After yesterday’s water fun, we told the kids they could play outside in the water again since it was going to be nice—they just had to wait until after Katie’s nap. This was actually Katie’s first ever time in a sprinkler—and of course she LOVED it!
All three kids waiting to go outside! (Later, the cats were both sitting at the door!)
I didn’t really want to get wet, so I ran inside to get my telephoto lens. Ahhhh, much better!
It was at this point that Owen accidentally broke the sprinkler—he was attempting to jump over it but instead landed right on it. He wasn’t hurt but we told him that he had to be careful. Then Tom went over and determined that yes, it really was broken, so he turned the water off so he could unhook it while he went to look for a new sprinkler. And Owen lost his shit. He started crying and screaming uncontrollably. We tried to get him to tell us what was wrong (Was he really hurt? Was he mad at Tom? Was he just upset the water was turned off?) but he wouldn’t even quiet down enough to hear anything we were saying. We assured him he wasn’t in trouble and that it was an accident but he just wouldn’t settle down. We had about 10 minutes of what you see below. Tom did find another sprinkler and hooked it up and Katie kept trying to get Owen to come over to it, but he was still being a poop. It took another 10 minutes or so before he was finally back in the groove.
Someone loved playing in the mud puddles created by the sprinkler! 🙂
Tom has a 96 (Friday through Monday off) so we took the kids to the park.
This is as high as he’d go.
“Daddy, how high can you go?” Tom pretty much just jumped straight to the top. 🙂
Tom wanted to help Owen but Owen was freaked out and wanted NO part of it.
After swinging on the toddler swing and the big kid swing, she wanted to try this one.
For some unknown reason, Owen is way more freaked out about slides than when he was little. This was his second time down—after he made me catch him the first time.
I told Owen we were going to the park and he was really excited. Then I told him who would be there (the core group of moms and kids from my mommy group) and he got EVEN MORE excited and said “My friends!!!!”
The other kids were super excited to see him, too—we really haven’t all been together (on a playdate) since before school started!
Running around with another group of boys who were playing shooting games. 🙂
Then everyone ate snacks/lunch at the pavilion and then it was time to head home for Katie’s nap.
This was the best I could get as we were leaving the park!
Last week, Mr. Eagle Eyes saw the Star Wars lego box on top of the fridge where Tom had tried to hide it. And we’re suckers, so told Owen he could have it Monday if he was good all weekend. Well, he did pretty good but on Sunday had a bit of a failing so the reward got pushed to Tuesday (which his reaction almost got the reward pushed to Wednesday).
So come this morning, he was READY. He did 99% of it on his own…and it’s an age 7-12 project!
Owen desperately wanted to go out and draw with chalk, so out we went. He is big into writing words (well, letters and numbers) and trying to spell things, so this was the first thing I saw—can you see it? Right by his feet: STOP 🙂
Then, what follows STOP? GO! (He’s finishing the O.) He spelled these on his own!
Then he was talking about hopscotch so I drew it for him. I showed him how to play and he understood but after trying it for a few minutes he said he wanted to go back to his way. 🙂
It’s a blurry pic but I caught him mid-jump.
Then it was back to chalk, where he drew…a snowstorm! And a snowman!
It was a gorgeous morning—about 70°, sunny, and breezy—so we went for our first long walk together! (Normally Katie and I just go up and down our street or to the golf course. I never get to walk with just Owen anymore.)
I tried to get a picture but Katie wasn’t cooperating.
Katie took a tumble while trying to run down the hill like big brother, but she was no worse for the wear. 🙂
At the top of the hill on the golf course (Owen used to play a lot here back in the day). He kept warning Katie not torun down the hill and to stay out of the golfers’ way. 🙂
Off we go!
Anyone want to go swimming in the community pool? I can’t imagine using the same water that’s been sitting in it since last summer and is now dark brown…? I know there are chemicals and stuff…but still. Barf.
Finally! Some wildlife! (Yes I know it’s not a duck but that’s what she calls it.)
Waving hello to the duck/goose. 🙂
She wanted to sit at the picnic table.
Owen collected sticks to make an art picture. 🙂
I saw this going on so I had to try and get a good sibling picture.
Ha.
At least I ended up with a decent one!
And then the ham:
And then someone was throwing sand and got warned so we had to go.
Other than going to the wrong park first, we had a great time! It was a gorgeous morning and good to visit with mommy friends I don’t get to see that often anymore.
“Pony! Pony! Dirty!” (It had sand on it which I had to wipe off before she’d sit down.)
Finally going down the big slide! She’d been at the top a few times but always turned around.
We went over to Mitchell’s for Virginia’s birthday and the kids loved the trampoline!
Caught in mid-air:
Daddy does the bouncing:
Katie saw this bike and wanted it and made a beeline for it. Of course she couldn’t reach the pedals but she had fun sitting on it and being pushed in it.
