Dinner Help

Last night we made home made pizzas with a little help from Grandma and Danya. I thought Danya was being allowed to grate cheese for the first time. Until now I've always said, "No" because I was afraid she'd cut herself. I found out, though, that she has grated cheese lots of times at Grandma's house before. So it turns out that my baby is growing up and I didn't even notice.

Danya is so mature and responsible that it's hard to remember that she just turned seven. When we leave the kids with our babysitter, I trust Danya to make sure that the babysitter is making good choices. She has permission to call us if she disagrees with Shannon's decision and thinks it's against house rules or dangerous and Shannon won't listen to her.

I'm hoping that whatever group of kids we end up adopting, Danya will remain the oldest. She is such a good leader and would set a really good example for the younger kids. We are so proud of her.

Mustaches

As their rewards for completing the summer reading program at the Thornton library Danya got a disappearing ink pen, Kevin got stickers, and Gloria got two mustaches. The mustaches were the most fun. I had to share some of the silly pictures we took.

Busy Day

Yesterday was a busy day. In the morning Daniel and I went to the audiologist. We started out running late because I got the time of my appointment wrong, oops! The audiologist said I have mild hearing loss, more pronounced in my right ear. I'll have to have more tests at the end of August. He thinks it might be something hereditary that develops as a young adult. He thinks the bones of my inner ear may be fused together. My sister says that she and our brother both have the same kind of hearing problems, having to stare straight at the person speaking and ask them to speak up and repeat themselves. I guess I'll find out in a few weeks what the final verdict is.

After my appointment, Daniel and I ran errands and got photos printed at Sam's. We found out you can print wallet size photos for 7 cents a piece! Now we know where to print all the great photos we take of the kids. After lunch we rounded everyone up and took the kids to the library to claim their prizes for completing the summer reading program. At the Westminster library they told us that they ran out of prizes so tough luck basically. The girls were pretty upset. At least they got little prizes at the Thornton library. But we found out that the Thornton library is closing down.

Learning Through Osmosis

Sorry, Kevin, it doesn't work that way. We've all tried it, and many many college students can tell you. You can't learn what's in a book by sleeping with it on your head. You have to actually read it.

To finish his Summer Reading Program Kevin had to have a few more books read to him. So Gloria was reading them next to him in the van on the way to the library. He really "got into" this book!

Down the Road

Daniel took this picture today of his parents while we were on our way home from our walk. I can't help thinking that thirty years or so down the road this will be us. Still happy to spend time together, still holding hands. Daniel is so blessed to have such awesome parents setting an example on how to lead a good life. I am so blessed and lucky to be married to him.

They say a girl chooses a man to marry who is like her father. My hope is that Daniel will continue to grow more and more like his dad. And if, as I grow older, I develop even a fraction of the wisdom and patience of Daniel's mom, I will be content.

Walking Together

Daniel's parents arrived this afternoon. They've been on a month long vacation, traveling around the southwest visiting family. We get to have them as our guests for their last few days of vacation. We were really hoping they'd come!

The girls both cleaned their rooms in preparation. They've been asking us every day for the past week when will Grandma and Grandpa arrive.

When they got here we went on a family walk to McDonald's for ice cream and to return a video to the Red Box. Kevin had trouble staying seated in the wagon. We took a nature trail on the way home and stopped by a playground for the kids to play a bit.

Daily Schedule

My friend, Christina, posted a "day in the life" kind of post that inspired me to write about my schedule. I think it will be interesting to look back a year from now or more and see how different my time is organized then. So here goes:

6:00 am Wake up, make bed, get showered and dressed, quiet time reading my bible
6:30 to 7:00 am Sometime in here Kevin will wake up, I'll nurse him, get him dressed
7:30 am Make sure the girls are up, beds made, and dressed
8:00 am breakfast and Daniel arrives home
8:30 am clean up breakfast, chores, if we hurry we can take a short family walk together
9:00 to 11:55 am homeschool, and Kevin takes a nap from about 10 to 11 am

Noon: Lunch and clean up
1:00 pm Daniel goes to bed
Afternoon: Housework, errands, P.E./reading/learning videos for the girls, possible afternoon nap for Kevin around 3 or 4 pm
5:00 pm Dinner and cleanup
7:00 pm Kevin's bedtime
7:30 pm Girls prepare for bedtime
8:00 pm Girls' bedtime and Daniel wakes up for work
8:30 pm Daniel leaves for work
Nightime: My time! Pick up house, update blog, read adoption & homeschool books (currently), file homeschool papers and do any prep work for next day
10:30 to 11 pm My bedtime (my actual goal is 10 pm, but I never seem to make it)

Books in Bags

Today Daniel bought me a $15 tape recorder from Kmart and a box of cassette tapes. I've been recording myself reading books all day. Then I put the tape in one of these Kangaroo Pouch Bags that were designed for lunches, but work perfectly for projects like this.

