2012 Week 26

Kaitlyn was excited to find that our little blueberry bush finally had berries!  It didn't grow much last year and we were afraid the birds had eaten all of them already this year.  But look - a fully ripened berry!  Kaitlyn of course had to pick it and eat it, but she did show her brother first.  There are 4 or 5 other berries that may ripen up later.

We're having a heat wave - ick ick ick.  Trying to stay inside as much as possible this week. Making sure the kids get outside for at least one lap around the loop on their bikes before it gets too hot.  And spending some time in the pool when we get cabin fever.  We spent more than 4 hours straight in the pool on Saturday.  We had it to ourselves almost that entire time and it was SO nice.

Milestones aren't just for the big things like a first step or losing a tooth.  This week we were so excited that Tyler (very willing I might add) tried and LIKED salad!  Woohoo!

That's an almost-empty bag of mini carrots in his hand.  The carrots and the salad got the two thumbs up.  He also tried and liked onion rings and requested them for dinner again. 

I had my own moment to try new things this week as well.  We're on a health food kick and the last couple times in the store Sam has wanted to try the turkey burgers.  Ew! I'm not a found of ground anything.  But I can't ask the kids to do something I wouldn't do so I finally agreed.  I tried to give myself every advantage I could, insisting that Sam use the rib rub spices I like, adding plenty of flavor masking things like pickles, onions, and mustard, and eating it in a mini-slider portion.  Then I told myself "be brave dragon" (laughingly, as this is what Tyler says over and over every time I put sunscreen on him.  He thinks the sunscreen is too cold but I've told him he can't complain or whine when I put it on him anymore so instead he says that) and bit in.  Phew.  Not too bad.  Not gonna be anything I ask for, but I can manage it if I need to.  Good to know I'm as brave as my kids :P  Kaitlyn tried it with me, but didn't like it.  She did say she'd be willing to try "real" hamburgers though.  That's progress.

I've got to admire my kids and their creative thinking and ingenuity.  Tyler has a free subscription to a Lego magazine and each one has a section with photos of kids and their creations.  The kids decided they wanted to be in the magazine too.  So the other day they come downstairs with this and insist I take a photo so we can send it in.  It's supposed to be spaghetti.  The yello square is the plate. :)

Another big milestone for Tyler - floating on his back!  He's never been relaxed enough in the pool to get even close to floating on his own, although he's getting pretty good at other parts of swimming.   It's been our rule that Tyler can only go in the deep end of the pool if Sam or myself is actually in the pool with him.  So Sam told Tyler that if he learned to float on his back on his own, and could maintain it for 20 seconds, then we would change the rule and he could be in the deep end as long as we were watching, even if we weren't in the water.  It's all about motivation right?  Tyler was so determined to get to swim by himself that he worked on the floating over and over and over.  In less than 5 minutes he had it figured out and in less than half an hour he had our permission to swim in the deep end without us.

2012 Week 25

It's a collection of random photos from daily life this week - the summertime version.
Tyler cracks me up when he goes around listening to music on his headphones, singing along (mostly incoherently) and playing air guitar.
The new outfit from Grandma is pretty cute too.

The kids are playing "animal school" - that's obvious right?  Hours of messy, time consuming fun up in the playroom - I love it when they play nicely together.

Ready for Pool Time!

A peek at the kids getting breakfast.  This is one of the places we are really starting to see their independance.

And Saturday fun with the family.  Weekends are usually devoted to something along these lines.  When we woke up Saturday and discovered that them temperatures were very pleasant we decided to wake up Tyler and get to the blueberry farm ASAP.  Sam hadn't been berry picking with us yet and was excited to try it out.  It was a great day for it, and we all enjoyed it (even Tyler who was still a bit tired and not as into it as he had been other times).

We took home 4 buckets full of berries (almost 15 pounds).  The kids again wanted to make their own smoothies first thing (and drank most of mine before I got to it!).  With that many berries in stock we finally plugged in the garage freezer so we can freeze most of them to have on hand for smoothies, etc later.  We also turned some of the berries into really great blueberry syrup for waffles. 

Also on the list of fun things for the weekend was watching the new Disney movie, Brave, at the theater.  Some shopping for a new digital scale (have I mentioned Sam and I are on losing weight kick?), odds and ends for the house, and Sam finally got the flat screen TV he has been obsessing about for our bedroom.

More pool time - doesn't he look funny in his dad's goggles?

2012 Week 24

The first whole week of summer and boy have we been enjoying it and taking advantage of all the free time.

Plenty of time at the pool means lots of snack are needed.  The kids had a lot of fun making their own trail mix.

Another berry picking outing with our berry picking buddies.  (Maci and Zander and their mom, Jessica)  Our plan was to pick raspberries, but even with an early start they were all gone by the time we got there.  So we loaded up on blackberries and blueberries.  But without the raspberries we weren't quite satisfied so we took our berry picking selves to the other farm (from our previous outing) and picked some more strawberries (end of the season for those so they were harder to pick).  They had a lot of veggies at the stand there too so we stocked up on tiny potatoes, green beans, and sweet corn. 