Both kids had A BLAST running around the big yard and getting on and off and on and off the trampoline. Virginia held Katie while they bounced and I think she liked that the best!
The kids got to stay up WAY past their bedtime because they were having SO much fun (and because we were visiting)…
The city held a Life-Size Candyland Adventure and as soon as I saw it advertised a month or so ago, I signed us up! Since we don’t live in the city, it cost $7.50 instead of $5, but ALL of us got to play! 🙂 Owen was VERY excited about it, and kept pestering us all morning because he thought we were going to miss it.
You had to arrive 15 minutes early to be sure you were there for your scheduled start time. In that 15 minutes, there were two games to play (ring toss and peanut toss), a coloring station, a Froot Loop necklace station, and a build-an-airplane out of sticks of gum, lifesavers, and a roll of smarties. 🙂
Both kids tried the ring toss, and Katie actually got one! (Owen went back to play this one about 15 times, taking turns with other kids who wandered up.)
They also liked the peanut toss—Owen was actually pretty good and Katie had fun walking up to the basket to put them in. 🙂
Notice Owen’s style! Vaguely reminiscent of his frisbee style… 🙂
Post-cereal-stringing…Owen didn’t want to wear it, so Katie did! (And you can see her holding the candy plane.)
Here’s about what the plane looked like:
Now, even though I honestly didn’t know what to expect, it was a little less exciting (?) than I expected on first glance—I had hoped it would look MUCH MORE like an actual Candyland board. But after thinking about it, how much can you really do on an (I’m guessing) limited budget…?
So here’s the board (click for a bigger picture)! They used activity mat squares for the path—which was a good idea, except you don’t get all the colors of the board.
We all got gingerbread numbers to hang around our neck. Then they had someone calling out our numbers and then telling us what card we drew (one red, two yellows, etc.). While it worked fine, I would have liked it better (it would have been more like the real game) if they somehow showed us what the card was and WE had to decipher what it was. (They did have 11×17 sheets with the actual squares on them, so they could have…?) But I’m guessing all the shortcuts were for the sake of timing as each group has to be done in 15 minutes. Which I’m guessing is also why there were no pink candy cards. (But the pink candy cards are what make Candyland CANDY LAND…but I digress.)
So we had just barely started when another group of people joined us. I’m not sure what happened…if they were supposed to be with us to start but were late or what…but we had three more kids join us. It was okay and obviously we all still had fun, but I honestly would have liked it just a bit better if it had just been us. (Their kids were super annoying, one was really young and had NO idea how to play, and they got in the way of my pictures!)
Owen got a double green and jumped almost to the end (though, honestly, he went three greens but it was too much of a hassle to correct it and no one else seemed to notice or care).
Then someone else joined him!
Then another! How exciting! A three-way tie right at the very end!
Then Owen and another girl were tied on the very last square…
Then Owen won! No picture because they hurriedly called out the rest of the numbers to finish the game so everyone was crowded around getting their bags of candy. Then we were shuffled off to take a survey and that was it!
They had a very nice playground outside and it was a gorgeous day so we let the kids play for awhile.
Katie was SO proud she learned how to get down this way:
The best pics from the video:
And then I looked over and Katie was going down a big slide all by herself! No hesitation, no screeching, nothing. And loving it!
We’re decluttering but I saw this on a yard sale site and couldn’t resist. It’s called a Crash Mat (or Crash Pad) and it’s basically a gymnastics landing pad…something the kids are completely free to jump on! Unfortunately, it’s a bit bigger than it showed in the picture (it wasn’t this tall) so we don’t really have the best space for it right now… But I’m hoping the next house will. 🙂
This is one area Katie definitely differs from her brother—she loves drawing at a much younger age! She saw the chalk sitting out and wanted to use it…so we went out to the driveway and she Had. A. Ball.
The tongue is out!
“Here, mama!”
She was scooting all over, legs and feet going a mile a minute…
And then she’d lay her face right down on the driveway…
She was covered.
Then she stuck her hand in the exhaust pipe and was covered in black. 🙂
Katie walked over to the swings and said “Mama swing peas” so I put her in. Then she’d say “Mama swing!” So I would swing next to her and she’d say “Thank you mama!” Every. Single. Time. So I’d get off my swing, go over and push her high, then she’d say “Mama swing!” And if I didn’t immediately go to my swing, she’d say “Mama swing! Mama swing!” So I’d get on the swing and she’d say “Thank you mama.” How can you resist such cuteness? And she had such great fun swinging in tandem with me…
Unfortunately our mommy group doesn’t get together on a weekly basis anymore because the younger kids are in school, nap times conflict, and people are just busier…but today three of us met! It was great. Katie also had a fun time playing with new toys…and didn’t really play too much with the older boys (about age 3.5).
But she came up to me once tugging on me and saying “Mama! Mama!” And I looked down to see this. This is why I love having my phone immediately available in my pocket. 🙂
