Museums, Museums

In the last two weeks, some lucky boys have gotten a chance to go to a museum (well, Aaron technically got to go to two...don't tell Nate! ;) )

First, Aaron and I ventured out with our Moms' Club group to go to the great and wonderful Children's Museum of Phoenix. I'm ashamed to say I haven't been there since Nate was Aaron's age! :( But, it's not an easy museum to go to with two kids on your own, especially if they aren't the same age, as some rooms are geared only for certain age groups. So anyway, this was Aaron's first time there and he LOVED it! I'm gonna have to try and make it there a little more often. We easily could have spent more than the two hours we visited.

If only this ice cream was real...

Car wash!

He could have easily stayed and played in this room with all these different contraptions all day!

Finally, a pizza oven my size!

Paper or plastic?

Then this morning, my little boys had a date with their daddy and grandparents at the Natural History Museum! Nate's been wanting to go since the beginning of summer...well, we eventually got to it! Nate's favorite part were the jail cells while Aaron enjoyed the dinosaurs.

Is it real?

Grandmother got him a little "digging for dinosaur" sort of toy

Look- I took it out!

The boys really enjoy museum visits!

Camping Dudes

Josh, Nate and our dog Lily had a wonderful time camping in Payson last weekend (until Saturday night- more on that in a minute). Nate was SO excited to go 'real' camping since he hadn't gone since last fall. They went with some of Josh's work friends. We knew Aaron wouldn't sleep well in that sort of environment yet so we stayed behind.

Their camping area

Nate loves to hike!

Lily likes to explore, too

I think I could live in here...

New friends

Nature boy

I believe other than hiking and walking around they sat around a fire, typical camping stuff. I don't think they fished any. Back to Saturday night...

The last night they camped, a little after midnight, Lily pawed at the tent to be let in (Josh had her tied up to a tree outside). He noticed her spitting and then...came the odor. She had been sprayed by a skunk! :( I was glad Nate slept through the commotion and Josh was able to get Lily to go back to sleep that night, but things have been stinky (literally) ever since. Lily still smells like skunk (as well as some rooms of the house and clothing/blankets). I first took Lily for a good clean and then have been applying a hydrogen peroxide/dish detergent/baking soda mix to her coat once a day, rinsing it out. Some moments it seems the smell has gone...then as it heats up outside, it comes roaring back. I read that apple cider vinegar (left out) is suppose to help with the smell in the home. Other people have mentioned tomato juice in helping the smell on Lily go away. I just tried that today so we'll see how she is tomorrow. I've heard the smell can last for weeks :( Our poor doggie. Luckily this hasn't seemed to affect her behavior, eating habits, etc. It's just too bad we found out the hard way why we shouldn't let her sleep outside ! (and of course, learned even more so it's good to stay WAY away from skunks!)

Probably our one and only camping weekend until next summer. I don't think Nate minds...he's already counting down to another trip in October!

Aaron's First Classes

I've been enjoying my quality time with Aaron these last few weeks - Nate is doing great and loves kindergarten, so it's been more sweet than bittersweet (maybe with the exception of homework). You know, I'm surprised that I never shed a single tear with Nate being in school - not even the first day. Guess I was ready and more excited for him than anything. And excited for time alone with my youngin'!

We've been spending time doing errands, house work and some non-fun stuff with Nate in school, but finally this week Aaron got to start a few classes and I made a couple Pinterest projects.

Over the next few months, I've signed Aaron up for both an art class and play class, just like Nate when he was Aaron's age. We had both this week.

Loves art!

We love taking art classes through the city - same instructor Nate had for his art camp this past summer. We love her! Tons of variety.

Then we won a free month's worth of classes at Great Play.

Not so crazy about swinging- but liked to push it

One of my Pinterest projects - tracks for cars and tunnels for trains using a Huggies diaper box. I love it when the kids enjoy and play with simple things.

Parking garage using a cereal box and toilet paper rolls

We also have kept busy with our Moms Club group doing activities, visiting with my mom and grandma and I've been trying to do some more baking. We're staying plenty busy, I think!

Hubby's Wood Working Hobby

Over the years I've posted about projects hubby has built from scratch...everything from shelves to Nate/Aaron's changing table,marimba and he recently re-did my desk for me! He's been busy even since then.

First...came a bread box.

I couldn't stand the ones that were sold at stores...only big enough for a single loaf of bread and $30! Mine fits so much more...

Then, soon after he re-did my desk he made a bench/area for us to put shoes.

Lastly...he just made us a bathroom cabinet sort of thing for our counter. Aaron was able to reach our cosmetics on our counter, so I wanted something where he couldn't access our stuff (nothing like finding him covered in all my lotion!)

 

It's so nice to have a great handyman around...his parents did some good!  I hope he develops all those skills with our boys,too.  They'd make happy wives one day! I wonder what we'll come up with next? :)

Just Keep Swimming..

Hooray! The boys just finished their first full session of swimming lessons (once a week for four weekends). Thanks to a good teacher, Nate found the confidence he needed to enjoy swim. I decided once we finished that we needed to still continue to "strike it while it's hot" and enrolled the boys for another session (this time with Nate moving up a level). Today was the first day of the second session - luckily Nate likes his new teacher,too. But we can't be at swimming lessons now without at least saying hi to his old teacher, Mr Thom
:) Nate is pretty infatuated with him.

Parent/toddler class

With new teacher Miss Joy

Yay swim class!