Another ridiculously adorable video of my baby boy singing

Theodore likes to sing along with me when I rock him before bedtime. We usually sing "Praise Him, Praise Him," but one night last week he started singing "Jesus Loves Me" instead. So we sang together, and it was so cute that I had to run and get my phone to take a video!  

Here it is. :-)  Enjoy!

At the creek

Last week we had one of those rare mornings when everything just worked out perfectly, even though it didn't seem like it was going to be like that at first! I took the kids to the gym so I could run, and although they all grumbled about being dropped off for an hour, they all had fun playing with their friends. 

After that, no one could agree on what we were going to do, so I chose the sand park. No one wanted to play in the sand, but they were all perfectly happy to play in the creek! Oliver and Buttercup even found more fossils and shells to trade at the Nature & Science Center. 

I love this picture, because I have another picture of a 3 year old Oliver doing this exact same thing in this exact same part of the creek. :-)

My sweet girl showing off her collection of shells!

Theodore climbed this little hill by himself, and proudly stood at the top and said, "Ta da, Mama! I climb mountain!!!!!" He was so proud of himself. I love that sweet baby!!!

Singing at the top of the "mountain" :-)

After they played in the creek for a while, we walked over to the sprinklers for them to splash around before we headed home. I was swinging and watching them play in the sprinkler, when I had such a wave of nostalgia watching the woman next to me push her toddler and baby in the baby swings. It was only 4 years ago, but seemed like forever since Buttercup and Oliver were that little! Time goes by so quickly. 

Two-wheelin'

Buttercup has been wanting to ride her bike without training wheels ever since Oliver learned how to do it a year and a half ago. The problem was, she wouldn't let me help her, because she insisted that she could do it by herself.  :-)  Then she would try, but would get frustrated with herself because she couldn't do it without my help, so that was the end of that for a while.  

Then a couple of weeks ago, she decided that she wanted to try again. This time, it worked out a lot better! She listened when I told her what she needed to do, let me help her a little bit, and then she figured out how to do it on her own!

Great job, Tootie! 



  

A morning at the lake

One morning this week, we went to the lake in Pflugerville with some friends. This morning was, hands down, our favorite visit there.  The weather was perfect -- sunny and overcast, and not too hot, and it was very windy! So windy that there were actual waves on the lake, which made it much more fun for the kids. We had happened to bring their kickboards (thanks, Grammy!), and they had a blast trying to stand up on their boards and ride the waves in. (It didn't work, ha ha, but they had fun trying!)

Here are some pictures!

Video of Theodore singing

I still sing "You Are my Sunshine" to Buttercup when I tuck her in for naps and bedtime, and Theodore has learned the song over the past few months. Here's a cute video of him singing along with me. :-)

Making a shark tooth fossil

This is a fun, easy, kid-friendly activity we found in one of Oliver's books. You can make a megalodon tooth "fossil" using a simple flour-salt-water dough!

You'll need: 

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup salt

2 tsp cooking oil

3 1/2 tsp water

Measure out your ingredients and combine them. Since the other two kiddos were napping, I was able to take the time to teach Oliver the fine art of properly measuring flour. He took his job very seriously. :-) 

Stir all of your ingredients together until the dough forms a ball. Then mold it into a triangle with a rounded top, kind of like an ice cream cone. 

Using your fingers, press down along the top and sides of the triangle to give it more of a real tooth shape. Then press a fork along the edges to give them a serrated effect.  

Finally, "bake" it in the microwave for 60 seconds at a time until it's dry and hard to the touch. (You can also let it air dry for a couple of days, or bake it in the oven, but we were impatient. :-)

Voila! A megalodon tooth fossil!

Our summer (so far) in pictures

We've been having a great summer so far! I'm definitely enjoying the more relaxed days and not rushing from one thing to the next all day.  And I'm absolutely enjoying not having to wake Theodore up from his naps every day to pick people up from school!

Buttercup has started taking a new dance class, which she LOVES. She's the youngest in her class (as opposed to the other class, where she was one of the oldest) and she's learning a lot from the older girls. The girls are working on a cute tap routine for their summer recital, and the steps are definitely a lot more intricate than in her previous dance class -- but she's doing very well!




Buttercup loves for me to turn on the Swan Lake CD, and then she'll dance and dance in the living room. Sometimes she'll drag Oliver into it, too. She'll chase him around the house begging him to be her prince until he gives in. What a sweet big brother. :-)

Theodore also likes to dance, but mostly he likes to dress up. :-)


Another exciting thing that has happened this summer is that Oliver got his own library card! We went to the library last week (it's terrible how long it had been since I took the kids to the library, because Theodore + libraries = TROUBLE) and he was so excited to get his card.

Neatly signing his name:


Holding up his own library card! The librarian said he could check out 15 books at a time, and he ran off right away and immediately came back with 10 books all about snakes and dinosaurs. :-) 


In other Oliver news, his gymnastics coach asked him last week to join the level 4 boys' team! What's funny is that, after 6 months of appearing to be tired of gymnastics, I finally pinned him down and he decided that this was going to be his last month of gymnastics. So I canceled his lessons, and then 6 days later his coach asked him to join the team. Oliver said "YES!!" Ha ha ha ha ha. So now he's going to have gymnastics 4 hours a week instead of 1! 

Here are some other random summer pictures, enjoy!

Snowcone mustache!

Playing quietly (and mostly unsupervised) with Play Doh while I fixed lunches for the water park!

One of our many visits to Bull Creek:

Going to the "far away" children's museum:

Dr. Buttercup!

How can it be summer if there aren't any sweaty kids climbing trees? :-)

Running on the trail:

Riding the train downtown to the children's museum!

Jumping off the diving board:

And part of the reason for us having a great summer is that I've been bringing the kids to the Y childwatch a few times each week so I can get a good run in. Thankfully, they don't really seem to mind, and everyone is much happier when Mommy gets some exercise! Whoo hoo! :-)