Scooters!

On Easter Joshua got his new scooter, which meant that his old one got passed down to Hannah.  Whenever we go to ride bikes in the cul-de-sac, or around the neighborhood, they will all choose their favorite mode of transportation at the moment.  Sometimes it's a bike, sometimes it's a tricycle, and sometimes it's a scooter.  Today we were riding in the cul-de-sac, and they all chose their scooters, which I think was the first time that had happened.  Here are the three kids with their three scooters.

Deanna Rose with the Girls

Today Jason took Joshua on a date day so I took the girls to Deanna Rose. We had a really fun time.

Hannah said this was her favorite part of the whole day, which is surprising because these are pretty hard for a little kid to do, so I am not sure either girl got any water to come out at all.

We had never been in the Native American settlement section before. They are not that interested in historical things yet. I wish they were moreso. I feel like maybe in a year or two.

Clara was really pumped to ride the tractors. I hate the tractors. they are mostly old and broken and, not unrelatedly, are very hard for most children to ride, particularly smaller kids. Clara couldn't find a tractor that was enjoyable for her. Hannah's wasn't really that enjoyable, but she was just super determined to make it work so she rode around the loop twice with just a few pushes from Clara. Clara was urging her to move on to the baby goats ASAP.

We did go over to the baby goats. They are cute, but like all goats, pretty into their food. This is the only photo I was able to get before it devolved into the goats biting the nipples off the bottles and/or taking the bottles from the girls. But they seemed to like it anyway, which is a big step forward for Hannah. This is the first time she has ever not hated being in a goat pen and today she even wanted to stay longer to pet goats.

Our membership included two pony rides. I wasn't sure I would use them because the pony rides are really pretty lame and I didn't want to have to pay $3 for a third ride since I have three kids. And the line tends to move a bit slowly for an incredibly short ride. But I only had two kids today, so I let them do it, because there may never be a better time. The girls thought it was pretty awesome and enjoyed their 3 minutes of fun. Hannah really wanted to go again. But neither of them said it was their favorite part of the day (Clara's favorite was the red barn slides, which I couldn't really get a picture of, but both girls enjoyed. Hannah's was the previously-mentioned milking station), so hopefully they aren't super disappointed when we never do it again. The last time we did it was when Joshua was 3 and no one has ever asked about it since. But they seemed to like it a little more than he did.

Hannah really wanted to feed the ducks, which we haven't done before. Not only did we feed the ducks, as you see here, but we also went on the dock where Clara fed a few turtles and some fish, which she found a bit more captivating. One of the turtles was really large so it was exciting to see him.

Before we left, we went to the playground. Both girls liked the park-area, but Hannah really liked this misting area. You can't tell from the picture very well because the mist is really fine, but she had a really good time running back and forth and getting all wet. It wasn't super hot, but hot enough that it felt nice. We had a fun day at the farmstead.

Summerland 2016

As I've done for the past few years, tonight I got to go to the Summerland Tour concert.  It's organized by the band Everclear, one of my long-time favorites, and the bring on tour with them several other bands from the '90s.  This year it was Sponge, Lit, and Sugar Ray, along with Everclear.  I was particularly excited to see Lit, as I knew pretty much every single lyric off their A Place in the Sun album.  Sponge had a few songs a liked (three-hit wonder?), and Sugar Ray had a whole series of hits int he late '90s and early '00s.  They actually headlined, which I was skeptical about, but like any headlining band, they knew how to put on a great show, and it was a lot of fun.  I'm really glad I was able to go, as it was awesome to hear all four of those bands in one night, and I certainly hope I can go again next year.

Date Day at the Dirt Pile

Down the street from our house, there is a giant dirt pile.  It's the result of a new house that's being built.  It appears to be the dirt that was displaced when they dug the basement.  For whatever reason, progress on the house has stopped, but the dirt pile remains.  It's right along Iowa St., so everyone can see it, and apparently the developers were okay with the public helping them remove some of it, as they put a big "Free Dirt" sign on it.  Some people have taken some of it away, but it's still a huge pile of dirt, maybe 15 feet tall, 15 feet deep, and 30 feet wide.  For my date day with Joshua today, I thought it would be fun if we went to play on it.  As I recently mentioned, he no longer has training wheels on his bike, but I then realized I needed to get him a kickstand.  It recently arrived, and today I put it on his bike and taught him how to use it.  The dirt pile is far enough away that it was reasonable to ride our bikes there, so here he is as we begin our journey with his first time riding his bike with the kickstand on it.

We rode down the long sidewalk to the dirt pile.  Along the way, Joshua noticed a giant worm, so we stopped so he could hold it.

He climbed to the top of the dirt pile and felt like the king of the world.  I brought some tools that I knew he would like to use to dig and smash the dirt, including a screwdriver and a rubber mallet.  He really enjoyed slamming the rubber mallet into the dirt, breaking it up.

I don't let him play with my regular hammers, because they are too dangerous with the metal head and the sharp metal claw, so getting to use the rubber mallet was a big thrill for him, as it felt to him like he was finally getting to use one of my more grown-up tools.

As I always try to do on date days, I got a picture of the two of us together.  Here we are on top of the dirt pile.  You can see the elevation based on how far below us the neighbor's yard is.

We then took a break for lunch.  I took him to Pie Five, which is one of my favorite new fast food restaurants.  He ate his entire pepperoni pizza and loved it.  I branched out from my normal Jack Stack pizza to get their Hawaiian pizza (Maui Wowie?), and it was delicious.

