Bounce, Splash, Busy!

B-Bee started back at school today. Does that mean the summer's over? It can't be. Maybe just a little more tame; we still have our Friday Fundays!

We hosted a "Splash & Bounce" playdate for one of our mommy groups in July! It was so much fun, that I didn't even have a chance to have the camera out until the very end. Tried to get all 4 boys (that were left at this point) to sit on the stairs with us, but the more we tried the more they moved. Note: friend not pictured is the one that stripped down to his undies with B-Bee after swimming. I wanted to host another "Splash & Bounce" this month.... but where did August go again? It will have to wait for September. Crossing fingers the hot weather holds out that long and that I figure out some way to mend the hole in the bounce castle. Naughty lawnmower.

Sat down with the calendar this morning to schedule playdates and such. I'm feeling stingy with our Fridays and picky with the rest of the week. With that said, our days still fill up fast. Promises of coffee here and playgrounds there....and I can't forget the morning workouts. Thanks, Jaq for the text to get me back in gym bright & early tomorrow. Was thinking about a Red Rocks workout, but the hike time was changed.

Church Block Party

Children's ministry was nervous that people would think the block party was rained out, but it went on rain AND shine. Expecting rain, they had most of it inside the gym and then moved it outside for awhile. Face painting, bubbles, balloon animals, bounce castle & slide, a dunk tank with our favorite pastors, and you can't forget the food. I think serving food at all celebrations is a worldwide thing, not just a midwest / Lutheran / Methodist / Catholic....whatever culture thing. A universal language for caring, love and community. B-Bee sat pretty well getting his face painted. It helped that Auntie Zaza was doing the face painting. He wanted to be a tiger, Nellie needed a lady bug and Mommy had to have a rubber ducky - which Nellie tried to grab off my cheek. You can see that B-Bee is nervous in this picture, clenching his fists while waiting for balloon animals. This is something that started after school got out in June. He also does it if his hands are even the slightest bit wet.

The bounce castle & slide were too big for Nellie to go on, with too many big kids as well. So we watched B-Bee go down the slide again and again and again and.... Nellie had fun playing with destroying B-Bee's balloon tiger and relocating everyone's shoes. Both my kids have a thing for shoes.

Don't worry, we got a new balloon animal for B-Bee after Nellie destroyed the tiger.

Swimming Lesson, Fountains & Monsoon - Can We Get Any Wetter?

Have I mentioned swimming yet this summer? Yeah, just the thought of it his Nellie passed out on the couch next to me right now. Good thing we're taking a morning for quiet today - with B-Bee at summer camp it's just us 2 girls (and our doggies).

B-Bee also had swim lessons at summer camp this year. He was excited to see his swimming teacher, Casey everyday and now insists that all "swimming lesson teachers" are named Casey. Nellie SO wanted to join him in the water and made a beeline for the pool every chance she got. She's my little fish.



After swim lessons we headed to our favorite park (Peter Pan Park) for a picnic. Nellie was all tuckered out by then. Don't worry though, she didn't miss out on all the fun. It was our last MamaMia! meetup since the group has disbanded. As our kids get older and start going to school, mommies in the group weren't able to participate as much anymore. I'm realizing that these early years are only a phase. So glad I can stay home and enjoy them with my children.

Inspecting the soft "rocks" in the stream between the picnic tables. I love that this park has tables right by the water feature and playground. Beware though, the rubber playground surface gets very hot. I definitely recommend water shoes or flip flops - though my kids don't leave them on.

Oh the anticipation! It took B-Bee a little while to warm up to the fountains last year and earlier this summer. But, as you can see, there's no fear now...just excited anticipation. The big kid have even taught him how to put his shoes on the spout to see them fly up in the air when it goes.

I love this picture! What would you put as the caption?

Nellie made a friend. These 2 just followed each other around for awhile, babbling away to each other. We started packing up to leave just as the monsoon began falling. Had to wait it out a little and then make a run for the car.

Had to snap a picture of this. Not sure why it was "parked" there. Maybe it belongs to someone in the apartment complex? On its way to the air show? I have no clue.

