Week 3 crafts and Sailing Adventure

Clothespin caterpillars are easy and fun

Race car and TP octopus

We made a lot of popsicle stick dragonflies

 Chloe LOVES strawberries and boysenberries from the garden and I'm really good at washing her clothes promptly afterwards.

Friday we had Kirk and Heidi over to play for the day.  Then Friday night Mary dropped 4/5 of her kids off with Sean and we kept Claire until Sunday afternoon.  Saturday Sean, Kirk, Heidi, Connor and Peter went sailing.  Claire and I worked on some crafts and went and bought some more stones to make bugs out of.  We had a great time.  We waited for Connor to get back to work on the stones, so we have added three more of the ladybug/bee/turtle stones to our front doorstep.

 Connor, Heidi and Sean

 Connor and Daddy

They saw a ton of dolphins and some whales as well.  They had a blast!  Connor couldn't stop talking about the boat that he went on and all the cool things he saw.

A Craft a Day Week 2

This week's fun craft projects started out Monday with making two-a fun turtle and some birds.  The tail feathers for the bird were more challenging than I was expecting.  Connor lost interest with the tail feathers, but enjoyed putting the bird together.  I did two birds with tail feathers and then I gave up too.  With or without the feathers they turned out pretty cute.

So simple-just an empty fruit cup, paint, cardstock and googly eyes...all of which we had.

I got this pattern out of a craft book I borrowed from the library.

Generally we work on projects while Chloe takes her morning nap, but sometimes we're too excited and just have to get busy right after breakfast.  I placed her bowl of cereal on the table to get some supplies ready, she helped herself.

On Wednesday this super cool cricut cartridge arrived in the mail (beep beep).  Connor and I got busy making these.  He held the instruction booklet and repeatedly told me which vehicles we hadn't made yet.  There will likely be more made this week.  Wednesday we cut all the pieces out and then Thursday we put them together after we made a quick trip out for some glue sticks.

Friday he painted a race car and we attempted to make flower paint prints with the end of some romaine lettuce.

Saturday we went to the farmers market in Poway and had a great time.  We came home with a lot of fruit and a fun flower pinwheel thing for our garden.  Then we headed out to the wild animal park where we met up with cousins and family visiting from Michigan.  We had a great time.  Then we went to Sean and Amy's for dinner.  It was a big party-14 children and 10 adults. 

A craft a day

While on maternity leave I found doing crafts with Connor to be a fun mommy and me time for Connor.  Now that school is out, we're doing a craft a day for the summer.  As soon as I put Chloe down for a nap today, Connor said, "Can we do an art project now?"  He loves these projects!  Last week's projects:
Monday-stained glass airplane 
Tuesday- foam stickers on foam stars
Wednesday- Paper plate frog
Thursday- we went to The Wave with cousins and therefore did not do an art project.
Friday-Fourth of July!  Daddy didn't have to go to work, so we played and went to a BBQ and watched fireworks.

Stay tuned for this week's projects...today we did two!

Family Reunion Campout

Before we went camping we picked all of our berries.  Chloe helped eat the berries.

She thought they were delicious.

Here she is wearing one of my onesies.

Saturday we headed on our trip to Utah.  Every two years Peter's extended family get together at a campsite and have a bit of fun.  This was the first year that they held the reunion while I was done with work, so we were able to go.  On the way up we took two scenic roads.  Here Connor is next to Mt. Nebo.

We arrived Sunday evening and went to dinner at Aunt Janet's house.  Here we met up with Peter's mom, grandpa and Emily and her kids Colby, and Abby.  We stayed with Drew and Emily Sunday through Wednesday.  On Monday we went to Thanksgiving Point to their new museum of Natural Curiosity. It was AWESOME!  Children of all ages could have fun here.  We first went into the waterworks area.  Chloe had a great time at this water table.  We stayed here for at least 30 minutes.

Connor explored the fountains

hoses and pipes

more hoses and pipes and this back area made music as the water went through

Outside there was a playground...Connor loved this digger contraption the best.

Back inside in the kidopolis area-Washing machines and dryers

Connor is the vet-I think this was one of my favorites.  Place a stuffed animal on the mat, touch the computer screen and it shows you the x-ray.

Connor stayed in this room for quite awhile.

