Friday, June 29, 2012

A Slumber Party

Andrew has been to several slumber birthday parties this year. Apparently nine is the year to start this insanity. Andrew of course wanted to follow suit and invited several friends from school.


Andrew also wanted a soccer themed party which was easy enough. A soccer themed cake and some invites with sports equipment and we are ready to go.


Dinner of pizza, strawberries, cherries and pop. Add some cake, ice cream, presents and s'mores to the mix and it was enough to send this boy into the crazy zone!


Happy Birthday Andrew!


Tuesday, June 26, 2012

No Slackers Here

One of the suggestions we were given by Zane's kindergarten teacher for the summer was to encourage him to write and draw. He has great ideas and is a fairly good writer. It just takes him longer than he wants to spend on the project to get it done. Frankly Andrew can also use work on this. He is a fantastic writer but does not enjoy doing it. So he got roped in on the assignment as well.


The girls wanted to do the assignment as well. I had no problem encouraging them to write either. The prompt for today was, "What was your favorite thing about Cannon Beach?" After they thought for a few moments they managed to get some nice stuff written down. I am planning on doing this at least once a week this summer. Hopefully they will all be ready to go by the time September rolls around!


Friday, June 22, 2012

Cannon Beach 2012- Part 4

Due to some seriously nasty snowfall this winter, Zane ended up missing his kindergarten graduation ceremony at school. It was a really tough decision for our family to make. Miss the ceremony or miss our vacation in Cannon Beach.


After a lot of thought we decided to miss Zane's ceremony and continue on with our vacation as planned.


Because he missed his school ceremony we decided to throw him a little party while we were in Cannon Beach. Zane brought his cap home from school the day we left for the beach so we just took it with us to add to the party.

We surprised Zane with a cake on Friday afternoon. Eric and I ran to the grocery store on Thursday night and bought a cake and told all our friends that we were having a small party. Zane was very pleasantly surprised. I think it may even have made up for missing his school party.



Thursday, June 21, 2012

Cannon Beach 2012- Part 3

A bounce house obstacle course...


complete with a giant slide finish.


Lots of games and prizes.


Strategy to win the best prize!


Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Cannon Beach 2012- Part 2

Wednesday night is always S'mores night in Cannon Beach! I think it is Eric and Andrew's most favorite activity of the entire week.


Reid and I got all snuggled up to enjoy the time on the beach and hang out with the family.


Lucy really enjoyed the s'mores but she did not enjoy the sand in her sandals.


Lovely sunset

Zane had a huge revelation this year. Always before he has insisted that he did not enjoy s'mores. This year (since they were only awarding chocolate and graham crackers to those who roasted marshmallows) he decided to actually TRY a s'more. Shockingly he loved them! Now he will never have the same problem again.


DELICIOUS!


Miss Gwen had a very exciting Wednesday morning. While we were getting ready to go on a trip to the Tillamook Cheese Factory the kids were playing in the hallway. One of the big girls picked her up to give her a piggyback ride and didn't realize that Gwen wasn't holding on. Gwen ended up falling backward and smacking her head on the floor. (concrete covered with carpet, not terribly soft) She started crying instantly and then suddenly stopped and I laid her down on the bed. Her eyes rolled back and she was out cold for about a minute. She finally came too and started crying again. Eric took off to call 911 as soon as she passed out and in no time at all the medics and first responders were all in our room checking her out and making sure she was doing alright. We ended up going to the hospital just as a precaution and got discharged right away. She was doing great and none of us really felt like a CT was necessary. She bounced right back and we made it to the cheese factory eventually. Ice cream and cheese fixes everything.


I really do love this place!


Andrew LOVES himself some s'mores!


Deliciousness!




Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Cannon Beach 2012- Part 1

Nothing says "trip to the beach!" like a sand castle contest.


Gwen and her best buddy Toby.

Gwen was not entirely sure about the water and the waves. She got tossed by a sneaker wave and it shook her up quite a bit. She didn't let it keep her from having a good time though!



Andrew barely paused in all his building endeavors to let me take this photo...


Mr. Reid had a great time playing Godzilla baby with the sand castle. He really was thrilled with the whole experience!




Zane could barely contain his excitement that we were FINALLY in Cannon Beach!


Lucy was apparently practicing her Japanese garden creation skills.


Reid was really mad that we wouldn't let him play in the water. The section of beach we were on had a little ledge where the water would drop off into about 8 inches of water. Too much for a baby boy to overcome. You really would have thought we were murdering him with the way he was carrying on!


Thursday, June 14, 2012

Andrew's Egg Drop!

Andrew's final project for school this was creating a container that would hold an egg inside it and allow it to be dropped from the roof of his school (two stories up!) and remain intact. Andrew got it in his head that he wanted to make a soup can for his container. He has been working on this project for a few weeks and it turned out very nicely. He had to write a paper as well which was his least favorite part of the project. The actual drop itself is tomorrow morning. Hopefully his container and his egg will withstand the fall!


And for your reading pleasure, Andrew's egg drop report.

What is that dropping in the sky?  It’s a Campbell’s soup can that is for the egg drop.  The steps I took for making Campbell’s soup can were choosing a container and emptying the container, decorating the container, and filling the container with stuff for protection.  I’m pretty sure the egg in mine won’t break.
First, I had to choose either a bread crumb container or an oatmeal container.  I choose the bread crumb container instead of the oatmeal container.  Then I emptied the container out well.  Finally I clean the rest of the bread crumbs out of the container with my fingers.
Next, I covered the whole container with white paper.  Then I covered half the container with red paper and glued on the medallion.  The next part for decorating is then I wrote what is on a Campbell’s soup can.  That is a lot of writing!  Finally I spray painted the lid aluminum, to look like a lid of a Campbell’s soup can.
The last step is I rip up paper and tissue paper to put inside my egg drop container.  Then I put the paper and tissue paper inside my container and push it down a little.  Then I check to see if I need more paper and tissue paper.  That is easy!
I’d love to do the egg drop container again the same way I did it this time.  I’d take the same steps choosing the container and emptying it, decorating it, and filling it up.  It will be fun to watch it fall and see if the egg survived the fall.


Wednesday, June 13, 2012

My Two Little Nurses

So I buggered up my knee. The story involves toe cage pedals and stopping and forgetting and falling. That really isn't the important part of the story though. My two sweet girls had such opposite reactions to my getting hurt. And it is their usual reactions too.


Miss Lucy is my hovering child. She gets right in your face  "You are BLEEDING mommy! You ok mommy? You are having an owie!" And she usually looks two seconds away from crying. She sits next to you. Holds your hand. Hovers. Worries. It is adorable.

Miss Gwen is my down to business child. She gets VERY bossy about your owie. "Mommy, you need a band-aid. Mommy, I get you a band-aid. Mommy, BAND-AID!" Once I convince her I need to get all the gravel out of my boo-boo she is right in the thick of it trying to put the band-aid on herself. And then the next day, when she notices I have taken the band-aids off, gets very concerned and stern looking and informs me that I need to put one back on my owie.

I am one spoiled mommy with two sweet girls to nurse me back to health.


Wednesday, June 6, 2012

A Visit with Rory

Rory and Auntie Angie came to visit today. The kids and I were so excited to see some of our favorite people!


Zane was very excited to hold Rory and the girls quickly jumped on the "hold the baby" bandwagon. It has just been too long since we have had a little baby in the house!




He is getting so big and smiley. His cheeks are just to DIE for!




We had a really nice visit and I am so excited to do it again. Angie and Rory are going to join us on some of our adventures during this summer and I am thrilled to have a chance to get the cousins together.