Happy 4th of July!!

We had a long, busy, fun day today. We started the morning out my Marc making from scratch french toast. Yummy!
Next we went to Sand Lake for the afternoon.
We watched a parade. I have always liked parades and little Marc has become just as big a fan as me. :)After watching the parade we decided to "splurge" and let Marc ride more than 1 ride at their carnival. The first thing he chose was the slide on the burlap bag. One this ride 1 parent could go free with a child. So we decided to take advantage of it and both Daddy and I went with him (he was excited that he got to go twice).Next Marc chose the house of mirrors. After some time trying to figure out how to get out, and walking into a mirror, they found their way out.The was a twisty slide to get out of the house of mirrors. Marc tried to "catch" Daddy when he came down the slide.After the slide, Marc and Samantha went on a train ride.After the train ride, Marc and Daddy drove bumper cars.There was a kids roller coaster there that Marc LOVED! He actually chose to ride that one twice instead of something else.Daddy saw a concession cart that sold deep fried Oreos. He decided that he needed to try them. The thought of them was revolting to me (way too sweet), so Marc and the kids tried them. He said they "weren't bad".After lots of fun in Sand Lake, we headed home for awhile. (See next post to see what we did with that time)
After some dinner, we headed to Rockford for fireworks.
We had about 45 minutes to wait so Samantha spent the time playing with some of her toys.
Rockford has a "Blues on the River" concert series going on all summer. Marc enjoyed dancing to the music as we waited for fireworks.A cute picture of Marc and Daddy.
Happy 4th of July!! :)

Yummy!

Marc asked me if I could buy Popsicles the other day. I decided that it was summer time, so what the heck. Samantha wanted to try them too.She wasn't so sure about it at first. After every bite she made a face.....we think it was because it was cold. She would move her tongue around inside her mouth......and then open for more....Her brother was nice enough to share his grape flavored popsicle with her.Even though Marc or I were giving her tastes, she still managed to get it all over her face.Here is a video of her eating her popsicle.


Hopefully we will have a warm enough summer that we get to eat lots of popsicles and see how her reactions change throughout the summer.

Be Creative with Crafts

This weeks theme for story time is "Be Creative with Crafts". During the morning session Miss Shannon read a few books about "crafts". After wards, there were 4 stations that Marc rotated through. His first station was hat making. The "workers" made a hat out of newspapers......and then he got to decorate it with stickers.This is the finished product.
His second station was face painting, but he didn't want his face painted, so he had his hand painted instead.Here is the finished product.Marc's next station was "mirror" painting. This is where he paints only one side of the paper and then folds it over and presses down. That transfers some of the paint to the other side, to create a Mirror image.After the mirror painting, there was a station where the kids did "creative movement" with scarves and a parachute.After he did those stations we came home and had lunch and played a little while....and then went back for more fun. :) When we got to the afternoon session, which is designed for the older kids, there were 7 different stations. The only ones that were a duplicate from the morning session were the hat, face painting, and mirror painting. The other 4 were new, so he had fun with those.
The first one was marble painting. For those of you that don't know what that is, you tape a piece of paper ina pan, dip marbles in paint, and roll them around in the pan to make a design.There was a station to make bead bracelets. He enjoyed stringing them. Look at the look of concentration on his face.Here is his finished product.Next he went to a station to make a tissue paper collage. There was aluminum foil taper onto cardboard. He had to spread water-downed glue all over the foil and then place tissue paper on it however he wanted. Whenhis design was done, he had to spread more glue on top to make sure it stayed in place.Here is his finished product.His final station was making a butterfly out of a coffee filter. One of the workers helped him fold it correctly and then he had to put drops of water (with paintbrushes) on the wings. They had paint that was kind of like water colors (a little thicker) and he had to put "dots" of color. Since the coffee filter was wet, the colors spread over the wings.Here is the finished product.After a nap and some dinner, we went back for a 3rd program for the day.....a magic show! Marc got to help. :)

It was a busy day, we had 3 different Summer Reading Program sessions today. We are tired, but it was super fun!

