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!
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!
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!
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!
In June we took a trip to Baldwin City with Gramsie, Kristy, Carter & Cade to see Thomas the Train. It was a surprise for the kids – we didn’t tell them till we got to town. The boys were very excited to see the “real” Thomas!
We had a while before our scheduled departure, so we explored all the activities. Luke and Carter’s favorite had to be the giant inflatable slide – it was very difficult to get them off of it to go try something else! (Luke is on the slide, Carter is at the bottom.)
There was also a bounce house which Luke and Cade were pretty happy about.
There was also a petting zoo, bubble station, Thomas temporary tattoos, story time, a magician, and other activities. But soon it was time for us to board the train for our official ride on Thomas!
Here we are on the train – we chose an open air car, which was really nice, it was a VERY hot day!
Sorry – the kids were not cooperating for this picture! Like I said – very hot!!
Once we got moving though, Luke was so excited to see all the railroad crossing signs on our short trip. He had just read a book about street signs and so he recognized the RR crossing right away!
It was a very fun day with friends – maybe we can do it again in a few years when Beka is a bit older!
The Lassey family tradition has always been to head to Miltonvale, KS for Memorial Day. That is where Grandpa grew up and Vance spent many a summer. They have a beautiful cemetery and put on a very nice program each Memorial Day.
This year, Grandma and Grandpa were already in Holton helping us out on our new shed (blog to come when it is closer to being done!) and so all of us headed West to Miltonvale for the day. The kids had a great time walking around and seeing all the flags and new people.
We were able to spend time with a lot of family, some of which we don’t see very often!
Front Row: Cousin Kurt, Vance, Beka, Grandpa Greg, Luke, (Great) Uncle Bob – Back Row: Erin, (Great) Uncle Melvin, (Great) Aunt Linda, Grandma Anne, (Great) Aunt Sharon.
Thanks to Linda and Melvin for hosting a wonderful day!
