The Grand Visitors

Well, at least my kids are consistent in how they greet people.

               
A chat and a craft?  Sure, sounds great!

    
And then Logan grabbed the camera and this craziness ensued.

Do we have time for one more story?  Absolutely.

                      
After that, we’ll head out for a little adventure.  Lego-style of course.

 
Everyone enjoys taking in the sights.

Grandma’s game for some action.

       
Naomi just hit 36” (at least with shoes on), one of the height restriction benchmarks which allows her (and us) to go on several new rides.  This one was probably the best; the kids pull out the map of the park that we have at home and still talk about “the one where we got sprayed”.

Somehow Naomi was the only one who really got soaked though.

         
More pirate-style fun with one of those twisting boat rides.

 
Favorite things: Grandma and the musical fountain.

                 
It was a warm day, so water-play of any kind was a big hit.

         
There was a safari and then it was time to go.

All the Other Bits

Oh bother!  How did I get so far behind?  Oh yah, we had visitors.  And there are more coming.  Hopefully I can get on the ball and the posts will come fast and furious for a couple weeks.  Here goes!

                  
Spinny dress and bright smile!


Impromptu and unusually successful photo shoot.

First trip to the pool for the season.

                      
Oops, we had to make a pit stop at the playground while the lifeguard was on break.

Contemplating life’s complexities, contingencies and consequences.

                         
Finally pool time.  Hooray!

                                  
Cool dude and spunky monkey.

       
This kind of fabulousness again.

               

Honestly, I kind of pity people who don’t have young kids because they miss out on gems like this. 


              
I get bonus points for this little car, I think.  It was pretty cool.  It hung around the house for nearly a month before the “windshield” broke and the whole thing got recycled.  The connectors are a product called makedo that I picked up on clearance at a local kid’s store—they were a great find as they simplify the building process considerably and allow for fun things like steering wheels that actually turn!

And that covers the first two weeks of May, leading up to Grandma and Grandpa’s visit!

Another One

Bonus round: two posts in one night!  Somehow we keep finding more playgrounds.

                                             
Playgrounds with beautiful mountain views and interesting, rocket-shaped flowers.

Flowers of all shapes and colors actually.

        
Gotta love a tall twisty slide and a great set of skill-challenging obstacles.  (Yes, she made it across by herself.)
                                                       Letter practice at the playground?  Absolutely!

                     
Spinning and then recovering.

Hmmm, how can we make this more challenging?

Final floral.  G’night.

Portraits

None of Jake in here but these are all daytime shots when Jake doesn’t tend to be around the house.

                     
During a lunch “picnic” on the back patio.  Beautiful sunshine.

We haven’t enforced nap time in over a year, but they used to happen once a week or so.  Now I’d be surprised if he takes more than one nap a month.  Quiet time is still going strong though; it’s good for everybody.

                   
Someone’s getting pretty good with that camera.

                 
Just another day . . .

And another sunny picnic :)

A small slice of our SoCal life.  Much more to come as I attempt to get caught up to and through Henry and Janet’s visit.

Arts-n-Crafts

I’ll go ahead and admit right off that I’m putting this one up here more for myself than for you.  This blog has effectively become the family photo album and there are some things I want a record of, like my children’s artwork.  Yes, I’m one of those moms that is okay with snapping a picture and then throwing 90% of it in the trash.  We’re not even one of those crafty families that is always making something but we have managed to hit a happy level of three projects per week: one at church, one at playgroup and (mercifully, only) one organized by still-not-crafty-but-improving self.

 
This was the first project I was in charge of for playgroup.  It was right before Halloween (as in, more than six months ago) so we read stories about monsters, I believe it was The Monster at the End of This Book, Where the Wild Things Are, and Leonardo the Terrible Monster, and we made this hodge-podge monster craft.  Then we had some extra supplies at the end so Logan and Naomi got to do a second round a few days later.

                                             
The kids painted these monkeys at another playgroup (not led by me).  Logan’s is the one on the right.  Naomi gnawed the feet off of hers the very next morning.

Yet another playgroup craft.  This was another one of mine; I did a sample mask to show the kids (and check to make sure the glue was going to hold).  Mine is on the left, Logan’s is on top, Naomi’s is on the bottom.
   Just a random stamp painting the kids did one day.  I pulled out some mini cookie cutters for them to use.  This currently serves as my computer screen’s background.

Completely random projects.  Yep, that’s it.

      
Here’s where I got somewhat, uncharacteristically organized.  We had a lot of success with various Advent/Christmas crafts and I wanted to do something to emphasize Lent/Easter, so when I stumbled across a free “curriculum” for a once-a-week reading/craft for Lent we ran with it.

                       
And these were the results!  (Logan on the left, Naomi on the right.)  

This was the final week’s project.  I photographed the rest of it before we finished because I didn’t really care for the last project in the “curriculum” and thought we might just skip it.  Then I decided to substitute what you see along with the Pentecost story to round it all out.

I’ve actually managed to carry on with the weekly craft project and Bible lesson, using the book “Big Thoughts for Little People” which is arranged alphabetically and doing a corresponding letter-of-the-week-type craft.  I haven’t photographed those yet though because we’ve only made it to “F” and I might actually end up saving all of those.  This is another step to full-fledged homeschooling and eventually I’m going to need to nail down some kind of record-keeping for that; I figure introductory alphabet lessons might need to be part of the records.

And there you have it!  Hope you have, are having, or had a wonderful day!