Swimming & Baseball, Done.

Picked up a hat to adorn with a beautiful flower. In my opinion, this is a yellow peonie - what else would be so huge? - but it could just as easily be a fully open rose. Either way, it and it's vintage pink sister are my favorites. Both are available as hair clips or on headbands. I'm not sewing my own hats yet, but can pick another one up if wanted. Anyways, was so excited about this hat that I took pictures of Nellie wearing it until she started getting into trouble. So I took pictures for about a minute. I may have been especially lucky that day and gotten 2 minutes of trouble-free Nellie.

Yes, I know swimming has been mentioned a time or two here. B-Bee's 2-week session finally came to an end, just as he was beginning to like swim lessons. The instructors brought cookies for the kids' last lesson and they got to take their animals (rubber duckies) with all the stickers home. He will have to do this level again, but he's more comfortable in the water now - will attempt a backfloat with assistance, will go underwater, and now hangs on the side of the pool....and we know he can get in and out by himself. It was a good experience for him and he got a few more lessons at summer camp later on in the month.

The T-Ball session came to a thankful end. Daddy-O enjoyed taking B-Bee, but it just wasn't his thing. It seemed to bring out all his "spectrum tendancies". We would like to put him in something this fall, but are having trouble deciding what: gymnastics, soccer, ice skating, or more swimming lessons? B-Bee's most consistent inconsistent answer has been "skating". He likes to rollerskate - but rollerskating lessons are at the same time preschool is.

Is there such thing as a "puzzle team"? Like the chess team, which I was on for 1 year. It was a middleschool "boy thing"; I can barely play chess. He's loves puzzles and is pretty good at them too. He even helped me put Nellie's birthday present together. I told him it was a puzzle.

Know we will be busy with preschool this fall and I don't want to over-schedule my kids. Now that he's old enough I would like him to be able to try one thing at a time. Perhaps find an activity that he really likes and can be passionate about. Opinions? Ideas?

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.

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.

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.