Grandma's Visit

 We loved having Grandma visit this summer!

 We got to go down a few times to visit with Jill and her kids.

 Building Legos with Grandma

 I got a good picture of Jared, but it was really back-lit.  :-(

 Here Grant and Timmy are pretending that they are in a sandwich...the couch cushions were the bread, the white blanket was they mayo, the red blanket was the ketchup, and the boys were the meat.

 Timmy!

 It's so great to see Grandma!

 Some of the girls being silly together

 Kegan took such good care of Kate.  She brought out her little animals to show Kate while she rested...and drew pictures with her later.

 All of the cousins waiting for dinner

 One of the days we visited the botanical gardens

 Kegan and Grant doing some gymnastics together

 Kate and Timmy exploring together

 I love this picture of Kegan!

 The boys

 The girls (except for me)

 Kate has a bond with Auntie Jill.  She only wants Jill to hold her when she's visiting and doesn't want to be handed back to me.  :-)

 We went for a walk one day, looking for treasures.

 Jill and Jared--look how tall he is now!

Come back and visit again soon, Grandma!

Summer Vacation

I'm a little late with vacation pictures.  Instead of taking lots of pictures, I tried to just take a few and be more living in the moment.  :-)

 We went down to the San Diego area for a couple of days.  We stayed in Coronado and went to the beach there.  For all of the begging to go to the beach, neither of the kids actually wanted anywhere near the water.  Grant wanted me to comb the beach for shells and bring back what I found.  

 But they loved playing the sand together so that was lots of fun.

 We found a few strange things on the shore this time.  One was this jellyfish.  

 Another day we went to the circus!

 It was so much fun.  I think it will be even more enjoyable when the kids are a little bigger and I can watch more of the show instead of figuring out what Kate is going to get into next.

 We also went to Sea World.  Grant always loves sea creatures and he thought it was great fun.

 Here's Kate waiting for the Shamu show to start.

Grant enjoying the patio at the hotel in Coronado
  When we asked him what his favorite was that we did on vacation he said, "Staying at the hotel."   

 Legoland was of course on our To Do list.  It was another beautiful day there.

 Nate and Grant on safari together

 The 4th of July landed in our vacation time.  It was such a gorgeous night and we barbecued and ate outside at our new table for the first time.

 Then we went up to the balcony off of our bedroom to see the fireworks.  It was a great plan in theory, but there were too many trees in the wrong spots to get a good look at any of the shows.  We saw parts of 3 shows, but we'll have to actually go to see the fireworks next year.

Snuggling with my happy girl

Painting

We got some small wooden vehicles at Michaels for the kids to paint.  The LOVE to paint and do crafts so I'm trying to let them do messy crafts more often.  

It doesn't take long for the pretty colors to be all mixed into one blob of greenish brown...but he has so much fun mixing it all up.  :-)

Visiting with Cousins

Our last visit with my sister and her kids before school started.  Kate had warmed up a lot to them and actually started running off with them to play without me nearby...a big milestone for her!

Kate's 1st Gotcha Day

I can't believe a whole year has passed since Kate joined our family.  So many things have happened in the last year, making it just fly by.

I wasn't very organized this year and didn't plan any sort of special treat for her Gotcha Day so we made do with McFlurrys from McDonald's.  She thought it was great.

 Opening her gift...dress up jewelry, tutu, shoes, and a purse

 This girl LOVES to dress up.  She's quite talented walking in those high heeled shoes, like she's been wearing them her whole life.

 After dinner we went out and blew big bubbles.

Classy.  As my mom might say, "The finer ladies don't do that."  Kate's clearly not a "finer lady" yet. 

We're so thankful to have little Kate in our family.  She has tons of personality for such a little lady. :-)       

Stickers

The kids have been really into stickers lately.  Not so much on paper, but on their bodies.  They laugh hysterically and run to the bathroom to see what they look like. 

 This is Grant as an elephant.

Grant as a cat...complete with a tail.  

Cooking Class #1: Ice Cream

Grant and I are taking a few kids' cooking classes together at Williams Sonoma.  The first one we did was ice cream.  The kids got to make an ice cream sandwich (then eat it), mint chocolate chip ice cream, and vanilla ice cream. 

They also got to practice separating eggs.  It was fun to get to see, smell, and taste the ingredients they used to make the ice cream.

Next class will be on packing a healthy lunchbox.  Should be fun!

First Day of Kindergarten

Thursday was our 1st day of school.  We were very excited to get started!

 Grant was still a little sleepy when we were taking pictures.

 Grant couldn't wait to get started.  Our science lesson for the day dealt with the 5 senses and he wanted to practice during breakfast.

Kate was excited, too, and had trouble staying away from Grant when we were working together. 

He found some new race car erasers that I put in his desk.  "Thanks, Mom--you did a great job at having a surprise for me!" 

He learned some new color sight words and drew shapes on the backs. 

 She's back!  Kate brought over a chair so she could watch Grant do some work on the computer.

 Aaaand...back again!  She got to sit there until she insisted on writing on Grant's paper instead of her own.

We had a great first day and are excited to learn together this year!  Hopefully we'll still be smiling by the end of next week.  :-)

I was concerned that Grant might get bored with the beginning lessons, but so far I've been impressed with the curriculum.  Day 2 he learned the 7 continents and what sorts of things found on each continent.  I don't remember learning that in kindergarten.  I think it will be a fun and challenging year.