A typical day...

There's some of this...

Both kids really love music and dancing (although for the moment dancing has been replaced with spinning). Jack will tell Kingsley "time to dance!" and she comes running over, or she'll just walk over to our 'dance floor' (just an open area in the kitchen) and demand to dance by saying "dee!" (her way of saying dance).

And there's a WHOLE lot of this...

Kingsley LOVES reading lately, and definitely has her favorite books that we read over and over again. Two of her favorites are Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? and Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?, both of which were Jack's favorites around this age!

Even Jack took a break from playing cars and trucks and reenacting monster truck shows to read with us for a minute:

And a little time to wrestle with Daddy after bath time...

Daddy's New Ride

John got a new car today, and the kids were very excited to see it!

They waited by the front door until they saw the car driving down our street...


And then went running to see.

Goodbye old car. You were really good to us! I can remember you arriving right before Jack's arrival...I was so excited to have an SUV to welcome home my first baby in, but it's time now for something new.

A "series" of footprints

Jack has been big into Dinosaur Train lately, choosing to watch it before we read books at bedtime. He's been especially hooked on one DVRed episode about a dinosaur named 'King'. In the episode, Dr. Steve talks about how dinosaurs and other animals made/make a series of footprints. Jack really wanted to create his own "serious" of footprints; so...once I helped him decipher between series and serious, we headed outside to create his own. I chose to paint his foot vs. use mud or dirt figuring it'd be easier to clean and we could keep them longer. I gave him the choice of any color in the rainbow...



The footprints have been outside our front door since, as Jack is really excited for "someone to see them".

Fruit Week: Lemons

We started off our fruit week with lemons, but before we did Iasked Jack if he could list as manyfruits as he could think of. He started off with pineapples and apples, paused for a minute and then listed grapefuits. I tried to help him out by mentioning colors like red, which led him to blood...ok,true - blood is red, but definitely not a fruit. I then asked about yellow, so he said bananas; I tried to lead him to lemons asking what we make lemonade with, but no luck. So...we went downstairs to read our first book about fruit: The Red Lemon. Love this book - very cute! It's about a lemon farmer (Farmer McPhee) who unhappily finds a red lemon growing on his lemon tree. This led us to our first art project...

Once the kids finished their apple trees, they worked on gluing yellow pieces of construction paper to lemon printouts while I dusted off and figured out how to work my juicer/kitchenaid that has been sitting in our cabinet since we got married nearly 5 years ago. Finally figured it out, and we were off to make lemonade! So fun, and a great lesson for Jack who had no idea lemonade comes from lemons!! Both kids loved smelling the lemons, using the juicer and mixing the ingredients (ie lemon juice, water and sugar).

The lemonade actually turned out delicious - Jack wasted no time giving it a taste test (and a thumbs up!).

Beach Weekend

Somehow I didn't end up with too many actual pictures of the beach, but a great time was had by all!

Seriously...could this picture be any cuter? Such excitement from both Daddy and Kingsley! He was THRILLED that she finally left my side to swim with him, and she was so excited to get past the shoreline.

...And...back to Mommy.
The ONLY was Kingsley was getting that ice cream was half naked. Can you blame me? Look at what a mess - but theyboth enjoyed every minute of their treats. As soon as Jack finished his, he asked if he could have the same kind as Kingsley. Yeah, keep dreaming!
Love these tiles as a backdrop, and I ALMOST have them both looking at me and smiling.
Happy kids, happy grandparents. Hooray!
Seriously didn't plan for the three of us to coordinate, but gotta love it!
My dad's still got it! An accidental candid picture taken by him, of the four of us showin some love. Probably my favorite shot from the weekend!

Bliss

My husband is quite the photographer...

and my girl is just too cute! LOVE this shot.

Fish Week continued...

We've been very busy with fish around here, and been having a blast! Jack asks every day to make "a new fish project", so I'm continuing to have ideas ready for him each morning.

We made fish necklaces (Jack of course wanted his fish to be pink - his favorite color). I did most of the work for Kingsley - she picked out the beads and handed them to me, managing to drop at least half on the floor - and Jack did almost his entire necklace himself. I attached a pipe cleaner to the end of his string, which served as a big/safe needle for him. They both loved the process and result.

