We hosted Story Camp this week, for Owen and six of his friends. Two of the girls' friends also came along as helpers:
Day 1 we read Mo Willems's The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? and did a bunch of Pigeon and Duckling-themed activties. Here they're making finger puppets.
Here they're playing Duck-Duck-Pigeon.
Day 2 we read some If You Give a Mouse a Cookie books, focusing on If You Give a Dog a Donut. This is a donut ring toss.
A life-size board game.
Donuts for snack
We made donut frisbees and had a contest to see who could throw theirs the farthest.
The book talks about Dog doing a happy dance, so we had a happy dance with bubble wrap.
Day 3 we read Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes.
The kids decorated their own cupcakes and watched the TV episode.
We played Steal the Cupcake (a modified version of Steal the Bacon).
Day 4 we read Curious George and the Ice Cream Surprise. Here they're playing with yellow homemade playdough--for the Man in the Yellow Hat. William said he made the Loch Ness Monster.
We had this giant box that our new mirror was delivered in, so we made it into an ice cream truck and ate ice cream sandwiches.
Day 5 we read Adam Rubin's Dragons Love Tacos and had a taco party.
Owen's been really into ninjas and robots lately. Here's a picture he drew earlier this week--complete with nunchucks.
Here's the completed remodel of our bathroom vanity. I couldn't find a "Before" picture to compare it to.
Here's the before and after of our living room. Scott recently put in new laminate flooring and baseboards:
This is what it looked like when we bought the place.
Now
Scott put in the French doors too, a while back. Now we just need to get that orange chair reupholstered...
I think we made it to three library programs this week. (Indoors + free + less than 3 miles from home... Yes, please!) This one was kind of cool. It's called Kids' Tech Playground. Every week they have a different tech toy or gadget for kids to try out. This week it was this Code & Go Mouse. You programmed the robot mouse to take a set route to get to the cheese:
Spare Time Texas is 3 miles from our house and they have a free summer program for school-age kids where you get either one free game of laser tag or one free game of bowling each week. We've had fun going once a week with our friends:
The final score was Liz: 93, Heidi: 65, Owen: 47.
Owen finished up a 3-week session of swim lessons and graduated to the next level. He swims without his floaties now and is really confident in the water.
This was another library program (different library) called "Amazing Aerodynamics." The lady talked about Bernoulli's Principle, did a few demos, and then the kids got to go around to several stations with hands-on activities. Heidi was the presenter's first volunteer:
Emma turned 8 months old this week. Isn't she just the best?
We tried out a new (to us) splash pad in Leander. It was big and fully enclosed, with shaded picnic tables for Mom and Emma. It was a little far, but a fun outing:
Heidi's arm is healing nicely. (Side by side of a few weeks ago--when the pins were still in--with now.)
Every Wednesday evening the Thinkery has a free Community Day. We just happened to be in the neighborhood because of Heidi's ortho appointment, so we stopped in. This is part of their newest exhibit:
We spend a lot of time at the pool. I think we went four times this week:
We went to a hands-on science exhibit with a friend:
This one's called a Fresnel lens. The plastic sheet is ridged, so it bends the light towards your eye. It makes objects close to the lens seem bigger. That's why Heidi has giant ears and looks like a troll. Lol.
Owen had space camp this week (Crosby was out of town and isn't pictured here):
Emily and five other moms are doing some co-op summer camps. First week was theater camp. Here is the skit that Owen and his friends did on the last day:
The girls were excited to find their pictures on display in the library:
While the big kids played laser tag, William "played" arcade games. (But not really... Because I wouldn't pay for him to rot his brain on video games. And he couldn't tell the difference.)