The book (or books) goes in the big pouch, the tape in the middle pouch, and some small activities in the little pouch. For the "Tawny Scrawny Lion" I photocopied some little lions and made a matching game. I wrote vocabulary words from the story on some of the lions and their definitions on the other lions.

We also bought head phones and set the tape player up at one of their desks as a "listening station" so that one of the kids can pull out a book bag and work on that while the other one is doing school work with me. Gloria requested that I read all her Little Golden Books onto tapes and Danya wants me to read her Dr. Seuss books. I don't know how many story books I'll do, but I do plan to do several other books. Today I read The Story of Cars and tomorrow I plan to read The Shocking Story of Electricity onto tape. I want them all to have a homeschooling aspect, so that they are learning something. The girls are really excited about it.

Government Brilliance at Work

Today I wanted to take a picture of the rain outside my front door. It was quite a downpour. I was happily snapping photos when I noticed this. The sheer brilliance of my city workers who make sure that the new park sprinklers they installed this month work rain or shine.

The city recently sent us a letter telling us that we all need to work together to conserve water. My family can sign up, it said, to be part of an effort to save water this summer. It had a list of how many gallons of water we can conserve by taking shorter showers and turning off the water when we brush our teeth. We can also buy low flow toilets and only water our lawn once a week. Looking at these sprinklers watering the park in the middle of a thunder storm I realized exactly why our city needs it's citizens to conserve water. Our tax dollars at work, folks.

Basket Case

Daniel and I recently developed basket envy. We've been wanting a basket for our tennis balls for a long time. The other night we saw a man at the tennis courts next to our house who had a big basket that flips upside down and turns into a stand to hold the balls at hip height. Yeah, we were drooling all right.

So we priced them online and Daniel surprised me by ordering one the other night while he was at work. I thought he was broke since we spent the last of our extra cash on the girls' new Heelys. The tennis ball basket arrived today. It doesn't flip over and turn into a stand, but it does hold 50 balls. You can carry it by the handle and pick up balls from the ground without having to bend over. It's really neat.

We were just storing our tennis balls in a mesh drawstring bag, which was a bit of a hassle. We'd set the bag down and all the balls would spill out and roll away, or we'd have to keep it tied shut and untie it every time we needed another ball (which is frequently when you're playing tennis). Daniel and the girls tried the new basket out, and the 18 balls that came with it, tonight before bedtime. The girls loved picking up balls with it.

Documenting their Work

Since I've been on the subject of planning and filing homeschooling materials, I thought I'd mention this idea. My girls write letters to family and friends for handwriting and spelling practice. (You might notice Gloria's interesting spelling of the word, "where" in this photo.) It's also good for helping them to organize their thoughts and ideas before writing them down.

What I wanted to share, though, was that when my kids do work like this, it gets sent away. So, I can't file it. That's why I take a photo of it or make a copy of it. Today I ran their letters through the copy machine, then hole punched and filed the copies. Then I mailed out the originals. At the end of the school year I'll be able to look back and see how their handwriting, spelling, and general writing skills have improved. Not to mention how cute these are.

Learning for Less

I like finding good homeschool materials for a good price. I know that some people think that the more the curriculum they buy costs, the better it must be. I disagree. I'd rather buy 10 different items that are all less than $10 and find out that 3 of them aren't going to work for us, than buy one complete curriculum for $300 hoping to make it worthwhile by using it for all my kids and find out that it isn't working for us.

I believe in making my mistakes on inexpensive things. On the other hand, when I find something I like, I tend to stick with that company. For instance, Gloria's new book for science "The Complete Book of Animals" was only $6 at Sam's Club. It's got lots of mini books inside of it like the one about Penguins that the girls read today. It also covers a wide variety of animals with worksheets, activities, and coloring pages. I've bought several books from this publisher. Danya's science workbook about the solar system, the girls' daily general workbooks, and their Spanish workbook. I also have their comprehensive curriculum book for second grade. I don't do every page in all of these books, but I use alot of them. Doing the math, I think it's costing me about 2 cents per worksheet or less. That's what I call value.

