Discovery Science Center: It was so much fun! The wind chamber was my favorite part. It felt like I was on the freefall part of a skydive. So invigoraing. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have one of those at home for whenever you need a little more get-up-and-go?
I am LOVING our fun adventures this summer. The other night Seth said to me, “Mom, what adventures do you have planned for us for tomorrow?” That innocent little comment was a hge payday for me. I have accomplished all that I’d hoped to this summer, and there are still more adventures to come.
Today Seth came up to us after church and excitedly announced. “Me and AJ are going to be geologists and that’s how we’re going to get rich. Because geologists are the ones who find all the diamonds. We can just find all the diamonds!”
Danny tried to explain a little about land rights and all that (the lawyer in him popped out), but man, was Seth excited! He thought he was really on to something big!
After the museum we went to Jeanne’s house to play some more with our practically cousins, Warren and Maddie. Seth and Warren formed “The Scientist’s Club.” Here is the weekly schedule they came up with for the club.
***Upload failure*** For cool picture of their Scientist’s Club schedule please click here.
“Put it back on it.” This is what little RyRy said to me after I popped off a Lego guys arm to illustrate the story of Ammon in the Family Home Evening lesson we were having tonight. He is too little to be using so many words in succession. At least I think so. He is growing up so fast. He is so full of energy and loves his shoes. He thinks it is the END of the world when I make him take off his shoes in the house. Often I have to physically remove them from his feet myself and hide them so he won’t put them back on (we try for a no shoes in the house policy). I think I need to just go buy him a pair of shoes that will be his “house shoes” since he loves his shoes so much. Maybe that would be an acceptable compromise. He won’t accept his house slippers as a replacement. Only his pirate shoes and sometimes his sandals and flipflops. “Pipate Shoes…Pipate shoes!!!”
I had on a CD told of Mickey Mouse and friends singing so good old fashioned American kids songs. The kiddos were all dancing around and singing and LOVING it! I went in the kitchen to get lunch ready and Seth comes in to tell me that he has thought of the one other thing he wants to be when he grows up. He spells out for me, “S..T..A..R…,” “R..O..C..K.. .” He tells me he wants to be a rock star. That he has really good dance moves and all so he think that will work out. And he’s learning to play some instruments now and that will help, too (Violin and piano lessons). So cute! My scientist wants to be a rock star. He continued to ponder the idea and explained that the two really shouldn’t get in the way of each other because most shows are at night and he’ll do his scientist work in the daytime. And doing creative stuff helps your analytical side of your brain work better, too. Rock on, Seth!
Laura wore her new pink sun dress today. At the beginning of summer she decided that she really wanted a sun dress because when we started going to the beach for the summer she thought that she wouldn’t want to get wet. If she got wet than the sand would stick to her and feel yucky, so instead she just wanted a sun dress that she could wear and enjoy the beach without getting in the water. Knowing full well that see would end up in her swim suit at the beach did not diminish the cuteness of her well thought out plan. Needless to say, we have been on the lookout for the “perfect” beach sundress ever since. We thought we’d found in at Costco a while back. We even passed it up 3 or 4 times, until we’d looked around to make sure that there wasn’t any thing better out there. There was one she found a M. Fredric’s Kids one night (we popped in there before going to the movies when Tara was here) but is was far too pricey. We finally bought the Costco one and loved it. I still love it, but she decided too late that one of the prerequisites for being a perfect beach dress is that it can’t have buttons in the back. The Costco dress had buttons in the back. Oh no (This dress story is getting really long. Longer than I intended)! So we finally found the complete package, the ultimate in beach dress fashion at Target the other day and Laura was so excited to wear it today for the first time. It turned out to be a little big, but no worries…Laura found a white t-shirt that she put on under the dress. She told me it could “make an outfit,” with the dress until it wasn’t too big. I told her I’d sew up the straps so that she could wear it either way next time she put it on. This was just another experience where I was able to see just how “in charge” my little lady is. She has a plan. She executes her plan and solves problems as they come up (unless it is time to clean up and then she is just “TOO TIRED”). She is a very smart little lady.
