Brrring, Brrring...

We have made it through the first few days of school successfully! Both boys have had good days so far and have been excited to go back to friends and new experiences. Indeed, it has been nice to get back into the groove of things! It already has been so nice to have both of them going to the same place...one drop off for mommy, yay! I'll take it :)

Pre-K and 2nd Grade

I decided to make the boys a big breakfast for their first day back. Unfortunately we were missing daddy who is away on business, so I invited Nana and Auntie Angie over to help eat the goodies!

Can't go wrong with waffles, fruit and bacon!

Nana came along with us to school -

I was so excited to be able to go in both the boys' classrooms. Aaron has the same teacher Nate did for Pre-K, so it's nice to already sort of know what to expect and what he'll do. Nate has a totally new teacher to the school - and to Arizona even - but within meeting her in the first few seconds, I knew things were going to be okay. We're back to having a bubbly, sweet, rainbow kind of teacher. I'm impressed by her already - which maybe is saying a lot considering it's only been three days, but I'm hopeful! :)

Nathan doesn't have too many buddies he already knows in his class, but I don't think he minds making new friends and has been pleased to see old buddies at recess time.

Ok mom you're sort of embarrassing me here...2nd day of class

I think Aaron enjoys going to the same school as "big brother" and he also has a "big backpack" this year too. Have I mentioned yet how it's nice that they both go to the same school now? :) I have four more years to enjoy this a bit!

Here's to more good days of school!

FINAL week of Summer Vacation!

Here we go..what we were up to our very last week of summer break!

To begin the week, a visit to the i.d.e.a. Museum in Mesa.

Once upon A Time theme- glow in the dark Mad Hatter tea party! So cute.

What ended up being very convenient, the boys were both in camps in the morning the whole week. This particular week has been a bit of a grouchy, brother battle, "what can I do, what can I do" sort of whiny week. It was good for all of us to have some time apart a bit!

Nathan did a camp at an environmental center with the theme being set around Hawaii. They played games, did crafts, took daily walks around a lake near there...he had a good time. They even had a luau lunch!

Limbo-ing

Luau lunch

Aaron's camp centered around games - each day they learned two different ones - like golf, tennis, soccer, hockey, etc. Unfortunately I never got there in time to get pictures of him doing any of it, but the last day they too had a little special ceremony for the kids, giving them ribbons.

The sign says "Sportball" above them, the group that put it on

Getting his ribbon

We had one last hurrah at a public pool complete with Italian ice!

Our Cub Scout/neighbor boy Tyler also came back over again to play one afternoon.

The boys both had Meet the Teacher one evening and we have our cousins from California that are in town for another visit!

This morning I took the boys back to bouncing -

....as well as a Minion picture frame making  craft at Michaels.

With all this action, though, I think we're going to have one last RELAXING day at home tomorrow before school begins the following day! As grand as breaks can be, I think we're ready again for structure :)

SS: Week 6

Second to last week of summer vacation! It started off a little rough with daddy getting sick. So, I tried to keep the kids out of the house pretty much that first day.

Lucky for us, Nate was already booked in a week long Lego camp each morning.

Only picture I was able to get - the kids mostly had their legos put away at the end.

Nate really seemed to enjoy the camp - they spent the week building sort of a Lego movie. I got to see the finished product the last day of class, they are suppose to send out the clip to us. Hopefully in time for next week's post I'll have it to show! Programs are so neat nowadays.

The first day of camp, I took Aaron to a coffee shop for a bit to relax and have some workbook time.

Following that, I took him to Michaels for a craft session.

He made a pinwheel and colored a frame

That afternoon, the boys got to do another craft class together.

Baking soda and vinegar

That evening we began our last week of swim lessons (for now). In August they are signed up for semi-private (meaning only 2-3 kids total) classes. I decided with school starting back up, we should take a break. Mommy is also ready to take a break from evening classes, 4x a week...especially since we have been doing so since the beginning of summer.

Lunch with friends

..followed by some frozen yogurt

Puppet show with Aaron one morning

Aaron spent time with Grandmother and Nana. We also did lunch and school shopping with Nana.

Then, last weekend we went with daddy, Nana, Pap-Pap and Aunt Kristen to see the Minion movie! The boys love the Minions now. It was a cute movie. We even had a little Minion party.

And now we're savoring our FINAL week of summer break!

SS: Week 5

Glad I have taken pictures of things we do, otherwise I probably would not remember! :) Especially since I'm trying to recall a week ago...I can barely remember what we did yesterday now. As school gets closer (10 days!) to starting, the boys are even more anxious to get things checked off.

The beginning of last week the boys were just coming back from Flagstaff, so we didn't do anything that day. The following morning, they got to do a " Everything is Awesome" Hip Hop dance/craft/sing camp together. The last few minutes of class I was able to come in and watch their performance.

Waiting in position

We visited our favorite cupcake joint for another book/cupcake exchange! We brought books to trade and left with free cupcakes. Win-win!

Boys both picked dinosaur books

We saw another summer movie and also went back to Aaron's friend, Rhys' house to play. He also had another friend from preschool, Michael, who came over. Rhys and Michael also have older brothers around Nathan's age, so everyone had their own buddy. Though two hours went by, it seemed like I had been there only ten minutes! Kids played wonderful and I (obviously) had fun chi-chatting with the moms.

The boys also spent time with their Grandmother, but otherwise daddy had the rest of the week off of work for the holiday, yay! While I spent some time steam cleaning carpet (boooo) daddy took the boys swimming.

July 4th was a low key day for us. We had a watermelon contest before we went out to lunch, swam at my best friend's house, then came back home and had over Nana, Pap-Pap, and Aunt Kristen for dinner/fireworks.

So proud of my yummy cherry/blueberry American pie

Playing with sparklers

Fireworks- first time buying those too!

Playing games too

Daddy took the boys out later that night to see fireworks, while I stayed home to visit with my sister. They were wishing everyday was July 4th, so we could watch them all the time :)