Creepy desert creatures and the End of Summer

oh wow! summer is over! I wish the 110 degree heat was over too. :/ The kids have enjoyed cooling down in the kiddie pool... it's pretty big for a "little" pool and we discovered there was room to float around on their tubes in it...


We finished up with our final 4 days of Back to School countdown activities. On Thursday evening we went to the Desert Botanical Garden for their flashlight tour. Ben and I agreed that this was really well done and a great experience for the kids. The focus is teaching about the desert at night, so we got to see lots of creepy crawlers, turtles, lizards, snakes, and frogs. The kids loved it! When we first got there, the sun was setting, but it wasn't dark yet - it was beautiful to be in the cactus gardens at that time of day. Once it got dark the kids really loved using their flashlights to light the path - definitely a great night!







Getting a close-up view of the tarantulas and scorpions... ew.

Pitch painting- Native Americans would make ink using pitch (a resin from plants) - the kids got to use it to paint designs to create a necklace.





Searching for bullfrogs

Making spiders






On Friday night we changed up Family Movie Night and created a little drive in movie theme. We had planned on going to the actual drive in theater... but the only kid movie showing there right now is the Smurfs. I really didn't want to see the Smurfs movie and the drive in movies don't even start until 8:30 and we were tired, so we decided to do a drive in movie at home!

The kids each got 8 plastic coins - they needed to use one to buy their movie ticket and then they could use the rest to 'purchase' treats and drinks from the concession stand. They probably loved this part of the activity even more than actually eating the goodies. Becca was the most clever and opted for water over soda so that she'd have more money to buy the most amount of candy. :)

The kids made these cars earlier and for the most part they actually watched the entire movie sitting in those things. It was a fun movie night! And btw, if Emma is in the middle of eating something yummy, she will NOT stop to smile for a picture

On Saturday Ben was working all day and overnight, but I still had back to school shopping I had to get done - most importantly, Emma needed new shoes and a lunch box, plus a couple other clothing items. So, all 4 kidlets and I ventured out on a crazy busy shopping day. And 5 stores and FOUR hours later, I had crossed everything off my shopping list. We were exhausted, but I had promised we would go to the splash park afterwards, and the kids were rather good on our shopping adventure, so I decided I better not renege on my promise. Even though I was crazy tired, it ended up being a really fun ending to our busy day...









Ice cream!

So, on Sunday, the last day before school, we made bubbles and bubble wands



We used up the last of our pipe cleaners (leftover from Becca's ladybug party) to make the bubble wands. The girls liked that they were heart shaped :)


Happy End of Summer!

Popsicles, a tiny town, and some Claire smiles

5 days till school starts! Our little countdown chain and 12 days of Back to School fun has been a great distraction from late summer boredom. It's been nice to have something each day for the kids (and me) to look forward to and to keep us a little busy. One of our activities was to make rainbow pudding pops...

Mixing up the pudding - I like how you can see little Claire hanging out in the background (in between naps and feedings, she enjoys some playtime on the floor)... also, of note- Jake playing with his Thomas - he's officially obsessed with Thomas the train.

Emma insisted on including purple in our rainbow popsicles - it was difficult to get the pudding to a good shade of purple... it took a lot of food coloring to even get it to the color that I did



Jake ended up eating his entire popsicle... he was a colorful mess afterwards. :) If I make these again, I would mix the pudding with an equal amount of cool whip before adding the food coloring... we did that when making our patriotic popsicles and the cool whip/pudding layer was absolutely delicious and a good texture when frozen... just fyi ;)

Another one of our 12 Days activities was to make a car play mat using a dollar store shower liner. We taped it to the floor and I drew on a bunch of roads, stores, and houses with a sharpie. It was extra fun to include all the places that the kids go to regularly... like Target, Costco, and Fry's. :) The kids got a kick out of that. They enjoyed coloring it and driving their cars all over it...

