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!

BIG First Day

No nerves at all going into kindergarten today! Daddy went into work late so he could come along to school and Nana even came over early this morning with donuts to start Nate's morning on the right foot.

Nate was happy to see some familiar faces from preschool

He was even more thrilled to see some good friends after school!

At first he didn't want to divulge much about his day, but after we went out to dinner to celebrate his first day he wanted to "practice being in kindergarten" (I'm going to guess his day wasn't that bad, then!) When he practiced being "the teacher", I got an idea of what they did today. Only little hiccup to the day was that he forgot his lunch bag at school...I think I might print up a paper with pictures of his lunch bag and water bottle and stick it to his backpack in hopes it will help him remember to collect those things :)


Aaron and I had a more peaceful, relaxing day at home. I hope the rest of the week continues to go just as well!

That's A Wrap!

The month isn't over yet but summer break is! Here are some July happenings...

We weren't too busy the holiday week. We did go to a BBQ/swim party one evening, but we actually spent the July 4th holiday at home. We watched fireworks on TV, however I think I'd be interested in taking the kids out next year. They really seemed to like watching them...they stayed up just as late as if they were out ;)

Spirited!

The second week Nate was in a camp all week, three hours each morning. Awesome! It was mostly a "play" focused camp at a local recreation center that offers swim, gymnastics, dance,etc. Nate had a lot of fun out on the gymnastics floor. One day they rented a water slide for the kids to play on and the last day of camp they had a few bounce houses.

Nate has had a lot of fun at Lowe's this month - they offer free, "build a project" classes for kids. It's great for something to do with daddy when he's home on the weekends.

This last week our great friends from Australia were in town. We had them over for a playdate with other friends at our house and went out to lunch a few times. Nate was super excited to see his friend Lauren (I think the feeling was mutual!)

Lauren and her brother Jackson's birthdays are coming up soon so we decided to sing Happy Birthday a little early. I couldn't find birthday candles so  a scented one had to substitute.

Today and yesterday we had some playing fun. Nate enjoyed going to a few Great Play camps and today we had a date with some of Nate's closest friends.

That about sums it up! We just had Meet The Teacher last night...T-minus three days until school starts! It went well, though I think you could sense looks of concern on the children's faces :) It has helped to know that Nate has a few friends from his preschool class in his room, and other friends are in classes in the same building as his.  He's overall excited, but there's some nervousness a bit on not knowing what to expect (and I expect a tired, overwhelmed little boy next week when he gets used to being at school all day and all the homework he's about to get! Yikes! There's no naptime anymore...)

Fingers crossed for both of us on Monday!