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!

Parks & Rec Fun

So far this summer we’ve been able to do a lot of fun classes through Parks & Rec.  Addie, the Activities Coordinator, does an awesome job planning and putting on all the classes.

We were able to do Book and a Bite again this summer, a 3 week reading/cooking class.  The first week they read “The Hungry Caterpillar” and made apple & cherry turnovers…

as well as banana caterpillars:

It was a lot of fun watching Luke be able to do more of the tasks himself, being a year older!

They also decorated their own aprons – Luke likes anything with his name on it!

Once they were done with the aprons, Luke and his friend Taven somehow ended up on the stage at the two podiums. I think they look like they are ready to debate, but they were actually singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (sorry the picture is dark, there weren’t very many lights on in the room!)

The next week was an ocean theme and they made fish pizzas and “fish food” necklaces.  I didn’t have my camera with me that morning though.

I taught the 3rd week, and we read the book “Cupcake” and the kids got to decorate their own cupcakes with piping bags of frosting and lots of colorful sprinkles and sugar.

Beka even joined in, though I’m pretty sure all she ate was the frosting. Can’t blame her, it was delicious buttercream!!

And here’s Luke with his decorated cupcakes!

Other classes we have done are “A-B-Seas” – a reading readiness class, Nursery Rhyme Math, and Ka-Boom. Here’s a picture of Luke, Carter & Lexie eating their watermelon popsicles at Ka-Boom:

Beka has been a trooper at all these classes – sometimes I have to keep her in the stroller so she doesn’t wreck havoc on what the other kids are doing:

Other times she tries to participate in the class as well. I’m not sure how she ended up with the clown wig on, but it was pretty funny!

A little later in the summer there will be some classes just for her – we’re excited!