Staycation Day 5

Day 5 was Outer Space/Stargazing day. We actually didn't do all that was intended for this day, but truth be told, I was okay with that. It was my birthday, and I was okay with Bub not wanting to sit down and do a lot of messy crafts that were going to create clean up for me. So....we stayed up late and went stargazing with Grandpa's telescope and called it good.

But, here's what we did have planned.

Origami Stars

Alien Orbiting Craft

We're still planning to do the origami stars this weekend, because they look really cool.

I also found a star chart for kids here. But, now that we're in the 21st century, you can also just pull star charts up on your phone. This was way cool for Bub, because you just point it into the sky and it calculates where you're at and shows you the constellation/stars you're looking at. A far cry from when we were kids poking holes in construction paper so we could watch the solar eclipse!

But, Bub loved looking at the moon through the telescope and we even got a "Holy Smokes, you gotta look at this!" And he loved pointing the phone at the ground and seeing all the constellations under us. So, we'll call it a success.

Staycation Day 4

We went Around the World on Day 4 - well, we visited a couple of countries. There's only so much you can fit in a trip around the world in one day. We started the day by making a passport to keep track of the countries we visited.

Love the little hand that's trying to swipe the passport!

Then Bub had to fill in all of his important information.

I found the passport template here

After our passport was complete, we were off to Mexico where we created Mexican rattles.

Luckily this included coloring, because we are all about coloring these days!

Thing 1 insisted on bashing his on the table to make it shake. Shocker.

Thing 2 is just plain confused as to what he just made.

I found the template for our shakers here.

We had tacos for lunch to celebrate Mexico and when we finished, we were able to add a stamp to our passport. I didn't get a picture of the stamps, but she actually included these with the passport template.

Our afternoon was spent in China, so we made Chinese Lanterns to decorate for our dinner.

Truth be told, Mom made Chinese lanterns for our decorations. Bub is not a huge arts and crafts person, so this week has been a little taxing on his craftiness. He can illustrate and write books until the cows come home, but please, oh please, don't make him color, cut, and paste. Go figure.

So, we never got to the Chinese characters painting we were going to do. But here's the link for that also.

To round off our evening, we obviously had Chinese for dinner complete with Bub's favorite, homemade crab rangoon! We ate out of take out boxes and tried chopsticks and had fortune cookies for dessert. Yeah, it was stereotypical, but he's 7, you have to go stereotypical at this age.

The passport was, by far, his favorite portion of today, so I may try to do a longer theme at some point and really use the passport for our adventures.

Staycation Day 3

Day 3 was all about water. And really, when it's going to be 100 degrees, what else is there to do outside? We had a lot of fun, and this was probably our favorite day so far. Unfortunately, trying to control water around three boys - two of those being toddlers- didn't allow me to catch any photos of our fun. But here are some highlights of our activities.

We set up a wash stand and the boys worked hard washing all of our adirondack chairs.

We filled our sand box, which is empty this year, with water for a mini swimming pool.

The sprinklers were all used at some point during the day.

I drew a large target on our fence with sidewalk chalk, and Bub had to spray for a bulls eye with his water gun. The babies thought chalking on the fence was brilliant, so they had to try it out too.

Then I had Bub stand against the fence making a silly stance, and I sprayed around him with the water gun to make an outline. The babies got in on this action too : ).

We also did a little Kool-Aid painting. You just sprinkle dry Kool-Aid on the paper and then spray it with a water bottle and watch the colors blend together.

Bub got a little crazy with the spray bottle, but the edges turned out really cool.

During the little boys' nap time, we filled water balloons and had a good water balloon fight to cool off.

We celebrated after dinner with popsicles on the deck - this was the little boys' first popsicle and I think they fully approved!

Summer Staycation

Our family's tradition has been to take our vacation in the summer, whether it's large or small. But we're changing things up this year, and going on a super fabulous, super secret (Bub doesn't find out until Friday) vacation in October. He's finding out Friday, because that's when we'll start counting down to when we leave. So, in lieu of a vacation this summer, we're doing a little staycation at our house.

I decided each day would have a theme, and we would try to involve as many activities around that theme as possible. So, each day, I'll report back what we did, what worked and what flopped.

We began yesterday with our annual Ice Cream For Dinner day. Now, we have plenty of ice cream throughout the summer; probably more than we need, but it's summer. But, this is the one night, I let Bub scarf down a PB&J sandwich, call it good and start loading the goodies onto his mound of ice cream. Last night's choices included blue sprinkles and lots and lots of Magic Shell. Thing 1 and Thing 2 enjoyed a little neapolitan. In fact they enjoyed it enough, they drank down every last drop of melted goodness out of their bowls and giggled the whole time.

After ice cream, we headed to the pool for a fabulous evening of splashing around.

Day 1, a success.

Today was game day. Since the projected forecast was 100+, I thought we'd make today an easy indoor day (our other days all include crafts of some sort and I've tried to gear our food to the theme also). Of course, Bub thought this meant he could play his new Wii game all day...But we managed to squeeze in a couple rounds of his new Lego Robots game, and worked a puzzle. I had planned on doing more after lunch, but his friends showed up to play and he was off. Thing 1 and Thing 2 had a good time dumping out the Sesame Street Chutes and Ladders game and playing with the game pieces.

Day 2, pretty much a success.

Tomorrow is Water Day!!! Off to get water balloons ready!

Feeling so torn

All three of my boys have used pacifiers for sleeping. Bub had his until he turned 2 and then we used them to buy a new favorite toy at Target. It worked great, and he only cried for it for two nights and we were "pafa" free.

