Mud

Benjamin in his preferred habitat!

Goldfish!!

We now have a goldfish in the family! Julia moved up a level in her swim club! She had to demonstrate that she was proficient at rotary breathing (both sides), backstroke (full length of the pool), floating (20 seconds), and diving in from sitting among a few other things. She was beyond thrilled when her instructor gave her news that she was moving up and couldn't wait to put her new yellow cap to use!

Benjamin

These are my absolute favorite pictures that I've taken of Benjamin recently. We were in the car and he had just finished telling me about how he had been in my belly before he was born (a recurring topic of conversation for he and Julia). When I asked him what he was doing in my belly he said, "playing... and screaming." When I asked why he was screaming he said, "for you to get me... I wanted you to pick me up, Mama." Yes, my heart melted.

Summer Fun - Tidal Pools and Kites

The kids' first time exploring tidal pools in Newport and flying a kite!

We found lots of snails

Navigating the slippery rocks. Ready for adventure.

Benj determined on emptying a tiny pool that has probably been there forever.

let's go fly a kite!

Space, The Final Frontier

Julia and Andrew share an interest mild obsession with space. Every week Julia chooses at least three books from the library about space, she watches space shuttle videos on youtube, she has created rocket ships, and is always pretending to blast-off to somewhere! So when we found out that NASA sponsors an annual festival called Touch Tomorrow for kids at a nearby college we knew that we had to attend. 

It wasn't exactly what we expected. The target age group was definitely kids a little older than Julia but she still had a great time. She watched a replica lunar rover roll over kids lying on the ground, saw lots of robots, found out what would happen to peeps (the candy) in space, tried on a spacesuit,

made structures out of spaghetti and marshmallows and tested them to see if they would fall apart during an earthquake (both her and Benjamin's survived the test!),

made aluminum foil boats to see how many pennies it could hold before it sank, stirred up some slime, created a windmill out of index cards, and made sun prints. It was a busy day!

Heard Around RI

A few funny phrases that we've heard recently:

From Julia (the worldly 5 year old):

• We were exploring tidal pools at Brenton Point in Newport. It was Julia's first time there and after we had been there for only 5 or 10 minutes she decided to explore a few pools further away from us. As I started to follow her she turned around and said, "Mom, really, you can stay over there, I know my way around!"

and from Benjamin (the 2 going-on 20 year old):

• We were putting together a birthday present for his cousin Annabel and I said "we have a couple of little things for your new cousin, Finley, that we'll bring too." Benjamin, with no prompting and in the sweetest voice, said "oh, that's so nice."
• One night when we were finishing with dinner, Benjamin got down from his seat and I asked him to clear his plate. He turned to me and said very enthusiastically, "absolutely!"

Preschool Graduation

Julia just finished up a wonderful year at the Little Red Hen. We attended her pre-K graduation on the 30th and had to share some of it here too!

Julia with Mrs. Simoneau and Ms Goodman

 

Waiting for the big performance

Class performance of "Proud to be an American"

Performing "The More We Get Together"

The graduate

and for those of you who just can't get enough - one more video of "Roar":

Bring on Kindergarten!!