Moving On

We've been involved with KinderCare for the last three years.  Lincoln started out going and eventually Logan joined him.  In many ways it was a great place for the boys to be and they both learned so much while there.  Lincoln completed kindergarten there and Logan got a good jump start on learning his letters, numbers, etc.  Friday of this week is the boys last day.  They will be moving on to another school so Lincoln can attend first grade and Logan will enter an official pre-school.

 Lincoln was awarded this diploma in May but was actually in Hawaii during the little graduation ceremony.

June Activities

What do you do when it's 113 degrees outside....you swim and eat Italian Ice!!  Lincoln went on a school field trip to the local Custard & Italian Ice shop and they gave him a coupon for a free ice cream.  We decided a trip there on Monday night was a good family activity.

We've had a lot of fun with water activities in the backyard. The boys fill up the little pool, play in the crazy sprinkler and squirt water guns.  They both seem to LOVE the water and this time of year it's comes out like bathwater temperatures. 

The Last of the Art for the School Year

This is it...the last of the artwork from school for this school year.

Happy Birthday Madison!

This beautiful girl turns 13 today.... Happy Birthday, Maddie!

Father's Day

We are very blessed to have a great father in our home.  Ricky is a great daddy and even though the boys are young I see how they love and adore him. He is who they ask for in the middle of the night when they're scared, he's the one they want to play Legos with and he's the one they often want to sit by.  In return, Ricky is a very involved dad - he takes the boys to and from school, their doctor's appointments and most often lays with them for nap or bedtime.  

In honor of Father's Day, we got a babysitter on Saturday evening to give Daddy a break.  Ricky being the hamburger connoisseur that he is, he chose to try out Smashburger for dinner.  We ventured over to Phoenix to give it a try.  We had never been there but Ricky heard good things about it.  While we both thought it was good, we didn't think it was great and it definitely wasn't as good as Five Guys, which is just down the street from us.  Not sure we'll be heading back to Smashburger anytime soon. We spent the rest of the evening shopping and watching Superman at the movies.  It was a nice relaxing evening. 

 The best Father ever!

Camping

If at first you don't succeed, give up and go home!  Well that was sort of true for us this weekend.  I wanted to go camping over the weekend so on Friday afternoon we headed up to Sedona in hopes of some good outdoor play in cooler temperatures. We actually tried three different campgrounds in the Sedona area and all three were full.  We ended up another 15 miles or so up the road, just outside of Flagstaff.  It was nearing dark and we had to get a campsite quickly in order to avoid setting up camp in the dark.  Fort Tuthill was the next closest campground so we pulled in at took a spot.

Little did we know this campground was nothing but loose dirt, it had no showers and port-a-potties for toilets.  It was definitely not what I had in mind.  We set up camp and went to bed. The grounds were right next to an amphitheater which was hosting a live REO Speedway concert until almost 11:00 pm that night. Annoying. We also didn't realize that the fairgrounds next door was putting on a dog show the next day.  EVERYONE around us had at least a half a dozen dogs in their itty bitty campsite.  We survived the night's cold temperatures and with very little sleep we got up the next day, ate breakfast and packed up camp.  It was an early start to our day since Logan got up with the sun just before 5:00 am. We planned to camp for two nights but one was officially enough.

We spent the rest of the day doing activities around Sedona. We played in the Oak Creek, had a picnic, visited Montezuma's Well and Castle and then headed home. It ended up making for a long day but we made the most of it and got to spend some time exploring new areas. I forgot how much work it is to go camping so I'm sure it'll be a while before we do that again.

We had to take a small hike to get down to another part of the river. Logan did not want to hold my hand but because it was fairly steep and required us to maneuver over some large rocks I told him he had to hold my hand so that he wouldn't trip.  A few minutes later I step wrong coming off a rock and Logan says to me, "good thing you tripped and I didn't."  Oh, what will I do with these smartypants when they're teenagers.

As we drove through the red rock canyons of Sedona, Lincoln exclaimed, "look, I see Cars Land!" I have to admit that close up it looks a lot like Radiator Springs.

May School Work

Okay, so here's the last of the school work from May.  Some of Lincoln's writings were actually done here at home.  I know I post a lot of their artwork but I half to admit that I narrow it down but at least 60%. I don't show a lot of what they do but I also don't keep a ton of it so this is how I capture their creativity.

Lincoln:

This is a page of a book he wrote.  Translation: Once upon a time, there was a mommy frog and a baby frog.  You have to admit if you tried hard you can easily interpret what he was trying to say. Pretty good. 

Page 2, translation: and there was a tank. 

Translation: red, white, blue, black, green, golden weapons Ninjago 

 Translation: Friends forever and ever

 Translation: 3D movie for friends

This one has quite a bit so I'll list what I'll see but it may not be in order.  Translation: Bott, Millie, Geo and Umi Car (from Umi Zumi), Bandana, Ben Spies 

I also wanted to include this special note he got from his kindergarten teacher right before school ended.

Logan:

 I love how many different pieces of artwork uses his hand prints. 

 Shark

 Learning the letter "F" for flowers

 Finger and market paints

 Logan practicing writing his name. 

 This is one of my favorites. His teacher took a picture of him sitting in the firetruck that came to his school.  He then made a fire truck and the best part is that he gave it a really long tail.  Too cute!

 Water day at school on the fire truck. 

 The fire station dalmatian.