Fourth of July Fun

It was definitely a bit challenging having the Fourth of July on a Wednesday. But we had fun nevertheless!

We started out our day with a neighborhood parade. The kids had fun watching the marchers and the firetrucks.

 

 

 

 

And the silly clowns.

The girls, in particular, loved watching these girls on horseback.

 

And we all chuckled at this guy's pants!

Following the parade, we visited some of the vendors and the kids scored free ice pops.

Amanda was happy to pose in front the of the pretty ladies on horseback.

And then we got to do an art project.  The kids mixed together a few ingredients to make a putty/dough-type material.  They thought it was great fun.  Natalie chose pink.

 

 

Will picked green.

And Amanda chose yellow.

Later, we did a little swimming in the pool.  And then we waited and waited and waited for it to get dark.  When mom and dad decided we just could not wait any longer, we decided to light off a few fireworks that we bought at a local stand.  They all pretty much looked like this. 

 

Kind of small potatoes if you know what the real thing looks like.  But to this gang, they were awesome!  Just look at these smiles!

 

 

 

We hope everyone had a safe and happy Fourth! 

He's A Big Boy Now

Will transferred from the toddler class at his preschool into the primary class, which has the three-to-six year old kids. He transitioned really well and is loving it. His teacher, who took all of these great photos, tells us that every day he asks if he can go visit his old class room to say hello to his friends there. They go visit for a few minutes and then he proceeds to talk to the teacher about what a big boy he is now and how he is not in the "little boy" class any more. Ha! All at the ripe old age of almost 3!

Here he is busy with his new "jobs" in his classroom. He's a happy boy!

Costume Party

The kids got all decked out in costumes one night this week. Fancy!  I especially love Will's shoes!!!

 

 

Art!

We love the art the girls are bringing home from school these days. They just started bringing these colorful pictures home. They use "messy crayons" to make them and have to wash their hands when they are done. Maybe oil pastels?? (Obviously Anyway, they are beautiful. These are Amanda's. She said one of these was a picture of a panda party. Oh yeah, we see it!

Natalie loves to make rainbows and flowers.  Here she is posing with her beautiful pictures.

Natalie also made these lovely butterflies during our recent trip to the museum. 

Here is Amanda's work with colored pencils.  She draws very intricate designs and colors them in.

Finally, Amanda's wonderful drawing of our family.  Everyone is labled except Natalie, but we are all pictured! 

Nice work, Natalie and Amanda.  Keep it coming! 

Royalty

The kids' imaginations are in full swing and we have a lot of fun pretending along with them.  This week, the kids were Kings and Queens for the day.  Each did an arts and crafts project to make these glistening jeweled crowns!   Here is Will just after he woke up and eating breakfast...he wanted to be King for the full day!

Natalie sports her masterpiece.

An not to be outdone, here is Amanda's work of genius!

 

Waterslide!

We purchased this great water slide (thanks to deeply discounted Internet specials!) for the back yard.  The brown truck delivered the fun last Monday, and the kids had to wait all week for us to put up the slide!  Every day we heard about how much they wanted to play on the water slide.  As you can tell, the kids were very excited to finally see the water slide inflate...

...and they had a blast once the sliding began!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to our wonderful Dad! We love him very much and appreciate all he does for us.
 
Here is the whole gang helping dad open his gifts (notice the great wrappings selected by the children....a flowery bags and candy cane tissue paper!).

 

 

We posed for the annual photo on the stairs.  We started with just the kids, and they were being silly.

The first photo of the family was the winner!

Dad and the gaggle.

 

We hope you all had a wonderful day, too!