so you know those diagrams on the shopping charts showing how it is unsafe to let your children stand up in the cart? Well, in my defense I wasn’t “letting” him stand up in the cart. In fact, I had only just reminded him of his need to sit on his bottom. Unfortunately it wasn’t worded strongly enough, because right before my eyes, before I could get there to grab him he leaned forward to get a little closer to the budgey (parakeet) cage and toppled right out. It was in slow motion, of course, but so was I, I guess, because I couldn’t get to him fast enough. It wasn’t a simple fall out, either. He did a complete flip. Feet over head flip. All the way around until he was lying on the ground. I felt so horrible. I grabbed him up and loved him up and couldn’t help but look around to see if anyone thought I was as horrible as I felt in that moment. He had no concussion symptoms and quickly went back to wanting to see the pet store animals more than he wanted to be held so all is fine now. But man, there’s really something to that whole, “Don’t let you kid stand up in the cart thing.” They sure can flip ALL the WAY over and out before you get from one end of the cart to the other.
it is spring break this week. today we went to carpenteria beach with jeanne, warren and maddie. it was absolutely gorgeous. we drove through the campsites, scouting out the best ones for future camping trips. then we went down to the tide pools looking for sea creatures. we ended up on the sand by a little concrete square in the sand that seemed to have a natural spring bubbling out the end of it. the kids loved it and played in it and on the rocks for a good long while.
in talking to seth about what a great trip to the beach i thought it had been he told me that he didn’t think it was that great. “there wasn’t very much there…” reallly? we’d seen a little crab, some legs from a big dead crab, a conch shell with the living thing still inside it, some sea anenomes, barnacles and mussels, marbled godwits (that we identified with the bird guide), a great blue heron, diving brown pelicans, and some dolphins to boot! i was stumped. there wasn’t very much there? in further conversation it came out that there wasn’t much there compared to what we saw at the beach in Costa Rica! Duh! Okay. I’ll give him that. But it was a FABULOUS day at the beach! Have we ruined him forever by taking him to a hotbed of wildlife in his young years. i guess nothing else will every really compare to the “most biologically intense (words of National Geographic)” area of Corcovado National Park. :0)
hopefully the rest of his life won’t be too disappointing.
So it is not just my lack of time management that has kept me from posting lately. I’ve been really frustrated with the amount of spam comments that we get so i’ve been boycotting. i even went to blogger and was about to move our family blog there until i was reading about the spam comment issues someone else was having there. is there no escaping spam!??!! i escaped corned beef hash by growing up and planning my own dinner menus, but alas, spam seems to be inescapable.
i love reading comments that people leave and feel connected to friends and family through them, so it was sad when we decided to turn off the comments option. i have been silently protesting the loss of my connection to you all by my lack of posting activity. no more, though! i love having a running log of our fun together and being able to share it with whoever happens along this way.
So get ready! Here comes a new stage in my blogging life. To hell with SPAM! I will post anyway! I guess you can comment to me on facebook??
Here’s a photo to whet you appetite. This is from our trip to the Huntington Library and Gardens a little while ago. We love that place. Well, maybe not Seth, as much. He was REALLY disappointed that at a “Library” there were no books he could check out to read. He felt very misled. :0) Opps.
Tonight we went to the Valley to a neighborhood by Pierce College to look at Christmas lights. Both Danny and I used to do this with our families when we were kids. It was a blast. The cars move so slowly the kids are able to look at the lights out the moonroof. It was a jolly good time. Ryan liked to stand on my shoulders so his little head could stick out, too. “More, more,” he’d say if ever there was threat of the lights ending. So fun. (Pictures coming soon)
since I’ve posted anything. i’m getting there. i just unpacked a few more of the remaining boxes yesterday (many thanks to my mother in law for taking seth and laura to seth’s soccer practice…wouldn’t have happened otherwise!) it felt really good to make some progress to normalizing life around here. i’ll be glad when all there is to do is normal cleaning instead of unpacking, hanging up pictures, organizing and reorganizing this closet or drawer while trying to figure out how i really want it to be. off to go drop off my comforter at the drycleaners. do know how much they charge to dryclean a comforter? it is highway robbery! if you have a favorite, inexpensive cleaners–please share!!
