school

First Day of Second Grade!

 Connor having his favorite breakfast- protein waffles.  Kaiden with his cereal.

 After we dropped Connor off at school, Kaiden and I went home to practice using scissors and coloring.

summer evening s'mores

the boys have been lighting a fire and having s'mores as an after dinner treat lately.  They invited Natalie and Collin to join them last night.  Unfortunately, I miss some of the evening fun when I work.

bike and oobleck

I decided to take both the boys for a long bike ride.  I hooked Connor's tag-a-long onto my bike and Kaiden's trailer onto his tag-a-long.  We made a long train.

 Collin and Natalie's babysitter canceled today, so they came over to play with us for the day.  We made some Oobleck (non-Newtonian fluid made with cornstarch and water) for the kids to play with.  Oobleck is such a strange and fun substance.  It's liquid with slow movements and solid with faster movements.  They all had fun touching and rolling it.  Even Kaiden got in on the fun.  Waylon and Ilona asked to come join the fun too.  So, I had 6 kids to entertain for the day.  We had a blast!

 How many neighborhood kids can you fit in a kiddy pool?  Apparently 6!  Since I was the only adult I didn't want the kids playing in the big pool, so they splashed around in the kiddy pool instead.  Plus we hooked up the slip-n-slide and sprinkler for some more fun.

 Kaiden loved it when the other kids decided to play in the sprinkler and he had the mini pool to himself.  He liked to lay on his tummy and pretend to swim across the pool. Now that his big brother prefers to take showers instead of baths and he gets the bath tub to himself he likes to lay down in the water.  When the boys took baths together Connor would always lay on his back and stretch out, leaving Kaiden scrunched up in the corner. 

 Arts and Crafts time: we made super hero masks.  The boys chose green masks and drew lizards on their masks.  Natalie chose white and drew a Spider Girl on hers.  Next we made bracelets.  Natalie made web-shooters to go with her mask.  Then it was bike riding up and down the street.  What a fun day!

Strider

We recently went to the Valley Cyclefest bike race and saw a little girl riding a tiny strider bike.  I didn't know they made strider bikes that small.  We talked to her and found out the little girl was the same age as Kaiden.  She let Kaiden test out their strider and he loved it, so we bought him one.  Come to find out the lady belongs to Jason's Wednesday night bike group.  They go for 25-30 mile bike rides every Wednesday.  Kaiden was so excited when his bike finally arrived.  He stood and basically walked the bike for the first few days, but then he got the hang of sitting on the seat and using his feet to glide.  Now he zips up and down the sidewalks so fast I have to run to keep up!  He loves his bike!  He rides it every day.  He's already good at balancing too.  Once Connor made up his mind to ride without training wheels he mastered riding in a few days too.  He's super fast now.  His bike is really too small for him, but we're having a hard time finding him a new bike.  They redesigned the 16" and 18" bikes to be long and stretched out.  When he sits on the seat he has to lean forward and stretch to reach the handle bars.  Plus the new design has his knees extending beyond a 90 degree angle.  We must have tried out a dozen bikes for him and can't find any we like.

 Connor, Ilona and Natalie painting dinosaur sun catchers