Jack and I also took advantage of a little quiet time while Kingsley was napping to make a fishbowl. We used some sand from his sandbox, pine needles from the garden bed, shells I had in our craft box and fish I'd cut out the night before to create a super cute fish bowl. Jack glued everything on the "bowl, and then I glued blue cellophane paper around it. It turned out great, and Kingsley loves looking at it and touching it!

Stained glass fish were our next project. Both kids were able to do this one. I cut out an outline of a fish and attached it to contact paper while they tore pieces of tissue paper. Jack was very concerned if every piece was the right size, continuing to ask "how 'bout this one Mama?", while Kingsley enjoyed listening to the sound the paper made as she crumpled it in a ball. Once they had enough pieces, they each attached them to the contact paper and voila! Last step was sticking them to the window, which was definitely Kingsley's favorite part! She was so excited as we cheered her on, and even gave a little dance!!

All girl!

Most times when Kingsley wakes up, she asks for shoes. Today she asked for her shoes...

on her elephant. Hooray for my sweet girlie girl!

Wish I could bottle up those words!

John went to the gym this morning, choosing to do his morning run inside rather than endure this insane heat. About 20 minutes later, the sky grew really dark and we began hearing thunder. Jack got very worried about Daddy saying "it can't rain when daddy is running outside". I told him that Daddy decided to run at the gym instead. It was quiet for awhile, and then he looked at me with concern and confusion and said "it's a little too small to run in the gym."

There's been a lot of discussion lately about what pee and poop are, where they come from and why. We've explained that pee comes from what you drink and poop comes from what you eat. Tonight I explained a little further that your body uses what it needs from the food you eat, and then turns the rest into poop - to which Jack's response was "just like I like to take the juice from watermelon". Well, yeah...kind of.

Jack and I made bread this afternoon in the shapes of sharks, fish and starfish. He requested to have honey on his, which naturally made his hands filthy. As he washed his hands in the sink after eating, he noticed some of Finn's flakes were on the counter; I explained to him that the cleaning ladies were on their way and they would clean it. This led to a conversation about what their job entails. After he finished washing his hands, he got off his stool and walked away. I asked him to come back and put it away, to which he replied "you can put it away. My job is just to play. It's not my job to put the stool away."

A Nod to Finn: Fish Week

Our first order of business: watercolor fish and homemade fishing poles. Both kids painted three of their own fish, which I had outlined on watercolor paper.

It was fun to watch how differently they painted - partially because of their age difference, and partially because of their personalities (Jack is much more methodical and clean whereas Kingsley is more free-spirited and messy). Jack definitely stuck with it longer though, while Kingsley became more interested in sticking her fingers in the paint.

Once the fish were painted, I cut them out and pasted a magnet on the backs. For the fishing poles, we attached a string and magnet to the ends of old reels from blinds. And off to our boat (ie my bed) we headed!

Kingsley lost interest pretty quickly, and decided to pet the dog and hug her baby doll instead. I worried a bit about Jack's frustration level, but he got really good really fast, and totally took to "fishing"! He exclaimed "mama!!" or "i got a bite!" as each fish entered the boat, then put each of the fish in his bucket after catching them. Once all six were caught, he'd dump them back and start again. For over an hour he was completely entertained! Yay for new and exciting projects!!

Welcome to your new Home Finn!!

This afternoon we bought the kids their own fish. As we drove home, Jack asked what we were going to name him; I gave him a few choices, but he came up with the name "leaf", which stuck for a few minutes. As we got closer to home though, he decided Finn would be a better name - and so, we welcomed Finn to his new home. John filled the 'tank' and Jack got to feed him for the first time - and reminded us we can't feed him too much, just like Oswald (on TV) can't feed his fish too much either.

I love that he even needed to introduce Teddy to Finn.

Kingsley has shown a lot of interest in Finn - not surprising, since she seems to love all animals, although I'm starting to wonder if it's really Finn or just the idea of standing on the counter that has her so excited.

I've now requested a bunch of fish books from the library, and will be doing several fish art projects with the kiddos over the next week or so...