Trip to Cary

Feels like I just wrote a post.  Oh wait, it was just on Wednesday.  Not too much has really been happening this week.

On Monday both kids went back to their preschool for summer camp.  This week’s theme was Curious George and the Rocket.  They both made rockets out of their foot print which was pretty cute. 

Will went to summer camp at his preschool every day last week but Lindy just went Monday and Friday.  Tuesday through Thursday she went back to SEE camp.   She did some fun things this week including going to gymnastics and making snack and orange fluff to eat.  They are working on independence at SEE camp and we have heard “I can do it myself” quite a few times this summer! 

Saturday the kids and I headed to Cary to celebrate Rebecca’s 4th birthday.  Rebecca is the daughter of my best friend, Carrie.  We left around 10am and got home around 6pm.  The kids had a blast.  They had outdoor water stuff and a bounce house set up and my kids spent almost the whole time outside.  We did have a small mishap when I was changing the kids into their swimsuits.  I pulled Lindy’s shirt off over her head and when I got it off her glasses were in two pieces.  Uh oh.  It’s the first time we’ve had a pair of glasses break.  It was right at the corner of the frames.  Bryon, Becca’s dad, gorilla glued it back together and we just let them sit the rest of the party.  I got home and coated it again in super glue and let them sit overnight.  So far they have been good to go today.  I think we are definitely going to order her new frames but I’m glad it’s holding together for a little while.   She told everyone at the party I broke her glasses. 

Today we had church and the start of the birthday festivities began.  They had a little birthday party at church with their Sunday School friends and they got a couple presents from church folks.  They were excited to see their names up on the screen before church.  Will would walk up to people and say, “Someone’s birthday is coming up!”  It was pretty funny.  We have some fun plans this week for the big birthday!

BouncingLindy spent a ton of time swinging on this bar.She swam with Becca a bunch, too.The wet birthday girl!Will, Lindy and BeccaI had just told the kids we needed to get changed to head out and they turned on the slip and slide.  Needless to say we had to wait awhile!She needed a little help from Bryon to get down.Lindy would slide down and then just sit and play in the water.This morning before church.  My almost 6 year old.  Without glasses?  She is beautiful with glasses on but she is beautiful without them, too.  It’s just a look we don’t see too often.My other almost 6 year old.  What a handsome devil he is!I hate to keep bragging…….but these children are BEAUTIFUL, if I do say so myself!Telling each other ‘Happy Birthday!’

Butterflies

The masses (or two people) are speaking about my lack of posting!  I just got busy doing a project I’ve been meaning to do for 6 months now and hadn’t gotten around to it.  But it is much harder to remember what we did last week when I don’t do my post on the weekend.

Let’s see if I can remember.  Last  Monday Drew took the kids up to the church in the morning and they loaded up all the canned goods everyone had collected during bible school and they took them over to the outreach ministry.  They helped unload all the cans, toured the outreach ministry and then they went with all the church friends to McDonalds for lunch. 

Wednesday evening we ate dinner with Ed and Jamie and Jamie’s parents from Alabama.  They came up to help Ed and Jamie move into their new house.  We got to see the house and then Drew got to help unload a U-Haul. 

Thursday morning we had our family pictures taken in the morning.  I will say things are getting easier with the kids.  It is much less work than it used to be.  Of course, I haven’t seen the pictures yet so I might change my mind!  We went out to the photographer’s house and took pictures around her land.  It was definitely a rustic feel.  We’ll see how they turn out!  I’m anxious to get them!

The kids had a babysitter a few days again this week.  The same girl, Victoria, watched them a few days for us.  The kids have fun with her and enjoy her being here.

We had a pretty busy Saturday.  We headed out early, picking up breakfast on our way, and we met the Bryants at the butterfly farm in High Point.  We got there early to get checked in and then we ate breakfast and the kids played around.  Katie and I took the kids last year but this year the daddies came too.  Not sure they’ll go back but it was a nice Saturday morning.  The weather was gorgeous, not too hot, and overcast. We got to see lots of butterflies.  They were landing on Will’s shirt, Lindy’s shirt, my ponytail, and the sugar pads.  It is definitely neat to see them so close.  After we left the butterfly farm we stopped at the farmers’ market and walked around a bit.  It was pretty neat, too.  We all left there and headed to lunch at Pulliam’s.  It’s a local hot dog joint that got voted in the Top 5 Hot Dogs in the whole country by Rachel Ray.  Bob grew up with the owners and Drew knows them well but it was the first time I’d eaten there.  It was an experience, that’s for sure!  We ate outside on some logs and the kids sucked down their bottles of soda.  We finally headed home and the kids and I started in on making homemade ice cream for the ice cream social at church.  We got everything ready and got it going.  When it was done, Drew and the kids headed to the church and I headed to the store.  When the kids got home I gave them a quick bath and then Victoria showed up again to babysit.  Mama and Daddy were headed out on the town!  Well, really we headed out to the country to hear a summer concert series at a local winery with our friends Wendy and Brett.  It was the most gorgeous night ever.  When we planned this we figured we would be miserably hot, but we were wrong.  It was so nice out and it was such a pleasant evening. 

Sunday was church and cleaning up the house.  I’ve been working on organizing and purging.  Little by little I’ll get the house in order.  Hopefully.