Gloria: Big Helper

She is five and a half and determined to prove that she is capable and willing to help with any job big or small, easy or yucky. When Danya won't throw away a dirty diaper for me Gloria quickly says, "I will!" When help is needed playing with Kevin while I get lunch ready Gloria is the first to volunteer.

Today she informed me that she was plenty big enough to take out the garbage all by herself. The bag was almost as big as she is. The wind almost blew the lid out of her hands. But she got the job done and came back into the house smiling from ear to ear. Yesterday she took the broom out back, all on her own initiative, and swept the back patio!

She checks the mail, sweeps the kitchen floor, clears and washes the table, cleans her room, makes her bed, prepares her brother's room for his nap time, washes bathroom mirrors, does the laundry, and yes, she even does windows. We're pretty proud of her "can do" attitude!

Changes

Kevin is dealing with a lot of changes lately. He's moving from two naps to one in the middle of the day. We are trying to get him to sleep a little longer in the mornings instead of waking up at 6 a.m. We are trying to encourage him to stand alone and walk.

But what seems most outrageous to our poor little man is that I am weaning him. He only gets nursed when he first wakes up and just before bedtime now. During the day he must drink a sippy cup of milk instead and eat with us at regular meal and snack times. He climbs into my lap and lays down, then gets furious at me when I won't nurse him. He also gets angry when we let go of his hand and try to make him stand alone. He immediately sits down, lays his head on the ground and wails. It's enough to break a mommy's heart!

Today Shannon brought her brown blanket over so that we could take pictures of Kevin on it. We thought it'd make a nice backdrop. He wanted nothing to do with it. He threw a fit until we picked him up. I guess with all these changes he feels the need to control one thing: he won't smile for the camera.

Science at the Library

Yesterday we went to the first ever homeschool meeting started by a group at our church, Life Fellowship. About 7 families were at the meeting (or at least the moms) and they expect about five more want to join. So we made some basic decisions about what we want the group to be, scheduling, and what benefits it will provide. It was a good meeting. They also told me about the library in Broomfield. It has a great science room that we checked out today.

The girls loved the little boxes with hands on activities like the model of the human body that Gloria got to put all the organs into. They also had computers with educational kids' games, animal figurines for Kevin to play with, and a huge homeschool resource section. I came home with an enormous stack of books. We even found the "Parenting with Love and Logic" book that we've been looking for!

Planning Our Homeschool Lessons

Since Christina asked how much we plan and what subjects we cover each day I thought I'd post it as a separate post. Bear in mind that these things will change and have changed over time as our kids get older and as we have more children homeschooling.

The picture on the left shows the binder where I store the girls' completed work. You can see the labeled sections down the side divided by subject. It also has pockets where I store a few of their little mini books that they've made and letters from our "pen pals" the Millers. The photo on the right shows my overall schedule for each of the girls divided by day and subject. So for instance we cover:

Monday/Wednesday/Friday: history and Sign language or Spanish in addition to the basics of math, grammar, and bible.

Tuesday/Thursday: science, music, and letter writing in addition to the basics.

We always have math, grammar, and bible plus handwriting. However these things aren't rigid in our homeschool. For math we may practice our times tables, do a workbook page, or play a math game. For grammar we may read about verbs, practice doing verbs around the house (jump, run, skip, hop, clap, sing, etc.), do a worksheet with new vocabulary, and read a story. Frequently handwriting (since they already read and write) is included in letter writing or when they write in their science journals. Danya read about the sun yesterday in her Children's Encyclopedia then drew a picture of it in her science journal and wrote three interesting facts she learned about the sun. That covers reading, science, art, and handwriting all at once.

I don't write down what pages and what specific topic I plan to cover each week, but I do have a general idea a week or two in advance of what I'll be covering. For instance, I get alot of my planning from our Story of the World book. If we are reading about ancient civilizations who hunted and fished we will do math problems about fish or read stories about that civilization for reading time. We will research fish in their children's encyclopedia, Gloria will draw or paint one in her science journal and write down some interesting facts about fish.