A Day at the Beach

I got a call from one of my neighbor friends (Amy) last night. She asked if the kids and I wanted to go to the beach with her and a couple of the other neighborhood Mom and their kids today. We were thrilled with the invitation! We got there are 11:00. The kids played in the water for awhile, then ate lunch, played on the playground, and then in the water some more. Between us 4 Mom we had 10 kids ranging in age from 14 months-11years old. We had fun.
Marc was so excited to go. He had fun playing in the little bit of sand there was there.Samantha looked so cute in her swim suit sitting on the towel....I just had to take a picture.I held her in my arms for awhile then my neighbor girl (Kenley 11 years old) took her and sat her in the water. She has SO much fun splashing in the water. She had fun, until she splashed herself in the face, and then she flinched.Another neighbor Mom (Heather) has a little boy that is a few months older than Samantha came with us. She brought a cool little floaty thing that the toddler sits in and is able to walk around or kick, but still be floating. She let Samantha borrow it for a few minutes. She had a blast!Marc's favorite thing to do was fill his bucket with water.......and then dump it on his head. He really is a strange bird. ;)I was a little nervous taking the 2 kids to the lake without Daddy going along. Amy reassured me that there were be 3 other Moms there to help keep an eye on the kids. Kenley is 11 and taking baby-sitting classes, so she took the opportunity to "practice" with Samantha today. I think Samantha enjoyed the attention...surprise, surprise. ;)
All in all, things went great and we had an awesome time. :)

First Day of the Library's Summer Reading Program

During the summer our local library has a summer reading program. This year's theme is "Get Creative". Everything that goes on during the program is associated with that theme. Once a week there is a more traditional story time geared more towards the "preschool age" children. The librarian reads a couple of books about a topic and then follows it up with a craft.In the afternoon there is a program geared towards the "school age" children. This session is more of an entertainment time. This week there was a lady that played the harp, a few other instruments, and sang. During one of the songs she invited all the kids that wanted to to come up front a play an instrument and sing with her.After the performance she let the kids come up and play her harp for a second.We had a fun afternoon. We can't wait to see what they will do next week. :)

Happy Daddy's Day!

We didn't do anything spectacular for Father's Day...we just spent time with our favorite Daddy. We went to church, and then had my Mom & Grandma came to our house for lunch. We sent the rest of the afternoon hanging out together as a family.
Marc has been complaining that he didn't have any good, recent picture of the kids for his desk at work so the kids gave him a dual sided 5x7 frame with pictures of them in it.Thanks for being a great husband to me and an awesome daddy to our kids. We love you!

Visitor from Nature

For those of you that don't know my house, I have a bunch of woods behind my house. I think it is labeled as wetlands so they can never be developed. When we first moved into the house, everyone told us that we would probably see a ton a deer back there. We had not seen a single deer out there....until this morning. I was standing in the kitchen looking out the window when I saw a deer walking around back there. I went in the house to get the camera and it was gone by the time I got back out there. :( So, I stood on the deck watching for him to come back. An, yeah, he did. I had to zoom the camera in to get a good picture which means that the picture came out a little blurry, but you can see him. It was sooooo cool!

WhiteCaps Baseball

We got a flyer in the mail last week stating that National Heritage Academies (which Chandler Woods, his school for next year, is part of) was sponsoring the game. So, we decided to go. This was Samantha's first baseball game.I think she had fun. She was a little antsy in the beginning. So we got food. She had her first ballpark hotdog. Of course I had to cut it up into a bowl for her. Marc enjoyed his hotdog at the game as well.National Heritage Academies had stuff for the kids to decorate visors to wear during the game.The game started about 7:00 and ended about 9:30-10:00. After the game there were fireworks. The kids enjoyed that. :) After the fireworks, we could go walk the warning track on the field. Marc asked if he could do it, so Daddy took him out. (Samantha was so tired she cold hardly keep her eyes open).By the time we got home, the kids didn't get into bed until 11:30pm. So, needless to say, the kids are a little extra tired and cranky today. Wish me luck. ;)

Big Boy Bike

We got Marc a bike for Christmas 2 Christmas' ago. We had gotten him a full size kids bike thinking since he was so tall for his age he would be able to reach the pedals. We were wrong. For the last 2 summers we have been checking to see if his legs were long enough. Finally this summer they are! :)A couple of weeks before we went on vacation, Daddy Marc took Marc out with his bike and was planning on helping him (with a push here and there) ride it to the end of the street (like 3 houses). He did it by himself! He did so well that we decided to let him ride it around the block while we took our walk. He did really well. The only times he needed help was to get up a hill and slowing down when going down a hill. At one time he got going so fast (he kept pedaling as he went down the hill) that he fell off his bike. Luckily Daddy was there to catch him. So now, whenever we all go for a walk around the block, Marc rides his bike. :)

Outside Play Time

When we got back from AR, the weather was cold and ucky! Marc has been asking to go outsdie and play. Well, Monday the weather was finally warm enough so we went out to play. The sun was so hot that we only stayed outside for about 30-45 minutes then came inside. Both kids had pink cheeks from being so warm.