After lunch we still had some time, and he really wanted to go back to the dirt pile, so we did.  We both had a lot of fun there.  It's really convenient it's so close to our house, as it's perfect for him, and it's free!  But presumably it'll be gone soon.  But if not, I may have to take the girls too, because as soon as I told them about it, they said they wanted to go too.  Hopefully we'll be able to do that before it goes away.

Gymnastics

This summer, the stars aligned and there was a boys gymnastics class at the same time as a 4-year-old girls class and I got permission to move Hannah up, so I was able to have all three kids enrolled in gymnastics and only be there 50 minutes. That will probably never happen again.

I feel like all three kids enjoyed it. We are doing soccer in the fall, but after that I hope they will want to do gymnastics again.

Even though it looks like they are not at all happy, the kids were very excited to go to Sonic to celebrate the end of gymnastics. Joshua has been really into ice cream cones and he recently realized Sonic has waffle cones which are "the hugest" so that is his new favorite thing to get. They really are quite large so I am not sure I will be letting him upgrade from a regular cone every single time, but since it was to celebrate something, this time I did. Clara got a chocolate sundae and Hannah got a watermelon slushie.

Sleeping on the Ottoman

Hannah still probably should take a short nap every day, but she abandoned that practice long ago when she noticed that her siblings weren't taking naps.  So she definitely had the shortest amount of her life taking naps out of the three kids.  But with that, she still sometimes falls asleep in random places, though not very often.  Today was apparently one of those days, as she seems to have rested her head on the ottoman and then fell asleep.  At least the top of the ottoman is cushioned, so it probably is decently comfortable for her.

Daisy and Zoey

This afternoon I noticed two dogs running around our cul-de-sac.  They seemed to be staying close to each other but were sprinting around from house to house.  I know all the dogs who live on our street, and these weren't among them, so I guessed they had run away from their house.  They were super friendly, so I corralled them into our fenced back yard.  The kids were elated to see that we had two dogs.  Clara immediately wanted to know if we could keep them.  I told her they belonged to someone else and that we were going to try to find out who owned them. She suggested that if we couldn't find the owner that we should just keep them as our new dogs.  I told her that wasn't likely to happen, but she didn't seem to give up hope.  The dogs had no tags, so I posted in our neighborhood Facebook group, and it wasn't long before someone who lives several streets over claimed them.  He came over to get them, and he told us the dogs names were Daisy and Zoey and that they had in fact escaped, and he thanked me for collecting them and reaching out.  Clara was a little disappointed, but she did seem happy for Daisy and Zoey that they got to go back to their family.

Clara the Rocker

 Our neighbors are moving and were kind enough to offer us some of their not-so-little-anymore girl's things that they didn't want to move. When I saw this pink guitar, I knew it would be the hit of the summer for Clara and I was not wrong. Clara loves creating and performing and she has loved her guitar.

 Unfortunately our microphone broke shortly after this was taken, but all the kids have had great fun with it. Clara is having more fun here than she appears to be. This was right after there was some disagreement in the band about who would be the lead vocalist. I think it's obvious who won and who lost that argument.

Clara also likes playing guitar at certain times while watching tv. This mostly come up with Phineas and Ferb because she wants to play like them during the title sequence. When she is feeling energetic, she also does the same dance moves as they do. She also does it anytime any show breaks into song. Someday I would like to put her in music lessons, but right now she only wants to play how she wants and isn't excited to learn to play real songs so I think it's definitely too soon. So far she also isn't excited about hygiene, brushing her hair, or wearing many clothes, so she may be more of a grunge rocker than a classical type, we'll see.

Early July

The kids were playing football. We only have one football helmet, so the girls wore bike helmets.

Joshua learned how to ride a bike with no training wheels. He is so proud! I thought he was ready and Jason taught him in a day. I actually think Clara is ready too. She is excited about it, but not enough to ask a lot so we may wait until spring to give Joshua his due time of being the big kid.

The girls love getting horsey rides from Joshua and he loves giving them. I worry a little bit about him hurting his back, but they all have so much fun that I don't interfere too much.

Joshua did swimming lessons again. I was really hoping he would pass this time, but he can't float on his back for five seconds. But he is close so hopefully next time. He can do everything he needs to do except he can only float for 2-3 seconds. I thought it would be hard to take the girls to the lessons, but they really were fine with drawing for about 25 min and the lesson is only 30 min, so it was only a few minutes each time that they were unhappy.

We also did VBS. The kids had a ton of fun. Last year, Joshua wasn't really ready so he didn't enjoy it. But this year both he and Clara were engaged and loved the activities and songs. I had a bigger role than last year so it was a time commitment for me, but it was more administrative so easier for me than teaching, which I have to work really hard at because it doesn't come naturally at all to me. I think we came away with some really great ideas for next year. I'm not sure what I can commit next year because I will likely be working, but I hope I can find a way to be part of it again because it's pretty fun and great to see the kids so excited.

Benjamin Turns Three!

Today we celebrated Benjamin's third birthday at Julie and Andrew's house.  They had a Hot Wheels/cars/automobile theme.  It was hot outside, and there were a lot of flies, so only Joshua was brave/crazy enough to eat outside.  The other sensible kids ate inside.

We then went downstairs to open presents.  After opening his presents, Benjamin got help from others, although Kirk's intentions were perhaps more altruistic than Clara's, as I think she just wanted to play with the toy too.

                               Meghan and Hannah as well as Joshua and I both ended up wearing similar outfits.

                                                                We got some good family pictures.

                                Mom and Ron made sure to get some pictures with Baby Daniel.

                                                                       Lucy was displeased.

Daniel was amazed by this birthday party thing and was probably wondering why he doesn't get one.  Be patient, little guy.  You'll get one in the spring.