Some pictures from the week…

90F outside and she’s wrapped up in her ‘bed’And here is, “Hey, take a picture of me sleeping.’Friday night popsicles were a hit.  We have never really eaten popsicles.  When I suggested them Will said, ‘What’s a popsicle?”  Pretty sure they are the only almost 6 year olds who didn’t know what popsicles were.The Butterfly Farm!Micah took Lindy up to be a part of the beginning show.One landed on his shirt immediately after walking in!The boys waiting for butterflies!Best buddies!Church outfits on Sunday.

Camps and VBS

We came back from vacation to a very busy week.  It flew by with all the fun things going on.

Bright and early Monday morning, Will started a week of Sci Camp at our local children’s science museum.   It was a little odd because Lindy wasn’t going anywhere that day and man she was not happy about it!  She told me that summer camps were boring!  ha!  The theme for his science camp was storybook science.  What could be a more perfect fit for him?  He loves reading and books and he could learn some science, too.  They read books by Dr. Suess, Eric Carle, Beatrix Potter, Gail Gibbons, and Dianna Hutts Aston, and they read the story of Pinocchio.  He studied all kinds of things and got to go to different parts of the museum.  They got to see a few different animals and potted some seeds to watch grow.  He went to Sci Camp all five days in the morning and he really enjoyed his week.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Lindy went to SEE camp.  SEE camp is a camp for visually impaired students that is put on by our local Industries for the Blind.  It is a completely free camp for the students and went from 9-2:30pm for three days.  We were supposed to drop our students off each morning at the front of the building and not go inside.  Lindy was so excited to go and after one day she didn’t think summer camps were so boring anymore!  Each child in the lower ages had a one on one volunteer with them all day long.  She talked a lot about her volunteer the first day and then had a different one for the last two days.  She got to meet all kinds of new friends and see other kids we have met here and there along the way.  She got to go to a computer lab and practice typing, play on the playground, and got to ride a school bus to local a gymnastics place and have two afternoons of gymnastics.   She was adamant that there was camp on Friday.  She said her teacher told her so.  She will be going back for another week at the end of the month.

Thursday afternoon Drew picked Lindy up at 2:30pm and I met them for her PT appointment.  Jill did some much needed work on her braces which were looking horrible.  She tested Lindy on a few different things and she said that Lindy is really not that far off of a typically developing 5 year old.  She can’t stand or hop on one foot and she can’t jump a foot off the ground (really?  That’s tough!).  She has a little trouble walking on a straight line, too (that’s mostly vision).  Other than that she is doing really really well.  So well that she said we don’t need to come back for 3 months!   This is huge!  We have to keep working with her but it’s awesome she is doing well.  She said she had one small catch in her ankle but everything else felt nice and loose.  We always love good appointments!

Along with all the camps in the morning, we had vacation bible school every night this week.  It was my first VBS where I’ve worked all day and gone to VBS all night.   That was tiring!  I would get home from work and I would change clothes and then we were right back out the door to church. Thankfully we had dinner each night at church.  VBS was from 6:30pm to 8:45pm each night. I was a crew leader for the preschool and Kindergarten group so I had Lindy and Will in my group.  Lindy had nothing to do with me, though.  She was stuck to Ms. Martha’s side all week long.  (Happy Birthday, Martha!!).  Will was in heaven all week with the music, singing, and signing.  He loves VBS music and he gets so into doing the movements to the songs.   We rotated each night between bible stories, crafts, snacks, outside games, and a little movie.  We had 10 kids in our group every night and one night had 13 kids.  Thankfully we had 4-5 leaders each night and we needed every single one of them most nights!  We had some wild ones in our group. 

Each night we were asked to bring in canned goods for our local outreach ministry.  Some of the leaders started making fun bets if the kids got so many cans each night.  Thursday night our VBS leader got soaked with cold water.  Friday night four different leaders got soaked because we had so many cans.  The kicker was if they could get 500 cans Drew would get a mohawk and if they got 600 cans our Duke Summer Intern (with a lot of hair) would get a mohawk!  We ended up with 720+ cans Friday night which meant mohawks for the guys! 

Saturday we slept in (Will and I slept till after 9am – this never happens at our house!  We were exhausted!) and we did some shopping in the afternoon.  We met Rick, the summer  intern, for dinner and then he came back to our house for the hair cutting!  I did Drew first since I don’t care so much about his hair.  His hair isn’t all that long and it’s so blond that you can’t see his that well.  But you can tell it’s a mohawk.  Rick had jet black hair and a lot of it!  His ended up pretty good as well.  He had it all slicked up this morning so it looked pretty good.  He was totally game for anything – he would have let me completely shave his head if I wanted.  I was too scared to do that! 

They showed up this morning for church with their mohawks and they got some funny looks!  But it was all for a good cause.  Drew says he is cutting his today – although we have yet to do it – but Rick says he is keeping his for awhile! 

Thankfully we have a much quieter week coming up.  I’m looking forward to having some time at home.  With vacation and this busy week I haven’t had any time to get anything done at home. 

Singing to the music!Ms. Martha – Lindy’s best bud!Craft time!Check out the bubble on the side of his head!Stand Strong!He took his movements so seriously.  Especially this one that said Holy Holy Holy.  It was SO funny!!Will at his last day of Sci Camp!Snacks! Friday night water night!Giving Drew the mohawk!The Mohawk Pastors!