Children's Museum

During the last week of summer vacation, we went to the Children's Museum.  It was going to be a great day, we were going to be there right at 10.  Unfortunately, while we were on the way to the orthodontist at 8:00 in the morning, we found that one of the tires on the car was flat.  Then I had to take the kids home, then I had to have the flat fixed, but we did still end up making it to the museum that day.  The Children's Museum here is fantastic, there are a lot of great exhibits, that the kids really enjoy doing. 

 At first I let the boys- Adam, Michael and Michael's two friends, go  off by themselves.  I told them to meet me at a specified time in the museum.  It wasn't but 15 minutes later when I heard an announcement, "Nannette Frost to the help desk..."  I went up there to find all 4 boys sitting behind the desk.  The man gave them to me and didn't say anything. I asked the boys what they did to get in trouble and they said nothing, but that they weren't allowed to be unsupervised in the museum.  I did find that a little strange.  Shortly thereafter, Michael decided that this was no fun:

 One of the favorite areas is an area where the kids can build Lego cars, and paper airplanes and rockets.  They have ramps and paper plane launchers and rocket launchers where you can test what you have made.

 Another fun spot was the water works area outside. It was too hot to stay out there for too long though.

The kids ultimate favorite place is a small city.  The kids are given cards that they can put into an ATM and see how much money they have.  They can get a job in one of the buildings and earn a paycheck, then put that money on their card.  Then they can go to the store and buy things- scanning each item as they go and then pay with their card.  The store was by far the funnest part. 

 Everyone had to take a turn as a checker.

That same week, we also went to someone's pool to swim, to Splashtown, Ellie went to 3 hours of gymnastics twice and had 3 or 4 playdates per child, and I still had one child on Friday in tears because I was a mean mom and wouldn't let them have another friend over.  Seriously?  School couldn't come soon enough.

First Day of School 2013

We finally made it to the point when all kids are in school.  It feels like it took forever, but it was only 11 1/2 years!

 

Nate is in Kindergarten.  He wasn't so sure about going until a few days before, and then he was asking every day when school started.  He has liked every day so far.

Ellie is in 2nd grade.  She has 2 teachers- one for English and Social Studies, and one for Math and Science. 

 Michael is in 4th grade.  He has the same teacher as Adam did in 4th grade, and he is so excited.  He is sure he is going to have the best year ever.  If you know my Michael, that is a HUGE difference for him.

 Adam is in 6th grade.  It is at the same school as he went to last year, so he feels like he has the ropes down.  I am still making him ride the bus, and he is still upset about that, but a new road to the school is being finished soon, so he might be able to ride his bike.  We will see.

This last picture I tried to do for fun.  It didn't work out quite like I hoped, but you get the idea.  This is how we all felt about the first day of school.

Galveston

Last week we had the chance to go spend the day and night with good friends at a beach house in Galveston.  The kids enjoyed playing the ocean, catching hermit crabs, making sand castles, going out at night and chasing sand crabs, and mostly-just hanging out with friends.

 Our friends that invited us are Michael's good friends, Shane and Logan.

 

 This is their cousin, Lily.  She is Adam's age, but quite a bit taller.  She loved to help babysit the younger kids, and of course they liked hanging out with her.

Tennis

This spring, Adam and a couple of his friends have been going to the tennis courts to play tennis now and again.  He said he liked it, so we decided to try to find tennis lessons for him.  We found some in the next neighborhood over, and so in May he and Michael took tennis lessons for a couple times a week.  Then this summer, they both did a couple of weeks at a tennis camp in our neighborhood- which was 9-11 for four days.  The last week, Ellie got to try to do it too. 

 

Adam picked it up quick and is doing really well at it.  He can now lob the ball back and forth over the net for about 20 swings.  Michael took a little longer to get up to speed, but by the end of the second camp, he was doing a lot better.  Ellie really enjoyed herself.  She got to where she could hit the ball pretty consistently.

 

 

The last day of camp, the coach let Nate and I practice too.  Nate got practice trying to hit the ball, and got to where he hit it when pitched by a coach almost every time.  I found I could actually hit the ball too, which was a relief because I didn't want to be horrible in front of all my kids.

 The girls.

4 Corners

We found that on the way home, if we went off our designated drive by 6 miles, we would end up at the 4 corners.  I have wanted to go there since I was in elementary school and one of my friends told me about when she went there.  Everyone got a picture of them standing in 4 states at once.

 

 Here all my kids are in different states.  Nate had just fallen asleep when we got there, but I still woke him up (once in a lifetime, right?)  Needless to say, he wasn't very cooperative at that point.

 Don't know what Nate has going on back there...

We are all in different states. 

Cabin Crafts

One of the kids favorite things to do while at the cabin is crafts.  Probably because it is one time that someone will drop everything they are doing in order to sit down with the kids and do a craft.  This year we branched out a little as compared to the last few years.  One of the first crafts we made was worry dolls.  The tradition is that in south America somewhere you would make a doll, tell it your worries and put it under your pillow at night and then you wouldn't have to worry about it all night.  We just made them for fun.  This is our family.  Starting from left to right is Nate to Joe.  Everyone made their own except Nate who only did a little and Joe who probably wasn't there.

Close up of Michael.  Aren't his glasses a riot?

Grammie made Grandpa and Grammie.  Notice that Grandpa has suspenders and a belt on.

 

Ellie made this one.  I think the curly hair is really pretty.

Another day, Grammie and I made flower fairies.  I think the technical name for them is Waldorf fairies. On this project, we weren't as nice to let the kids do it too.  It was fun to make the fairies.  I ended up making 3, and Grammie made 2. They are made basically out of pipe cleaners wrapped in embroidery floss with a fake flower on the bottom.  Ellie has these in her room now, I think they are really cute.

 Another day we made dog tag necklaces.  Nate made one too, but he threw it at me in the car (typical Nate behavior), so it wasn't available for the picture.

 In addition, the kids made personalized visors, perler bead projects, bird feeders out of peanut butter and seeds, beaded bobbie pins and I am sure there is something else, but I have now forgotten.  They LOVED it.  Now the hunt for projects for next year begins, so exciting.