Sibling Fun!

Ok – I know I’m WOEFULLY behind on my blog posts…I think the one before this was Luke’s first day of school – and now he’s about 3 weeks from the end of the school year!  Over the next week or so I’ll be going back and doing posts from the past year, but I had to share a few pictures I took yesterday while Luke and Beka were watching an episode of Dora (while Mommy got some much needed stuff done around the house).  I heard them laughing hysterically every few minutes, so I grabbed the camera and went in there to see if I could get some cute pictures – I ended up with a series of photos that just really made me laugh!!

They may fight like all siblings do, but they seem to genuinely like hanging out with each other most of the time, and are having more and more fun playing and doing things together!!

Luke’s First Day of Preschool!

Tuesday was Luke’s first day of school at Faith Academy. 

He will be going to school Tuesday mornings, Wednesday afternoons, and Thursday mornings, for three hours each.  We attended an open house on Sunday where Luke was able to say hi to his teacher, Ms. Heather, and drop off his supplies.  Then Tuesday morning we headed to school!

Luke has been very excited for school to start and telling everyone that he is going to school “Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday!” 

Here’s Beka walking with us into school.  She really likes his classroom!  She was a bit confused on Tuesday morning, she kept saying “Luke?” and looking around!

When we got to his classroom, he immediately saw some of his friends (that’s Carter in the background) and he was very excited about that.  We gave him a hug and took a picture and said our goodbyes.

The last thing I saw/heard before we left was Luke picking up the big magnet (that Carter is holding in the picture above) and saying “Cool!”  So I wasn’t too worried!

After we picked him up after school, we went to see Daddy to tell him about Luke’s day, and then had a celebration lunch at All Around Sweets, one of Luke’s favorite restaurants here in Holton. 

He said he had fun again today in class and is ready to go back in the morning.  Congratulations to our big 3 year old starting school!

Summer Fun!

The last few weeks, the kids have been participating in some fun summer activities!  First, Luke took a week of private swim lessons from twins that go to our church and are lifeguards at the pool. Luke had a great time!

Standing in the pool by himself! I had no idea he’d be able to stand with his head above water yet!

Getting ready to “swim” under the rope – he was wearing goggles, which really helped him want to stay under longer. He was very proud that he went under the rope twice during that lesson, and announced it to the whole pool!

Earlier this week, Luke was able to take a “Stop, Look, and Listen” class through Parks & Rec to help prepare the kids for preschool and kindergarten. He had a lot of fun with his friends:

Copying animal sounds and movements from a book…

Following verbal directions to do a craft project (no visuals, just spoken directions)…

Playing “Red Light, Green Light…”

And making a snack based on photo directions.   Hopefully the class helped him understand how he will have to listen to the teacher at preschool in a few weeks.

Lastly, while Luke has been at “Grandparent Camp” in Peck this weekend, Beka was able to go to a Parks & Rec class all by herself!  She did pretty well for her first official time participating!

Kitchen utensil painting.

Putt Putt Painting.

And painting on bread with colored milk.

The finished (toasted) product was yummy!

Beka also attended a 5th birthday party for her friend Tuley today – she was all dressed up for the Princess (and Pirate) party!

Retro Camera Fun

One of the apps on my new Droid phone is a retro camera. So the kids and I have been taking fun “retro” pictures when we have a few minutes. Here’s some of our best!

“The Bärbl”

“Little Orange Box”

“Xolaroid 2000”

“Pinhole Camera”

Enjoy!

Luke the Builder

One of the projects that the children got to do at the volunteer childcare during Build Week was a birdfeeder from Lowes.  Luke wasn’t with me that day, so I brought home a kit for he and I to do together. He got right to work with his construction apron and hammer!

Here he is examining the “blueprint.”

Working on the top:

Putting the final screw hanger in:

And the proud builder with his finished bird feeder!

We’ve since painted it red and hung it outside in the tree. Not bad for his first building project!

New Playground!

For the past year, Holton has been doing fundraisers to build a new, big playground.  Finally at the end of June, the plan came to fruition with a massive build week, with 5000+ volunteer hours over 5 days.  Grandma and Grandpa came up for the week so the Grandpa could be one of the build captains. Vance was as well, on the last three days.  Grandma watched Luke and Beka in the mornings so that I could go help provide childcare to many of the volunteer worker’s children.  It was a long week, but very successful!

Here’s a picture of what the former playground at the park looked like. They are moving the old equipment to one of the other parks in town:

In about a week, this is what resulted!

Amazing work by everyone in town!  Sunday night, June 27th, they had a grand opening celebration for the new playground. The kids were all more than excited, especially since it was such a family effort to build it!

Some of the highlights include a side for kids under 5,

“Luke Sized” (as he says) monkey bars, (there’s full size ones too)

a troll bridge,

a big slide,

and Luke’s favorite, the spinner – he had a look of absolute glee on his face – I think he thought it was cool to be hanging out with the big kids, too!

All the pretend leaves on the playground were painted by local children, and their names are all on the leaves as well.  All the captain’s children and grandchildren have names on there too, so Luke, Beka and Ida are all immortalized on the leaf wall!

One of the projects that Grandpa spent a lot of time on was the music area – he was one of the two primary builders of this instrument, which Luke and Beka both had a great time playing:

The celebration also included free ice cream – Beka did a great job feeding herself, and Luke also was pretty happy about the ice cream!

Two of the playground fundraisers were handprint tiles and fence pickets, so we have several of each – here’s Beka with their fence pickets:

and Luke (and a not very happy Beka) with their hand/footprint tiles:

All in all, it was an amazing project for the whole community to work on together, and the kids will enjoy it for years to come!