School & Summer

School may have started but summer's not over yet!
Some friends invited us to go boating with them on Lucky Peak.  Claire and Simone are finally in the same class this year!

Claire's self portrait/poem at Back-to-School Night.

Grammy came to visit us for a whole week!  The girls are spent one morning painting pottery.

Our neighbor Steve has been very sick (he needs a new liver) and was in the hospital for 36 days.  All the neighbor kids spent the morning before he got to finally come home making signs and paintings to welcome him back.  We hocked them all together to make a banner and hung it over their front door.

This kids had fun "resting" in the neighbors hammock.

We had to interrupt our neighborhood baseball game to check out the beautiful sunset on "Total Eclipse Eve" (aka Sunday night).  It doesn't look like much in this picture but it was really pretty!

3rd Annual Christmas Craft

For the past few years the kids have crafted a special gift for family members.  The first year was an ornament that they fingerprinted and then we turned that into a reindeer.  Last year Claire painted mini canvases and then the kids used fingerprints to make snowmen on them.  I attached ribbon so they could hang like an ornament.

This year we made Christmas card holders.  I actually had the canvases left from a craft that didn't happen on Christmas Eve last year... I'd even glued the ribbons on last year so had a head start.  Next I hot glued a mini clothes pin on each board.  Then I used paint pens to draw the basic design... a wreath, a string of lights, strings to hang ornaments...  After that dried the kids used paint and fingers to add the lights, ornaments, leaves or berries.  Then I had the kids each sign their name.  They turned out really cute and were a fun way to hand deliver some of our Christmas cards.

Making Valentines, etc.

Claire wanted to make the Valentine's for her classmates this year.  We cut out small little cards.  Mom drew a heart and wrote the word "FROM:" on each one.  Then Claire painted and decorated the hearts with watercolors and wrote her name on them.  She has also made a bunch of perler bead creations that she wants to give her friends.  So the next step will be attaching the cards to those.  They turned out really cute.  What a creative girl she is!

 I love all the bright colors!

While Claire painted, Bryce "drove" around the table in circles on his plasma car.  He loves that thing and is really good at making tight corners and not running into too many things.  We worry about Carlo getting running over is the only real problem.

After driving/painting time the kids felt a snack/dessert was necessary.  Bryce begged for an Oreo while Claire pleaded for a Reese's.  Luckily there were a few "pleases" sprinkled in there so both had a happy ending.

Dirty Dogs & Stepping Stones

Claire was so excited to help the neighbor wash their dogs the other day!

This is a summer project I've wanted to do for a long time because we need some sort of path from our patio to the back yard.  Finally I managed to gather up all the materials and get the kids together to make some stepping stones.  The kids embellished the stones with flat glass beads (dollar store) and seashells (that I've been saving for a really long time knowing a project was going to come along one day that I would want to use them for... when I say a really long time, I mean a trip to Mexico over 10 years ago... not sure if this is really a good or bad thing... but glad we had them for this project!). 
They turned out really pretty.  I'm not sure how functional some of them will be with all their decor.  We are going to do some more and put hand prints and impressions of leaves and things like that on them, too.

Fun Fall Days

After a rainy start we had a few nice weeks of fall weather.  Now it's getting cold again but it was nice while it lasted!

Lots of tree climbing.

Driveway campfire with the neighbors.

Claire was so excited to hold our neighbor's bird, Paula.

Running down the "hill".

They did not want to hold still so could I play with my camera settings.

It was very painful!

Lots of playing in the leaves!

We also gathered a bunch of leaves, then we dipped them in wax to make fall decorations.  We still need to hang them up somewhere because they are pretty.

Claire's 6th Birthday Party

We had a party to celebrate Claire's 6th Birthday at our house on Saturday afternoon.  We invited a few of her best friends to help celebrate.  Claire LOVES bugs so we decided to have a bug theme for her party.  The invitations were in the shape of a bug jar!

Claire helped think of activities for her guests to do at the party... she wanted a pinata and pin the tail on the donkey - which we converted to pin the bug on the flower.  We also had a bug hunt and made edible mud pies.

For snacks we had bug juice (which was really just green Hawaiian punch), fruit skewers, cheese sticks, and of course cake and ice cream.

First we had the bug hunt.  Claire had helped to hide the bugs all over the front and backyard.  I have a feeling we might still find some that she hid really well.  Each guest got a bug net and magnifying glass to help them on their hunt.

Next it was time to make our "mud pies."  Each girl had a little flower pot for their pie.  First they each put an Oreo in the bottom (to cover the hole in the pot), then a few scoops of mud (a mix of chocolate pudding, cool whip, and crushed Oreos), then sprinkle some dirt (crushed Oreos) on top.  Garnish with some delicious gummy worms.  For the spoons they used to eat their creations I had attached some silk flowers to the end so when the spoon was in the pot it looked like there was a flower growing in it.

Then we played "Pin the Bug on the Flower."  I drew the poster and Claire was in charge of coloring the picture.  I found some cute bug stickers at the craft store that were perfect for our game.

Then Claire opened her gifts.  She got some fun new toys... a couple Barbies, Sea Monkeys, a puzzle, and a super soft hoodie to name a few.  Thank you so much!!

 

Next they took turns trying to break open the pinata.  The girls did a good job, and Jade gave it a final blow to get the goodies out.  The pinata was filled with more plastic bugs, some lollipops, mini-bubbles, and bug stickers.

And at last it was time to sing Happy Birthday and blow out 6 candles!  I found the perfect bug and flower shaped candles at the party store... and there were 6 in a pack!  It was a little breezy so Claire had a little help getting all the candles out this year.

The party was lots of fun.  I can't believe our little bug is going to be 6 years old in a few more days!  We're planning to celebrate a little bit more on her actual birthday (Thursday) with a trip to the zoo and dinner (pizza I hope!) with Cole and Charlie that night.  Then we get to go visit Grammy and Grampy and perhaps celebrate a little bit more... this is one lucky kid!  Thank you to everyone who was able to celebrate with us yesterday!

Potions

We've been saving all these plastic bottles and containers in our garage and finally came up with an activity to use them!  Making Potions... materials needed: water, food coloring, lots of clear plastic containers, kids, clothes that can get dirty.

Getting Ready for the 4th

We did some painting the other day to make some 4th of July celebration signs...