Through one of my favorite homeschool how-to books, The Well-Trained Mind, I know that this year Gloria is learning about plants, animals, and the human body. This semester we are focusing on animals and the human body. So each Tuesday and Thursday I move through her My First Encyclopedia book reading the next two page spread about different parts of the human body. (like I mentioned before, I keep a post it note on the current page) We also have an animal book called God's Amazing Creatures & Me! that tells about different animals and links it to a biblical message. For instance, every Zebra's stripes are unique just like our fingerprints and it gives a bible verse about how we are wonderfully made by God. Gloria reads about the animal, reads more about it in her encyclopedia, does a worksheet about it, then draws a picture of it in her science journal and writes something she learned. That covers reading, science, art, writing, and bible!

So, to sum up, I have an overview and a general idea of what will be covered, and some coloring pages, worksheets, etc. prepared and in a file folder ahead of time. I don't plan super far in advance. I like to be able to jump to a new topic if the girls show an interest in it without feeling like I've wrecked my pre-planned schedule. Today we declared a library day to check out the cool science department at a library in Broomfield that we heard about yesterday. It didn't throw our homeschool work off. We'll just finish what we get to in this week's folder. Mark down what we learned in my teacher's record book, and move the rest to next week.

Geography at Target

This week at Target in their "Dollar Spot" they are selling some really great school materials. We found flash cards for learning about the solar system, presidents, insects, etc. Also, this puzzle listing states and capitals, and dry erase place mats that list the states on one side and have fill in the blank lines on the other side so that you can label the states yourself. The girls have been having fun with all of it. They can already name 20 states and their capitols!

There are also these little flip books that let kids make up crazy story ideas. You flip the top, center, and bottom to come up with something like: "Imagine your teacher, drove a bus, that wanted to be a rock star!" Then the kids write a story about it. Or if they are too little, you can have them tell you their story, and you could write it down for them.

Planning and Record Keeping

This is my current method of planning and record keeping. First I plan out a week or sometimes two in advance, but not completely, just a general overview. I go through the girls' books and look at what we're going to cover. I've put a post it note inside each book (or section of the book) and labeled it so that I know where we are at. Then at the end of each lesson I move the post it note forward for the next day.

I also make any photo copies and prepare materials for craft projects and file them in my big green file folder. I have it labeled "week 1, week 2, week 3, week4, and Ideas" Then I put the materials in the file folder for each week. I look through the folder for whichever week I'm on, use some of the materials as we go throughout the week. Anything we don't get to that week gets moved into the next week's folder. That way it all eventually gets covered.

At the end of our school time (or sometimes after the kids are in bed), I write down in my teacher plan book what we did for each subject that day. I don't write down what I plan to do in advance, that way I don't feel bad erasing anything we didn't have time for. I know it will eventually get done. This is just a record for me to be able to see what we've accomplished. Then, any workbook pages or other work (handwriting, etc.) that is a loose sheet of paper gets hole punched. During school time when they finish a page they put their name on it and stick it on a black plastic shelf. After school time (or that night) I hole punch any papers that need it and file it in a 3 ring binder. I've got it divided and labeled by subject. I've got a full binder for each of them for each year of school. I tried doing separate binders for each subject, but that was too much to keep track of. There you have it. My system in a nutshell.

Towel Boy

Kevin badly needed a bath this morning. We got back so late from our walk last night that it was already an hour and a half past his bedtime, so there wasn't time for a bath then. His legs were covered in dust from playing in the rocks on the playground, he had blue fuzz clinging in a wide band around his thighs from sweating while wearing new blue shorts, and this morning he smeared eggs and strawberries all over himself.

He's grabbing his toes in the first picture because we said, "Where's your toes?" He loves to point to body parts. He can find toes, ears, eyes, mouth, nose, shoulders, and belly button. Of course, he prefers to point to them on other people. He also knows the word, "diaper" when we say it, as in "No, don't pull off your diaper!" or "No, don't stick your hand in your diaper!"

School Stroll

We looked online to see where the local elementary schools are for our area. We wanted to get an idea of where our foster child would have to go for a few months at least. There are three schools all practically beside each other about 1.5 miles from our house. So we decided to walk there.

With Kevin in the stroller and the girls in the wagon we made the trip. We crossed through a huge park on the way and went up and down a lot of hills. When we got there we found two of the schools look like something from a bad prison movie. One didn't have a playground at all and on the other all the equipment was broken and dangerous. The playground in this picture is from the one school that didn't scare us on sight. It's called Clayton elementary (Toni I knew you'd get a kick out of that).

The system is first come, first serve, so we don't know if we'll even be able to get our child into the school we prefer by the time they are living with us. We're just going to pray and hope for the best. We looked in some of the classroom windows. Their classrooms are about the same size as our homeschooling area in the basement, but with alot more desks and kids that will be packed in there. It was actually very sad overall. God willing, they won't have to go there long.

