A Day at Lake Michigan in Ludington

My Dad & Peg went over to Ludington for this past weekend. They decided to invite us up to spend the day on the beach with them. When we first got there it was lunch time, so we walked into town to get some lunch. Walking back to the hotel (which was right on the beach) we took the scenic walk along the marina and the channel. It was gorgeous!
After our walk, we hit the beach! Building sand castles was a big part of the day.
The water was cold, but we had fun in the water. :) We bought Samantha a floaty-thing to sit in in the water and play. It cost us $2 at the Meijer Outlet. It was a well spent $2. :)

My cool new lady bug floaty-thing

Having a water fight with Daddy.

Samantha had fun in the water but she only enjoyed it for a short time. So I took her back to the beach to play and explore some.

Cooling off with a juice pouch

Playing in the sand

Wearing the sand pail as a hat

Hanging out with Grandpa Keith

Wearing Grandpa's Tiger's hatWhen the kids began to tucker out we went back to my dad's hotel room. He hung out on their patio for awhile, until it got too toasty, then headed into the air-conditioned room.

A Day in the Sun

We had a nice, sunny day so we decided to spend it outside. Marc invited a neighbor friend, Spencer, over to play. I had filled up the pool for Samantha to play in and put out the sprinkler for the boys to play in.While Samantha slept the boys had fun taking the water out of the pool and pouring it all over the sidewalk.After awhile they played racing cars.After Samantha woke up from her nap, I changed her into her suit and took her out to enjoy the nice weather.While we were out playing Daddy came home from work. He became the hero to Marc and Spencer when he brought out a bottle of Diet Coke & Mentos. Marc pulled the string to drop the Mentos into the Coke.All 3 of the "kids" had so much fun they wanted to do it again but we didn't have any more Diet Coke so they decided to try it with Sprite. Spencer pulled the string this time.It was a gorgeous day and it was nice to "soak up the sun". :)

Marc's Day with Grandma 7/29/09

As promised, I got the pictures my Mom took of Marc on their Marc-Grandma Day. My Mom told him that he could choose with they did that day. She also told him that she had veto power, but didn't really plan on having to use it. They started at the Meijer Gardens.

Inside of the kid's enterance

Inside the waterfall "room"

Digging in the sandbox

Posing for a picture at one of the water "features"Playing the xylophone

Marc wanted to get wet, so he put his head into this wall of water....

and this was the result!Marc in front of the carousel made out of flowers

After they left the Meijer Gardens, they met my Grandma for lunch at Red Robin. Marc got to choose where they went, and he chose Red Robin because he likes their french fries. :)


For Marc's preschool graduation, my Mom gave him a gift card to Toys R Us so they went there after lunch, so Marc could spend his gift card. And, of course, Grandma spent some of her money as well. They took a picture of his "loot". He bought the sidewalk chalk and the airplane and Grandma bought the Pirate kit.
When my Mom brought him back to me I took a picture of the two of them to commerate their day together.
They both said that they had so much fun that they were going to have to do it again sometime. My Mom said that they wouldn't be going to Toys R Us again through. ;)

Words, Words, Words!!

Wow!! That's all I cay say about Samantha's vocabulary & language in the last few weeks. I am continually amazed at how much her language is improving!! Here are a couple of cute video clips of her saying some of her newest words.

"Crackers"

"Up"

She also says "Pa" when she sees Marc's Winnie the Pooh figures, "Ca" when she picks up one of her play cups, "Taty" when Tigger walks into the room, and she says brother but I can't figure out how to type it so it sounds like she does. The only thing that gets confusing is when she says "Ba". That sound could mean ball, book, boo, box, just to name a few. ;)

Budding Painter?

nd pWe decided to spend part of the rainy day on Saturday doing some finger painting. I have discovered it is hard to do a messy activity with 2 kids when I am home alone. Since both Marc & Samantha were going to covered in paint, we did it on a day that Daddy was home to help.
When we first started Samantha wasn't sure what to do. We helped her a first, and then she did a little on her own. She wasn't really "into" finger painting. We will try again another day and see if she liked it better another time.

Both of the kids' pieces of artwork are hanging up on our slider door. They look beautiful! :)

A Visit from the Tell Family

We had the honor of having the Tell family over for a play group last week Thursday. ;)
Chrys decided that since she was coming "to the north" to visit her Grandma, she would come a little further and spend a few hours letting our 5 kiddos play together.