The kids love berry picking, even Tyler, who doesn't really want to eat the berries.  They were pretty excited to get home to start enjoying them in their favorite form - fruit shakes! (smoothies).  After lunch and some resting time we met up with our friends again for some swimming at the pool.

Even after all that Kaitlyn still had energy to help me make a batch of blackberry/blueberry freezer jam that night.  It turned out really yummy.

Friday found us at the zoo with Audrey and the kids.  It was perfect weather for it (not too hot - and good timing on that too as after the weekend the temps have risen to the 90s and stayed there) and the kids were really enjoying themselves.  For once, they were content to really look at all the animals and pay attention to the information instead of rushing from one exhibit to the next.

Saturday was fun family time.  We took the kids bowling (Kaitlyn won!) and out to lunch.

Sunday morning was Father's Day!  Tyler wanted to make the muffins for Sam's special breakfast himself (fresh blueberry of course) and was up early to do so.  (Also of course, as they weren't from the mix he's used to he wasn't much of a fan of the flavor and tried to get me to make the other kind too *sigh*)

The kids really do love their daddy and I think he's doing a great job as their dad.

2012 Week 23

Last week of school!

Blew up a ton of balloons Sunday night to turn into balloon flowers for Kaitlyn's class play.  We delivered them Monday morning and got quite a few quizzical looks from people and even a few compliments

Kaitlyn's play and awards ceremony was on Tuesday in her classroom.  Kaitlyn had one of the largest speaking parts and she did a great job.

In preparation for summer, Tyler's teacher sent home all his work and art projects and a whole packets of worksheet for him to practice with during the summer.  Tyler thought he should get started on the worksheets right away and sat right down and did a whole stack of them.  I'm starting to think our little guy might turn out almost as dedicated to learning/school work as his sister - yay!

Thursday was field day for Tyler's preschool class and I spent the day there helping out.  They had all kinds of fun activities set out on the grass outside their classroom and spent pretty much the whole day out there.  The kids were too excited to focus though, so what started out as an orderly rotation from station to station soon turned into a "play with whatever you want" free for all for the rest of the day.  The big favorites were the bouncy house and the sprinklers.

*need to add photo(s) from my phone

Last day of school!  Friday was only a half day for the last day of school and everyone was pretty happy about it.  To celebrate, we invited all the neighborhood kids to join us for a popsicle party at the pool that afternoon.  Everyone had a great time.

2012 Week 22

The first official love note from my sweet little boy.  And he's still in preschool and doesn't actually know how to read yet - what a little smartie!

On the list of projects this week - giant flower stems (balloon flowers to be added later) for Kaitlyn's class play.  We made 12 and toted them to the school one morning.  Kaitlyn is so excited for her play, though she says she is a bit nervous about having a speaking part.

We've had lots and lots of rain lately.  The poor Glads were too tall and couldn't take it :(  (luckily they were just the first of many.  Hopefully the rest won't fall down)

but the back yard is loving it and we are FINALLY started to see some grass sprouts in our giant weed patch.

Tyler was on a roll with the pretend play that day.  What a cutie.

Friday night was Tyler's preschool graduation - so cute!  All those little caps and gowns (which Ty referred to as his "costume") were adorable.  I got a little emotional during the slide show at the beginning of the ceremony as I realized how quickly he's growing up.  But as soon as they marched in I was able to avoid the tears and concentrate on how cute and funny kids are at that age.  How they fidget and wave while on stage.  How enthusiastically (and inexpertly) they sang the two songs they had learned.  How Tyler accepted his "diploma" (we found out when we got it home that it was a blank piece of paper and his real certificate was given to us afterward) and used it as a "telescope" to look at the audience when he made it back to his seat.  Too funny.

His sweet teachers gave him a $5 gift card to Walmart and he was so proud and excited to have it.  First thing the next morning we had to head out to the store to let him spend it, Tyler clutching the gift card in his hand the whole time he went up and down the toy aisles trying to decide what he wanted to buy.

Oh - and I finally remembered to take the camera down to the pool!  A friend invited us to join them at the pool Sunday afternoon.  (Sam was at work so it was just me and the kids)  We had the pool to ourselves until they showed up so I took the opportunity to get a few photos of the kids doing their favorite things.  Tyler's favorite is obviously to jump off the edge at the shallow end of the pool.  He also likes to "swim" - which for him is doggy paddle style for 5 or so feet at a time.  Kaitlyn's favorite thing is swimming under water, either back and forth from one side of the pool while seeing how long she can hold her breath, or diving for the dive toys.  And they both love sunning themselves on the loungers when they get tired or too cold (it was a windy day so the cold thing happened more than it usually does).