Libraries & Fountains

Todays plan started out a little open-ended, with tenative plans to go to the fountains and tenative plans to go to the library.... We ended up getting to do both!

During storytime, B-Bee was really.....overwhelmed? He had the deer in the headlights look, wouldn't participate in the songs & dancing and kept wanting to sit in my lap. He did sit and listen to the stories well though. It was a rather rambuncious group of kids today. When it came to craft time though, he worked hard and intently making Daddy a Father's Day present.

We ran into a friend and her daughter at storytime, so I was able to sneak out to the kids' desk while Nellie slept and B-Bee was listening to a story. I finally registered the kids for the summer reading program. Thanks so much, Jaq! B-Bee is already 9 books into his first set of 12. After playing trains and checking out books, we went to spend 10 minutes on the playground. The fountains were going on and off, so we played some in them. Nellie really liked the doggie fountain that you can see here.

Ran home quick to pick up a towel and extra clothes - Daddy had taken the car with the wagon & summer bag in it. Then we were off again to meet up with some friends at the other library fountains. Have I mentioned that little girls just love Nellie? Think it's a baby thing.

The boys inspected the sidewalk drain. Must have been making sure there were no alligators growing in there.

Have you seen the monkey crawl? She CAN walk, she just doesn't know it yet...and will plop to the ground if noone's hanging onto her.

 

B-Bee & his buds....getting soaked and racing their cars.

And how do you get 8 kids to leave all the fun? A choo-choo train to the ice cream shoppe! There was a red, white & blue pig statue outside the shop that we tried to get the kids to pose with. This is the only shot that I got where you can see all our buds.

We ended our day out to dinner with Oma & Papa (Daddy's parents) and Great G'Pa. They drove from MN to celebrate Nellie's 1st birthday!



Flag Day Fun

Didn't take many pictures today, since Daddy had the camera today. He's going to traffic court tomorrow morning (stupid, petty PMSing ticket) and started his day off taking pictures of the intersection where he was apparantly off-roading to make a right turn. However, looking at the pictures he took, I don't see how he ever fit all 4 wheels of our SUV between the white line and stop sign.

The kids and I had planned on going to the train museum this morning, but I thought the playdate was at 10am or 10:30am. Just as I was going to log on to confirm the time we had to be there, my friend texted me asking if I was still going.... "Yeah." Then I saw that we were supposed to be there at 9am and it was already 9:20am by then.

So we went to the mall instead. I gave B-Bee the choice between the mall with the train & horse rides or the mall with the dinosauers & sandbox. It was a different answer each time I asked. So I chose the dinosauers & sandbox - Old Navy there is right by the food court, dinosauers & sandbox. It just made sense. To boot, they had a train running there as well - as we found out when we were walking in. A Polar Express Train, as B-Bee put it.

Called my friend that works up that way to see if she could meet us for lunch and what great timing! She had taken the day off work to bring her daughter, Bre to an appointment. ...meaning we got to see her AND her 2 y/o sweetie. All the kids were pretty well behaved, right up to the end when B-Bee trainwrecked we started heading out.

After shopping returning stuff, our picnic lunch, and running around on the dinosauers...we went out side for Sand Castles 101. I can't believe it has taken me nearly 4 years to show B-Bee for the first time how to make a sand castle. Not that we have a lot of beaches around here to do it at - the mall has a sand pit / area stocked with trucks and sand toys. First step was to create some mud. Mommy had to go wading in the "pool" fountain that you're not supposed to swim or wade in to throw buckets of water onto the sand. I know, bad Mommy. Nellie was quite concerned with this rebellious behavior. Second step was to sit down and get muddy digging. Next fill bucket, pack down, flip upside down on the ground....and wah-lah! Last step, Bre had down: crash the tower!

We had to take a ride on the train before we left, since I had promised and promised B-Bee trains today. It was actually roomy enough for me to sit comfortably with both kids (and possibly another adult?) in a coach car. Believe me, this isn't always quite a simple task. Getting out a barrel train is down right comical, but this one was no problem. We ventured over the road and past more stores, another playground AND an outdoor rollerskating rink! Nextime we are SO bringing B-Bee's skates! This may just be my very favorite mall. Being that I used to live within 30 minutes of the Mall of America, I've seen some cool mallage.

