Munchkin crawling

Just 2 weeks after figuring out how to go forward scooting, she moved to a full crawl and is getting quite fast. She loves to crawl in her brothers' room to find interesting toys. She really wanted me to give her the camera when I tried to take these pictures.

These are from a few weeks ago... time has been flying by! She has now cut 4 teeth on the top of her mouth. What can I say? She's in a hurry!

Spies, slime and such

It's pretty hard to catch a spy on film. You have to be pretty sneaky. As it were, I couldn't get a photo of the other spy that's been trailing me lately. He was too fast!

The boys are so much fun! Today they asked to make slime so we made 4 kinds of slime from our slime kit and took them to share at the park. They were a big hit there too! Dinoguy learned chess at the park today and is quite excited about it.


This is a photo of Dinoguy's animals at the cantina a la the Lego Starwars game. Fixitman snuck a picture of it one morning. Imaginations are actively employed in our home.

Swimming

Munchkin loves to swim!

Saturday

Today I went for a 5 mile run with Sarge and then Fixitman took the boys to Lowes to build paddle boats.

A little bit later we went to the library to turn in final summer reading lists and of course, get more books. Trainboy wandered around picking up books that had appealing covers while Dinoguy pretty much cleared out new dinosaur books he found. We also picked up some tickets for the Zooniversity show later that afternoon and went home for lunch and to read/water the garden.

Dinoguy had found a Transformers graphic novel that was a big hit with the boys. Trainboy has a toy Bumblebee car/transformer he won at Earth day and they loved hearing some of the stories associated with the cool toy. (None of us have seen the recent movie.) Trainboy also expressed interest in reading a book with me that he'd picked out that only had occasional pictures.

Later on we went to the Zooniversity show which was pretty interesting, though Dinoguy really wanted to touch one of the animals and wasn't chosen while Trainboy was terrified she'd pick him as he fiercely whispered "I don't want to touch that!" each time she chose 4 kids to touch an animal. Seeing a porcupine up close was very cool to me. We also saw a king snake, prairie dog and the lizard native to Texas that regrows its own arms & legs. Dinoguy really enjoyed the show and I'm considering having him go to some of their homeschool programs.

Afterward we went to the spray park for a bit before coming home for dinner. Our visiting friends made a delicious lime coconut chicken soup that is Thai in origin and the boys had homemade pizza from Fixitman as well. (Fixitman makes a delicious pizza!)

It's time for sleep and the boys are picking out new interests. Dinoguy declares he's learned everything there is about reading in English and is ready to read another language. I find this out when he's carrying around a German translation of the book Jesus the Christ. He expresses interest/fascination with all the different language scriptures he's found on the bookshelf and I tell him a bit about them. He decides he wants to read the Arabic Book of Mormon so I pull out the old Alif-Baa textbooks from college and start teaching him the Arabic alphabet. Trainboy meanwhile has pulled out the cuisenaire rods to make colored trains.

Finally Fixitman reads the Transformers novel to the boys again before bed. What a lovely full day.

Forward bound

After 2 months of scooting backwards, Munchkin is army crawling forward short distances this week. It has to be within a few inches for her to be motivated. She'll be full fledged crawling before we know it! Here are two short videos of her going after a train toy to show off her skills. They are short because the memory card was filling up, so they are not big distances and hope you can see her pulling forward. (You get a sticker if you immediately know what video the boys are watching in the background LOL.)


And because she's in a hurry to learn to run and chase her brothers I think, she did this twice today:These photos are of the second time. The first time she was at more of a 45 degree angle and I stayed nearby to help her down when her toes finally gave out. She then pulled the drawer out on top of herself and when I put it back, proceeded to quickly pull herself to this 90 degree stand pretty quickly. Guess she's a fast learner. Ack! We need to finish our cabinet remodeling project faster!

Baby photos

Which brother do you think Munchkin looks more like?

She has red hair like her big brother Dinoguy did as a baby...

She has curls and blue eyes like Trainboy does...

I'm starting to think she decided to pick their cutest features and combine them together to be the ultra cutie.

Dinoguy ask me to take this photo last Sunday.

And we needed a "current" photo of Trainboy too to complete the post. :)

Acid or Base?

We've been using a science kit Dinoguy got as a gift last year to learn about Acids & Bases. It has some fun activities where things change color based on if they are acidic or basic and growing colorful crystals and making a little color changing "volcano". Though the boys pointed out that since the lava wasn't coming from inside the volcano it wasn't as real as the ones we've made before, it was still fun.

Munchkin supervises

Sitting Up

Look who started sitting up on her own in the past two weeks!

Violin Spectacular!

While we were in Arkansas, we went to a children's violin concert at the local library with our friends. The recital was kind of like a tipping point for us and the boys decided that they definitely wanted to learn to play the violin and I was convinced we (as a family) could take on the commitment of lessons now. They've been talking about learning some instruments off and on for some months now and I decided to go with the fervor of interest expressed and start lessons.

I happen to have a Suzuki Violin teaching friend. She is awesome with young kids (has 3 of her own!) and is an amazing Violinist as well. She was happy to help us start learning the violin (or the violin game, as it is sometimes called in her house). That was last month.

This month was her students' recital at the local library and while the boys are not ready to perform on their own, they happily participated in the finale song where everyone played Twinkle Variation A. (They played the rhythm on the E string, we aren't quite to fingerings.) Plus they got these awesome violin t-shirts to wear! Dinoguy counted down the hours on the clock all morning until it was time to leave for the recital. Trainboy came up to me afterward and said "Mommy I did it!" They are proud of their accomplishment, (as are we!) as playing with the group on the rhythm (practicing with a CD recording) took a lot of practicing. They are excellent practicers, and we have had a lot of fun learning all about Violins!

Here is the video of the boys violin debuts! :)


Same video, youtube version for better quality?

Independence Day celebrations

We had a ton of fun over July 4th weekend. Our favorite fireworks show is the night before. It has water play for the boys, trees and shade for the adults, friends, a quick drive home... and good fireworks of course.

The morning brought our Church breakfast followed by naps, followed by a BBQ and swimming at a friends. (Where Munchkin went in a pool for the first time but my camera batteries were dead and the only photo I took was with my phone.) Then more naps followed by friends coming over for a haircut! (Random? Yes. But she wanted her hair cut ASAP and her husband convinced her it was better to let me help then try to do it herself.) No, I'm not a beautician. I regularly mess up the boys haircuts that should be simple with razors. But I slowly and carefully cut her hair into a cute cut over 1.5 hours! Still no pics b/c the camera battery was still not charged.A grandma walking by took pity on hatless Munchkin and fitted her with a do rag. (Her hat was with me.)

Swimming boys take a break for picnic dinner.

A few photos of the boys having some fun swimming. Watching fireworksTrainboy shares/gives away all the cookies.