They had some transportation themed stickers at the Dollar Store too with road signs and such - the kids used those up adding speed limits, stop lights, and one way signs. :)




The girls have had a couple of playdates over the past week, which were also listed on their countdown chain. I love when friends come to play and I don't even have to entertain them, because they entertain each other so well...




I also love when Jake gets in his funny blanket mood - every once and a while I'll just find him lying in the middle of the floor snuggling a blanket and sucking on his fingers. It's just so rare that he is this chill and not running around like a crazy person...


Today's 12 Days activity was to play in the kiddie pool in the backyard...








Ben got home early from work yesterday, and he often gets in the mood to cook or bake something when at home - well, the most recent baking project was making french bread - he made 2 perfect looking (and perfect tasting) loaves of french bread - add that to the list of reasons why I love my Ben. :)

This morning I used some of the bread to make french toast for the kids and me - it was extra good! Thanks husband!

So, let's end this post with some cutie pictures of my Claire bear. She turns 3 months old in less than a week and she's a very strong little baby - she's holds her head up really high when on her tummy - and just today she rolled over a couple of times from her tummy to her back. Good work Claire!


Big brother Jake loves his little sister and is very sweet and gentle with her...



And here's a little animated Claire gif for your viewing pleasure... :)

The 12 Days of Back to School

Welp, this post will be full of more at home projects to keep the kids busy... can you tell we're to the end of the summer?! I've been trying to come up with ways to inexpensively keep us entertained over the next couple weeks. :) I really can't wait for school to start! With no vacations and a newborn, summer can really drag. I'm ready for some school time routines and less kids in my house. :)

Peanut butter playdough anyone?... I recommend eating it because it is delicious, but I don't recommend eating it AFTER little kids have played with it - gross.




This next project I'm entitling "The 12 Days of Back to School!". I was inspired here to make a countdown chain for school to start, but thought we'd add a little more fun to it by writing out our last minute summer bucket list on the chain links. Emma, Becca, and I started out by writing a longish list of feasible things we'd like to do before the summer ends (unfeasable: Disneyland, Carribean cruise). Then we narrowed it down and wrote them on our 12 slips of paper in a order that would work with our schedule. So, now each day the girls take off a chain and we do the thing written on it.





Emma starts school on Aug 15th, but Becca doesnt' start up with Preschool till Sept 2nd.

We started yesterday and the first thing on the list was to make puppets and a puppet theatre! This was all Emma's suggestion originally and I wasn't at all excited about it, but once we got started, this ended up being way more fun than I anticipated. I loved this idea for a little finger puppet theater - we ended up making it a little bigger, but used the same idea. Cardboard boxes are fun!

I wanted to wrap it in butcher paper and have the kids decorate it, but I couldn't find my roll of butcher paper (maybe we used it all up with our last project?), so Emma went and scrounged up this Christmas wrapping paper and we used that instead... I think it turned out pretty cute!


I came across this other clever idea for using us old preschool workbooks to make alphabet stick puppets. I liked this idea for several reasons, but also thought it would be great for Jake as I could use the little puppets for educational purposes for him - we made one for each letter of the alphabet - I wrote the letters on the back of the puppets. And we ended up with a pretty fun variety for the girls to put on little plays...


Who doesn't love a play starring a turtle and a kite?


And who doesn't love a play starring a Jake? :)

In case you can't understand him, he's saying "Welcome to the puppet show!". He did this a lot - the girls would giggle like crazy. What a goof! :)

So, Ben is the best daddy - let me tell you why... he came home from work and the girls put on a little play for him. It was a sorry excuse for a play, to tell you the truth, so Ben took this as an opportunity to teach them about the parts of a story. He helped Emma write out a script for a play and then she practiced and put on a much improved performance, plot included! :) I took Ben's good example and made up a little "Play Outline" for Emma to use in writing out future plays. It's worked wonders!


So, I'm happy about our 12 Days of Back to School - we've got plenty to keep us busy and happy for the next couple weeks and then Emma starts FIRST GRADE! :)