At our last dentist appointment, we were strongly urged to ditch the pacifiers with Thing 1 and Thing 2. Our pediatric dentist is actually fairly laid back about pacifiers...until they start causing issues. And ours are causing issues. My guys chew on their pacifiers like they're 80 year old men chewing on their stogies. You can look at their mouth and deduce which side they chew on because they teeth on that side are starting to move up and out. Crap.

Now I'm sure it would have been great to get rid of them before they were 6 months and before they were attached. But there are two of them. We weren't even breathing by 6 months. Thing 1 had reflux and Thing 2 had severe colic so we were just starting to sleep. There are two of them. 'Nuff said. So...now we have to ditch the pacifiers to save the teeth.

Don't get me wrong, we're ditching them because I don't want their teeth to get any worse, or set them up for future issues/problems. But part of me feels like a horrible mommy. Thing 1 is really attached to his, really attached.

They are only allowed to have them at bed time, and I have to hide them the rest of the day because he'll go searching for them. The pacifier combined with his rhino lovey is a complete self-soother for him. If he has those two items, he can completely calm himself down (and he has an Irish temper that can flare out of nowhere). Even though I know we need to get rid of it, I feel so bad for Thing 1. I feel like I'm going to traumatize him by taking it away.

It's so hard when, as a parent, you know you're doing the right thing, but at the same time it's breaking your heart.

Milwaukee Weekend

We got to take a great trip to Milwaukee a couple of weeks ago to celebrate my brother-in-law's graduation from medical school. We were so excited for him, and excited for our first real road trip with the little boys. In the end, we didn't attend the actual graduation - even though that was the reason for the trip! The little boys didn't sleep on the ride to Milwaukee and then had a really hard time getting to sleep once we got to the hotel at 1:30 AM. We were afraid if we pushed through a 2.5 hour graduation, there would be a colossal meltdown that would prevent us from attending any of the other family activities for the weekend.

So, in lieu of attending graduation, we celebrated at a fun little kids' hangout we found. It was part Wonderscope (kid's museum here)/part McDonald's play area. But, showing up on a Friday morning means we were the only ones there for about an hour and a half, and by the time we left, there were only 4 other kiddos there. So, it was really nice for the little boys, because no one was running them down.

The little boys loved the climbing play place.

Rockin' the tunnel.

The tongue out helps for crawling concentration.

They had a room full of soybeans for scooping and digging. You could even load up a hopper and dump the beans into huge Tonka dump trucks to transport them. They definitely spent the most time in this room.

Bubbles!!!! They had a bubble machine that kicked on about every 20 minutes. As soon as the boys heard the buzzer go off, they went running for the bubbles.

And of course, they had a train room. Although it was a bit disappointing. When we read train room on the website, we were expecting a bit more than this...we have this at home. But it was a hit with our two, or course.

After graduation, about 15 of us went out to eat to celebrate Mike's graduation at a fun Mexican restaurant. We actually ate in a train car. Yeah, pretty happy little boys; except I'm pretty sure Thing 1 wanted it to "goooo!".

It was a great weekend, and all three boys traveled really well, which gives us hope for future vacations. And we're really, really proud of Dr. Mike!!

School Year Wrap Up

Somehow we've been out of school for a week now, and have had a great start to our summer. But I have to say, we're going to miss 1st grade. Bub had an amazing year, and an even more amazing teacher, Mrs. Faddis. She really got Bub and his personality, and was always able to find ways to motivate him (which isn't always easy). He absolutely adored her, and mentions frequently how much he's going to miss having her for a teacher. We begged her to loop with us next year : ), but I suppose we'll find an equally amazing teacher next year.

We put together a picnic "recipe" for Mrs. Faddis for the end of the year present. She has 5 grandsons!, so I put a big bottle of bubbles in a sand bucket and made 5 Thomas the Train place mats for them to use when they're at Grandma's. And for a special treat for Mrs. Faddis, we added a Panera gift card. Bub was really excited to give her the present!

After our last half day of school, we invited our neighborhood friends over for a picnic. It was a great way to celebrate the beginning of summer!

Because who doesn't love to eat outside???

Even if we're just relaxing and lounging between courses.

Thomas the Train Book

Even though we are fully obsessed with trains around here, we're a little lacking on train themed books in our house. So, last night, I threw together a couple of Thomas books for the boys. I just pulled a few pictures off the Thomas website and covered them with contact paper to add some strength. Although, after watching them "flip" through them for the first 5 minutes, I'm not sure the contact paper is going to help us for very long!

Happy Easter

We hope your family had a wonderful, blessed Easter weekend; our house certainly did. We spent a wonderful weekend enjoying time with family, church friends, and, of course, some fun presents.

Egg dyeing went better than I expected. No eggs were harmed in the process, and the newspaper soaked up most of the "stirring" process. The boys were thoroughly intrigued by eggs turning colors.

We had done several practice runs with empty eggs, so imagine the delight when there were puffs and yogurt melts in the eggs the Easter Bunny left!

Str-e-e-e-e-tch!

Best puffs ever!

The Easter Bunny brought Thing 1 and Thing 2 Elmos. They haven't left their sides since. So, Thing 1's hands are getting awfully full because he's my collector. At any given time, his hands are full with rhino, Elmo, his dog (woof, woof) and a train engine or two.

I love that S caught Thing 1 in perfect running form.

My three loves.

A little post-nap viewing of "Tangled" that the Easter Bunny brought us.

When did this happen? Where did my baby go, and who is this big boy?