Bugs and Insects (and concerts)

Summer continues and the kids are staying busy and having fun. My nephew David stayed with us last week so he could attend the MN Vikings football camp with Andrew. All of the kids sure liked David being here, especially Rocco (who calls him Dave-o). As you can see, the little girls loved him too!

David holds Parker so she can visit.

Kiera tries to walk.

On Thursday, we walked up to the high school to see the boys at football camp and to have lunch with them (Second Harvest provided lunches to all children there ages one to eighteen each day).


Our theme this last week was Bugs and Insects. Each of the children received a bug house, net and tweezers to keep. They had fun looking for ants and any other bugs they might find.

Alex covers his eye from the bright sunlight!

The weather was warm and so the kids got to run through the sprinkler one day too. There was a lot of giggling and squealing going on.


My favorite part of the week was when the children were playing dress-up and were singing and having fun. I suggested that they practice together and put on a concert for me and the boys. They did a fabulous job! I'm so proud of my kids!


Movin' and groovin'

Our little Parker is just too cute!

Water Fun!

It was a very busy but also very fun week this last week. The weather is getting much more summer-like now. I have purchased some fun water rockets for the kids to play with on hot days. Everyone got to pick out which color rocket they wanted and I wrote their names on them in permanent marker (the rockets, not the kids...lol). The kids got to play with them for a little while in the morning as long as they all promised to squirt just the flowers, grass and trees and not each other since nobody had brought swimsuits with them. Everyone was well behaved and all of them stayed dry!

Rocco and Maddie:

Caden and Shelby:

Andrew and Alex:

Group shot:

Reload/refill:

We also played out in the driveway with the cars and bikes. Caden & Shelby showed off their artistic abilities by drawing some cool pictures of bugs & insects (just in time for this weeks theme)!

Shelby:

Caden:

I hope all the Father's out there enjoyed their Father's Day and the gifts the children made for them. I think they had fun putting them together. My favorite part was the Father's Day fill-in-the-blank papers. I just love the answers the kids come up with! Some with very funny answers and all very heart-warming!

As stated above, for this weeks theme, we are gonna get "Buggy" this week! I can't wait!

Here's Parker. She's "Soooo Big"!

Here's the (almost) always smiling Kiera enjoying some outside time.

This shot of Alex was just too funny so I had to include it on this weeks posting. He had fun playing dress-up too! (Note to self: I need to purchase more boy dress-up outfits!)

Welcome Madi!

We welcomed Madi to our day care family this last week. She is five years old and will be here with us for the summer. She is friends with Caden and Rocco and Kiera's families and so far she seems to be fitting in quite well!

I'm so excited that school is finally out and my school-aged children will be returning for the summer! It's nice to have Andrew home. He is such a big help to me! It will be so wonderful to have Shelby back for full days again instead of just twenty to thirty minutes a couple of days each week. Caden will be visiting us once and awhile this summer too! I can't believe how fast those kids seem to grow up and I really look forward to spending some time with them this summer.

I usually like to continue my curriculum through June and finish up with the Fourth of July as the last theme before enjoying the rest of the summer with just free play. This year though, with caring for two infants, we may or may not get to finish with what I was hoping to. We will just have to take it day by day and see how it goes.

We did manage to finish up our pond theme last week with a cute little booklet called The Pond. It kind of summarized all the things we discussed during our Pond theme. I think the kids enjoyed the finished product.

On Thursday, the kids enjoyed playing in the backyard, especially at the sand table.

The two "little girls" were having fun too!

Kiera was so entertaining with her crawling efforts this last week. I love how she would get up on her tippy toes and stretch. Sooooo cute!

I thought this was a cute picture cause it looks like Andrew is Kiera's personal trainer! "Just five more push-ups Kiera!"

Last but not least, I want to send out a big "Thank You" to Grandma Cindy for all the copier paper she saves and gives to me! I sure appreciate it!!!

Totally Turtles!

We are continuing with our pond theme and the boys have really been enjoying all the stories and crafts involved! This week we talked about turtles and I think the boys had a lot of fun while making their craft project. The weather was so beautiful that we decided to work on our projects outside.

Both of the boys were so serious as they worked on their turtles.


I love the finished product! So cute!!!

Kiera seemed to like them too!

The boys proudly show off their turtles.

Parker was here just one day so that didn't leave much time for pictures. I did manage this one though...

Finally, Rocco came with me to Andrew's school on Friday afternoon for a special program there. In the school parking lot, Rocco noticed a particular van and was very excited about it. We just had to take a picture of him next to it!