On the Farm

As a fun motivational tool I photo copied this barn and the animals. Then I drew the background on one of our easels. The girls glued the barn on and drew the duck pond, the sun, and the pig puddle.

Each day when they finished their school work over the past week or so they got to pick one animal to color and glue to the farm yard. After they finished all the animals they both decided that they needed a farmer. So they made the little man behind the sheep there. It was also Danya's idea to add corn to the garden so that the horse could eat it.

Puddle Play

On our family walk the other day we took a scenic detour. Along the way we saw a stream of water rushing through a condo complex and down across some rocks. We let the kids take their shoes off and walk around in the shallow stream.

The girls jumped right in. Kevin wasn't so sure at first. He very hesitantly tested the waters with his toes, then eased his feet in. After a few minutes he was walking back and forth in it and threw a minor fit when we tried to take him out.

It wasn't a major fit. A major fit usually happens at home when we aren't doing what Kevin wants us to. Then he throws himself down on the ground and cries his little heart out. He won't come to us, even turns away if we reach towards him. He just has to lay there and scream for about three minutes before he takes a deep breath, sits up, and decides to play again.

On the subject of Kevin, he has finally mastered the concept of sign language. He understands now that it gets him things that he wants. So far he can sign, "more, all done, strawberry, drink" and he invented his own sign. He sucks on the tip of his pointer finger and we've figured out that this means, "pacifier". The most recent word he can actually say is "Amen".

Perspective

We learned about perspective for homeschool the other day. We took a family walk with a list of photos the girls had to take or help take. They had to:

1. Pick someone up with two fingers.
2. Put someone inside a small cup.
3. Hold a vehicle in the palm of their hand.
4. Replace someone's head with a tennis ball.
5. Make Danya bigger than Daddy.

A couple of the pictures worked out alright. The girls have been interested in perspective since the other day when I showed them how they could close one eye and hold up their pinky finger to make a tree or a person look as small as their pinky. Now at night when I stand in their doorways and sing their lullabye Gloria likes to hold her hand out and close one eye to pretend that she's holding me in her hand. This was a fun project. The girls giggled through most of it.

Nazca Art

We were reading recently about the Nazca Indians of Central America. They made these huge drawings in the ground that were hundreds of miles wide. When you walk across one you think it's just a pathway, but when you fly over it in a plane you can see that it's a drawing of an animal or insect. The mystery is in trying to figure out how they designed it without being able to see it from above. Did they plot it out mathmatically or use the position of the stars? No one knows.

For art the girls drew pictures with white crayons on white paper. Then they covered the paper with water color paints to see how well they were able to draw without being able to see what they were trying to draw. Here's a picture of Gloria's flower.

Drive In Night

Daniel and I went to the drive in movie for our date night this week. Our babysitter, Sarah, stayed the night at our house so that we could stay out late. The girls got to stay up late and watch a movie with Sarah. They watched "The Rescuers". We watched the new "Harry Potter" movie and "Live Free or Die Hard".

The Harry Potter movie was only so-so, but the Bruce Willis movie was really good. I haven't seen a truly good action movie in a long time. I did feel a little silly in such a giant van with only the two of us in it. We were told not to block the screen when we parked, lol.

Accident Prone

The other day was just not Gloria's day. She was injured eight different times! She whacked her knee, got bonked in the face, had her fingers pinched in a door, fell off a spinning toy and had the wind knocked out of her. Hardly an hour went by that she wasn't injured again in some small way. She was a tough cookie, though. She kept playing and didn't let it slow her down for more than a minute or two.

Buzzzzzz!

I decided it was time for Daniel to get his ears lowered. So he sat outside in the backyard on a kitchen chair while I buzzed his head with the clippers. I know it's not that difficult to do, but I think I did a pretty good job. Then again it's hard to mess up when you've got a guy this cute.

One Tough Hombre

Kevin went to the doctor for his 1 year check up this week. He had to get 4 vaccination shots! He's a tough kid, though. He only cried for a minute then was ready to play out in the waiting room. Daniel took him back out there to play for a few minutes, since he'd been so brave. By the time he left the doctor's office he'd already pulled off one of his Garfield band aides.

When he got back from the doctor we all went for a family walk to a nearby park. Daniel said, "I waited until he was one, that's long enough." Then he let Kevin swing all by himself in a big swing! He stayed very close so that he could catch him, and didn't push him very high, but I was still nervous. Kevin loved it! He held on tight, babbled and sang, and got mad when Daniel took him off the swing.