I must thank my Facebook friends for reminding me that today was Flag Day! Some days I'm lucky to remember what day of the week it is, nonetheless what holiday. To think I just about bought a flag & pole to hang on our front porch the other day - product placement almost worked this impulsive shopper. We do need to get a flag though, not only would it look great on our front porch, but what veteran doesn't fly a flag? Eek, this one. Don't get me wrong, I have several American flags. But they're special flags that we flew over Iraq during our aeromed missions. Anyways, I'm proud of our nation and proud to have served and will be a proud flag-displaying American very soon.

In the spirit, I worked on Nellie's 4th of July tutu tonight. It's almost done; ran out of tulle. Her 1 year old photoshoot will be in a couple weeks and I'm planning to have her wear her her birthday tutu for some shots and then the 4th of July one for the rest - including a 4th of July themed family picture.

Near Perfect Day.

Between the 3 mommies at our playdate today, we had a total of 11 kids! What fun! What chaos! ...no, really it wasn't too bad as lond as we weren't in pedestrial transit from one part of the park to another. Here are about half of the kids waiting for the train to go and come back. Kudos to you if you recognize where we are! You've found an awesome place to spend a summer day.

Who's the ring leader of trouble? Pick a side. The Thomas fanatic in the middle goes with the flow. For most of the train ride, they were "choo-choo" - ing.

 We're serious about some watermelon; it's quickly beome a favorite - a messy favorite.

Wading & playing in the creek.

Watching the train go by one last time before we head home for naps. B-Bee & Nellie fell asleep so hard on the way home that they did the car-to-bed transfer. Ahhhh....

During this blissful nap - until B-Bee woke up crying because he wanted Annie's chocolate bunnies - I got some plants put in the garden, the pool set up and filled, and a few flowers (for headbands) pinned together. So after nap, while waiting for Daddy to get home, we played in the pool. It was a little too cold for Nellie and she freaked out whenever I put her in. So she was content to watch from the side, eating chocolate bunnies and feeding the dogs. At one point I put each of the dogs in for a short swim. Neither one would come back over after that. *sigh* Landlubber dogs.

A near perfect day.



YoYos & Pupus

Our morning started off with some headband modeling, since I had finished some new ones the night before. Here you can see the giant pink peonie / gardenia. I love this one, but it must come with the warning label of "massive". It's lightweight and looks oh so darling, but it is 6" in diameter and that is a lot when you're talking about a head circumference of only 14" or so. Definitely a special occassions headband and it photographs really well.

Our morning agenda was to go see yoyo tricks at the Perl Mack. It was cool to see, but I think my kids were a little bit young to fully appreciate it. Nellie was squirmy and just wanted to beeline to the exit, the emergency exit. And B-Bee was right there with her crawling on the floor encouraging her and being Wild Man....and he would have opened that door for her. That girl just loves to be outside and loves to go. Overall, B-Bee behaved fairly well. I just had my hands kind of full with Nellie.

Found something a little more age-appropriate....the playground outside! There were a couple older kids playing and a summer camp group came over to eat lunch, and all the kids were well behaved. (After the YMCA kids incident on a playground last year, it's nice to see a big kids summer camp group behaving.) Nellie stood around the bottom of the slide, watching and laughing at the big kids. B-Bee was intent on learning how to do the monkey bars. He was good at swinging on them, but hasn't the strength yet to actually go across them. I can relate to his frustrations.

We need to go grocery shopping in a major, major way.... so to avoid the McD's we found ourselves a pupu platter for lunch. B-Bee enjoyed attempting to blow out our little fire. The harder we blowed, the more it burned. Don't know what crystals were in there as fuel, but we had to just let them burn out. The waitress was amused when I pulled out my little baggie of crayons and colored the animals on the placemat with B-Bee.



Nellie woke up from carseat-nap in time for dessert. Usually this chinese restaurant brings out these delicious cut oranges, cold & juicy. Today they had watermelon slices, which the kids happily ate up.