Tyler Arboretum

My niece spent last week with us and this time it was a little different.  My Mom is now local so my sister stayed and nephew stayed with my Mom while Kate got her camp with her amazing Aunt.  Okay she sort of likes her cousins too.  But we also got to hang out with my sister and her brother a few times too while she was here.  Since my sister has a reciprocal membership to Tyler Arboretum and I have a membership we had a free trip.  I love all of the tree houses at Tyler and all of the kids seemed to have a good time.

So cute!!  I have so many of these photos of Celia peeking out.

This is the guitar shaped tree house.

Audrey really, really believes that Emmett is hers and Katie is Celia's.  She even told me that she has room in her bedroom for Emmett to sleep since Katie is sleeping in Celia's room.  It is very cute.  I think Emmett would prefer that she were a boy and a few years older.

Playing up Pinterest

So in the nature of our summer of Science and my attempt to actually use the activities I pin on pinterest, we did some marble shaving cream painting and rain simulation.

We first put shaving cream on top of water and then added food coloring drops and watched them drop through the shaving cream.  To be honest Celia had more of a scientific background on rain and the water cycle then I did so I just let her talk and pretended as if I knew everything.  I mean I really do but I was trying to use that as part of the lesson, yes, that's it.

I was very proud of myself.  We did the Science lesson then we just played with the shaving cream and marbled the colors and then the girls pressed paper onto the shaving cream to make pictures.  A 3 in one activity.

So at first Audrey was super concerned that she was going to have to put her hands in 

the shaving cream.  She has gotten A LOT better with getting messy but she is not about to put her precious little hands in that stuff.

This was Celia's marbled food coloring.  We used toothpicks.  Celia would have dove right into the stuff but it was food coloring and Celia would have had it EVERYWHERE.

We ran out of shaving cream and basically it was coming out in a bubbly mess which turned out to be really cool.

A little Late but..

So on June 18th, Audrey had her last official day in the 2/3 room at her school.  She is going back for camp this summer for a few weeks however her regular teacher will be in the pre-k camp room and Audrey will actually have her teacher's college daughter!  On her last day she visited the preschool room that she will start in September.  Ms. Anna will be her new teacher and she already told me that Audrey had a good time with her during the visit.  Ms. Anna's room is also Audrey's Sunday school room and as hard as Audrey has with transitions, I think that will help a ton.  Audrey loves the toys in that room.

June 18, 2014

September 2013 and then June 18, 2014.  It is the same outfit and she has grown but the picture does not show a huge difference even though she has really grown.  

That is September 2013

Our newest swim team member

Dear Toyota

Today I stopped at a stop sign while driving my 2010 Toyota Camry.  I went through the stop sign when it was my turn and a van drove right into me. I am told I spun around twice. I then went up over a curb and the car was stopped by an electrical pole.  I was not hurt.  The first words out of the couple that witnessed the accident were "Are you ok" and then "you have a really good car".  Yes I do and thank you Toyota.  The officer responding said the same thing and then that Toyotas are safe cars.  They were amazed that the damage was not worse.  There is damage but really your car did a lot of protecting.  My girls were not in the car but they would have been ok.   Thank you Toyota.

I should send that to Toyota, I just might. I am so grateful for so many things- the girls were not with me, it did not happen on the drivers side, and it was not my fault.  Accidents happen, I just never want to be the cause of it!  

The door was damaged inside a bit but Celia would have been ok if she was in it.  Shook up but ok.  There was some other spots but the doors took the brunt of it.  It will be at the shop for 3 to 4 weeks.  I did drive it away however I likely should not have done that as the repair shop said it should not be driven.  But hey I felt the wind a bit while driving.

The Blue Angels and Such

This weekend we took a trip to see our new niece and cousin Tory.  We happened to stay in a hotel across the street from an air show and we got to see the blue angels from our hotel room window.  It was very, very cool.

It was very cool because two planes at one point would zoom towards each other, appearing as if they would crash and then they flew sideways, barely missing each other.  At times one would fly away upside down.  We could often feel the planes zooming past the window.

This little peanut was the reason for the visit.

This little guy is pretty cool too!!

Celia and her Aunt Susie

The girls had a great time visiting with their cousins and their Aunt and Uncle.

The especially loved the pool at the hotel.  Audrey was just chilling after her swim and shower!

Both girls were amazing travelers and honestly the trip was great!

Science

My girls love Science experiments and in general Celia loves Science.  It is actually an activity that I can pull out to create some calm in the house.  In our house it is Celia that is the hyper child, not the 3 year old (though she has her moments).

So last week Celia could not be settled so I pulled up my pinterest Science board and found something easy.  We learned about surface tension.  I grabbed a mason jar and the girls rounded up as much change as they could find.  Audrey and I filled the mason jar with water and they started dropping coins into the jar.

Celia and I talked about the fact that water droplets join together and that is what make's water have a higher surface tension.  I had the girls stand about a foot apart and I walked through them and then I had them join together, demonstrating that they were stronger together.  Audrey of course just liked dropping money into the water.

This I think will be a our summer of Science.  Celia loves it and Audrey loves experimenting.

Last day of Kindergarten

So I did the crazy parent thing and Celia wore what she wore on the first day of Kindergarten today.  I was hoping it would fit and it did!  She held her chalkboard again and I snapped away.  I also got to see her jump to first grade at school.  They said it was a quick event and they were right.  The kids have spots on the macadam outside of their school that they line up behind each morning it says K, 1, 2, etc.  So Kindergarten jumped to 1.  The whole school (except 5th grade) jumps up at the same time.  If you blink, you miss it.

The first is her first day and the 2nd is today.  The dress is shorter, the legs are thinner, and the face is thinner.  She just stretched out!!  Oh and the feet are bigger, it actually is more of a change then I thought!!  

And Audrey- Last day with just Mommy for the summer

Audrey's Show

For so many years it was Celia's school's show.  Tonight it was Audrey's show and she shined.  She sang all of the songs and did exactly what she was supposed to do and we were proud (sort of amazed too).

And so I will show the pictures with our all time favorite song from their school.  I do not have permission to show you the other students faces so I can't show you the actual performance, plus most of my photos are blurred and for some reason my recordings did not work.

My God is So Big

So Strong and So Mighty

There is nothing my God Can not do for you

 The Mountains are His

The rivers are his

The stars are his handy work too.

My God is So big

So strong and so mighty

There is nothing my God can not do for you

And she can sing that, just like her big sis.

Capturing the Impossible

I have captured a rare moment in time.  Audrey woke up like this…

Celia always wakes up like the above but I took a picture of her because

she is the cutest 6 year old on earth

Now I take on the task of impossible, getting these two dressed for church and ready to head out the door in 30 minutes.