, but I want to catch up on the week's worth of blogging I didn't get to before we left.  So- let's jump in the time machine and go WAAAYY back to the second-to-last week in June:



Our first project was these cute little popsicle stick puzzles. There are a lot of different ways you can do these that I found online (like cutting pictures from books or photos to fit the sticks and glueing them on) but I stuck with the easiest and most fun- tape the sticks together, flip 'em over and color with markers. We invited our friends the Shills to come and do it with us and all of the kids loved it- boys, girls, little ones and big ones!

Next came our nature scavenger hunt. I found a template for a nature hunt online (and I can't find the link, drat) that had things I felt we could find in our neighborhood.  We took the opportunity to go explore the cemetary that is right accross the street to hunt in.  It was great fun until tragedy struck:

Birdy stepped on a fire ant hill. NOT FUN!

Then we made sponge bombs. These are super-fun and we take them to the pool every visit. All of the kids love them!  Instead of using fancy zip tie or fishing line (tried it- too hard to tie tightly), we found the best was some heavy-duty hair rubber bands work really well.   Also, I included this wide shot so you could get an idea of what "our" pool looks like. It is big, and the little pool in the front right is the 1 ft. deep "baby pool".

Last, the girls were THRILLED to finally, finally pull the "shaving cream slide" stick. Basically it involves spraying shaving cream on the slide and getting all shaving cream-y as you slide down very fast.  The kids (except Bear) loved it. As you can see, we invited our friends the Zielke's to come and join the fun. Seriously, how could you keep something as cool as shaving cream slide day to your self?

What better way to wash off all of that shaving cream?  BTW- Notice Griffy running bravely through the sprinklers (he also loved the slide) while Bear is nowhere to be seen? He wanted NOTHING to do with the messy slide and scary sprinkler and spent the afternoon happily playing "fountain" in the kiddie pool.