The girls enjoyed going with him to the doctor. Afterwords they all got stickers. They picked out three stickers, one for Kevin and one for each of them, that were all about the planets. So Kevin had the sun and two planets on his. Gloria had three planets on hers, and Danya had three planets on her sticker. Here's a picture I took of Gloria wearing her sticker. They had facts about the solar system on them.

Mommy Goofs Up, Big Time

Poor Gloria! While we were homeschooling outside the other day the girls colored and cut out a little Indian boy and girl. They decorated the Indians' clothes with symbols and did a really good job on them. While they were working on those, I read to them from a book called "Houses of Bark: Tipi, Wigwam, and Longhouse" about Indians that lived in the Northeast part of North America. When we finished, I put Gloria's Indian boy in the inside cover of the book and stuck it back in our bag.

Later we were rushing around the house gathering up all the library books, movies, and audio books so that I could drop them off at the library on the way to pick up our babysitter, Sarah. She was watching the kids while Daniel and I went out for a date. I totally forgot that I'd put the Indian into the book! So Gloria's poor little Indian boy is visiting the library. She was disappointed when I told her, but she handled it really well.

Homeschooling in The Great Outdoors

It was so beautiful outside a couple of days ago that we decided to pack up our books and head to the park for our school time. The girls really enjoyed it. We picked a spot free from distractions, just over the hill from a small playground, so that Daniel could take Kevin to the swings while we worked.

Several people stopped by and talked to us for a minute, but overall we weren't interrupted much. So we got all our work done in a relatively short amount of time. One woman walking her dog told us that down in the ravine below where we were sitting a couple of foxes live and like to come out and play every so often. Now we'll have to watch for them every time we walk near there.

I feel like we've been staying on track well and getting alot accomplished in our homeschooling lately. I had to buy tabbed dividers recently for the girls notebook where I keep a record of some of their work. Danya and Gloria flipped through it with me. It was fun to look back and see an overview of what we've covered in the past several months. Recently the girls have memorized 15 states and their capitols and have learned about different Indian tribes from all across North America. They can say their times tables up to 7's and know an amazing amount of bible verses and facts about the planets. Sometimes I'm just in awe of how much they know and sad about how little I knew at that same age.

Anna's Water Party

Anna invited us to her 5th birthday party. It was a water party. There were three different sprinkler toys. One was a rocket launcher that used the force of the spray to shoot a rocket straight up into the air!

Each of the kids got a spray bottle to run around spraying everyone and everything with. Some of the adults even borrowed a bottle to spray each other with! The kids also played a game where they had to hold a bowl full of water on their heads while racing around the yard trying to not to spill it.

The food was great; giant hamburgers, deviled eggs, and all the fixings for a delicious cook out. We gave Anna a cheerleader doll that said lots of different cute little cheers. The girls got very wet and wished we didn't have to leave at the end.

Park Perils

The park across the street has had some interesting activity. We went over there to do our homeschooling and found that a guy working on the park had rolled the skid (or CAT). He wasn't hurt and he told us that someone had knocked down at least 3 light poles with a car or truck. The girls thought it was interesting to see the inside of the light pole even though it was only a big light bulb and wires. (this post was written by Daniel)

Learning to Brush

Kevin got his first toothbrush recently. He's finally old enough to learn daily dental hygiene. He was fascinated as Daniel brushed his seven little teeth. He chewed on his Winnie the Pooh brush and stared intently into the mirror with frequent pauses to play with the faucets and bang his feet in the sink.

Yes, he definitely thinks this tooth brushing activity is interesting.

Play Date at the Park

We went to Danya's friend, Lauren's house to play yesterday. The kids had a great time. Danya says it's perfect because everybody has a buddy. (They have 3 kids, we have 3 kids) Lauren and Danya were talking so fast I don't know how they got a chance to breathe.

Lauren's mom, Tiffany, served us lunch which included strawberries. Kevin devoured more strawberries than anyone else. When the big kids didn't finish theirs he ate what was left in their bowls, too!

Then we drove over to the park near their home. Everything was scorching hot. It was really too hot to play. So the kids played in the sand under the playground toys. They also swung down a metal zip line thing. I convinced 4 year old Cole to try it. On about his 5th time down he fell and ate a face full of dirt. He scratched up his glasses, too. Despite accidents, the kids can't wait to play together again!