This was a building block room.  I had to laugh at these two dads who got into the building spirit more than their kids.  Actually, I think their kids even left the room and the dads were still busy building.

 Chloe picked carrots, radishes and beets in the 0-3 garden area.

 We loved the music room too...Connor was rocking it out on the drums.

 And the keyboard

 While I played the harp without any strings

 Before we left we headed back outside to the splash zone.  Colby and Abby had fun getting wet, Connor walked in the water and briefly got wet and then announced that he was too chilly.

 It was an awesome experience-a must go to museum with children.

 Tuesday morning we took it easy and then headed out to this fun splash pad.  Connor ran around the outside and never got wet...again the water was too chilly.  The temperature was in the upper 90's so he was either too hot or too chilly but never just right.

 He enjoyed playing on the slide with Abby.

 Back at Abby and Colby's house-styling the bucket on the head look.

Wednesday we ran errands to prepare us for Thursday's camping adventure.  Okay here's where we lack on the pictures.  This is Friday night's dance thingy where I lean over to Peter and say, "We haven't taken any pictures of camping yet."  So he ran to the tent to get the camera and this is the best that we got.

 Saturday morning Peter and Connor hiked to this waterfall

 Here's the campsite...imagine it with a bunch of tents

 As we left the campsite we drove up the road a little ways to the Cascade Springs...look how clear the water is.

 Peter and Connor take a selfie at Kolob Canyon-a scenic detour on our way home.

 Saturday night we stopped in St. George and then continued home on Sunday.  About an hour away from home a guy in the car next to us gets my attention and mouths that we have a flat tire.  I tell Peter to pull off at the next exit and this is what we found.  Yup it's flat alright.  We were very thankful that someone would let us know the tire was flat...could've been a lot worse had we not known.  After pulling into an empty shopping center, Peter unloaded the trunk to find the spare tire.  He also called his parents to see where they were on their journey home.  Luckily they were about 20 minutes behind us, so they met us and followed us home after Peter put the spare on.

We took the tire to Costco as it was one of their tires to get the hole fixed and found out that the screw that was in the tire was not the real problem.  There was a one inch or so slash in the tire likely caused by driving over a razor blade.  The tire was unrepairable and so we had to order a new one. 

Bustin' a Move

Last weekend we drove to Arizona for my cousin's wedding reception.  We arrived Friday evening, changed clothes and headed to a nice restaurant where our kids were on their best behavior.  Seriously I can't believe Connor was so good for so long.  We chatted with several people and met others.  It was a fun night.  After being good for probably an hour, Connor started to get antsy.  Then one of the servers brought out paper and a pencil.  Daddy drew all kinds of trucks as Connor requested them.  This kept Connor's interest through dinner.  Then he had a really good dinner, and while waiting for dessert he threaded his napkin through the holes in the chair.  He had a great time.  Great uncle George had a great time playing this game with him as well.  Several times throughout the night people came over and said what well behaved kids we had.  They did an amazing job!  Poor Chloe was exhausted, but kept a happy face and smiled at anyone and everyone walking by.  We left the party early-roughly 9:30/10 and went back to the house to put kids to bed.

The house we stayed at was huge and totally designed for children.  My aunt and uncle got the house and invited us to stay with them and my cousins.  There were 5 bedrooms and a kids play room that was decked out.  Connor spent his free time either in the play room or out in the backyard playing with dirt and diggers.

Saturday morning the bride and her mom came over to the house to get their hair and make up done.  My aunt, Hera was busy in the kitchen making spanakopita and tiropita.  Saturday afternoon we drove to the bride's parents' house for the party.  Connor had fun bustin' a move with his aunt Abbie and my cousins Tasha and Alison.

Sunday morning, we cleaned up and left for our long drive home.

Berries!

We picked these a week ago and had the best berry shortcake ever!

This is also from about a week ago...

This week we picked a lot of blackberries and everyone enjoyed them

Yes even Chloe

This was just too cute I couldn't resist a picture

All ready for church!

So yeah we've been picking berries left and right.  We pick a full container of blackberries and strawberries every 2-3 days.  Our blackberry bushes have taken over the strawberries in the raised containers.  I can't wait to get working on our backyard and build boxes to transplant all of the blackberries back there.  First we have to remove concrete and replace two fences...and then we can start to figure out what we're going to do with the backyard.