We had lunch almost as soon as they got here. While I made good-ole mac-and-cheese, Marc gave Aunt Chrys the "grand tour" since she hasn't seen the house since before Samantha was born. While Marc gave Chrys the tour, Samantha was thrilled to be allowed to play with the cars with Ty & Lexi.As soon as I got done making mac & cheese, we all sat down to eat together. We had a very child-friendly lunch of mac & cheese, applesauce, and chocolate chip cookies. Yum!After lunch we got done with lunch, we all went out to ejoy the beautiful sunny weather. We had our sprinkler, pool, and bucket of "outside" toys out. Marc had fun in the sprinkler for awhile, then he carried water from the sprinkler in a caution cone, over to the other side of the yard and dumped it on the ground. He had the most fun hitting balls with his bat.Samantha played in the pool most of the time.......then she proceeded to crawl out of the pool and over to the bucket of toys.We all got our fill of sun for the day and had a great time catching up!! :)

Play Group at Sarah's

We had a play group at our "Miss Sarah's" house on Wednesday last week. This was a play group from preschool. There were 2 other families besides us. Sarah's daughter Ainsley is going into kindergarten at the same school as Marc this year, so I wanted them to get to know each other a little better since they were going to be going to school together.

We ate lunch then, since it was warm, we got the water fun going. The water was too cold for Samantha so she sat and played with her toys, crawled all over Miss Erin (another Mom) and ate snack crackers.Marc had a blast running through the sprinkler, playing with water squirters, and splashing in the small kiddie pools.When I told Marc it was getting to be time to go, he said, "but I want toplay inside with Ainsley for a little while before we go". How could I resist...so we stayed a little longer so they could get to know each other a little better. I think they will havw fun next year. :)

National Night Out

Tuesday night was Rockford's National Night Out. A friend of mine told me about it and she said they have gone in previous years and had a good time, so we thought we might check it out. There were a bunch of police officers from Rockford, Kent County, and MI State Police. The Rockford police have several different uniforms depending on what they are doing. It was a good opportunity to talk with Marc about all the different uniforms so he can know what they all look like.
There was free food; hot dogs, chips, and drinks, a couple of "midway" games, several of the Neighborhood Watch groups, Rockford Ambulance, and a dunk tank, with the opportunity to dunk a Rockford police officer for $1. Marc had to do it.The state police was there with one of the boats and a couple of their motorcycles. They were letting the kids climb onto them and see what it felt like.The fire truck was there with a continuous mist of water spraying. We let Marc play it for awhile. He was amazed at the the fact that there was a rainbow in the mist.While Marc was playing in the mist, Samantha looked, pointed, and made a noise like she wanted to go in the water. So, we took her. I took her through and she goggled, so Marc took her through so I could take a picture of it.It was a beautiful night to be outside! :) It was a great opportunity to educate Marc about all the different officers and to raise money for the police & fire stations. :)

Splish Splash!

We bought a small blow-up pool for Samantha back when we had hot weather in June and then it got too cool or stormy to be able to blow it up. Finally we got some warm weather again yesterday, so we blew up her pool for her. Both kids enjoyed "helping" me blow it up.While I was blowing it up, Samantha climbed onto it and was wondering what it was.We (I) finshed blowing it up and let Samantha explore it while it was still in the house.While they were napping I took the pool outside and filled it with water so the sun had some time to warm it up. After nap, we went outside for some sprinkler/pool fun.Samantha was a little timid at first, then she warmed up and as much fun in the pool as she does in the bathtub. :)

Sunday in the Park

After church we had lunch and then headed for the park for a nice family-time afternoon.Marc wanted to give little Marc a frisbee lesson.......and they "rung" Samantha. ;)Both og the kiddos spent some time swinging, which they both love!After some good-hard playing in the park we headed for Rocky's, the local icr cream stand to cool us off a little. :)On our walk back to the car we popped into a new candy store in town. They gave the kids each a balloon. Samantha was fascinated! She loved pulling the string and watching the balloon bounce around. She was adorable! (Sorry for the sideways picture, I don't know how to rotate it).
It was a beautiful day to be in the park! :)