Summer Randoms

I cannot believe that summer is coming to an end! Where does the time go! Most of these pictures are from my cell phone randoms as we are out and about, These first two are from one of the baseball games we made it to this summer, one of the clinics Addy goes to hosted a family night out, and gave us tickets for the whole family as well as they had baseball bucks for us to get goodies, the kids do love baseball, we made it 3 or 4 innings before we had to find other entertainment they have a bounce house set up when they have home games and a throwing area, as well as a fabulous grass hill to roll down.

Swimming, I know I did some of the kids at the beginning of summer doing their lessons, this is them the end of summer, in the deep end, going down the water slide and off the diving board or walking the plank as we call it. I was not quite prepared the first day their swim teach told them they could go down the slide and walk the plank, she had them hold a noodle and go down which worked great for addy who can coordinate getting to the top of a ladder sitting and holding onto the noodle, James got to the top and threw his noodle, I instantly new he was coming next without his, luckily kelsie their swim teacher heard me note to get closer and she did so quickly and pulled him up, it was quite the adventure but he wanted to go again. The next week I took their life vests for after lessons when they had earned the fun!

I love these action pictures, the kids had so much fun and have really progressed with their swimming.

Addy's one OT does a shaving cream slide every year, so the kids come in their swimsuits and play in the shaving cream on the slide, the first time down was very touch and go, and you can see James reaction above, but we convinced them to go one more time and before  we knew it we had crying kids that didn't want to stop the fun

Normally Addy won't even put her fingers in shaving cream, we have been working months on getting her to work with it, and now we have her whole body in it, such a funny girl. They really did have a great time on the slide

This is one of the water parks we made it to this summer, we do love to swim. 

Preschool, Coop, Coop!

 Last week already, Addy started another year of preschool, this year she is going to the Lutheran church for preschool, I searched out all the preschools in the area to find one that would hopefully offer her curricula that is going to be most helpful for her and her learning challenges, really we use preschool just as a jumping point to help our learning at home and give her a social outlet, They use handwriting without tears, which we also use at home, and Music garden which we also use, in addition to their themes,  It will be a little interesting when they get to bible stories of people who aren't in the bible we use, but other then that we both love the preschool. I went with her the first day, as parents are suppose to attend,  I pretty much just hung out with my friend whose daughter is also going there, but it was informative and good to see my little social butterfly in action. She is trying to meet and remember one new person every time she goes, it is very hard for her, but oh how she tries

 This is a random picture of the kids with our only edible cantaloupe out of our garden it was the cutest little cantaloupe I have ever seen, I am sure had the plant not been destroyed by the storm it would have grown bigger, but as it is the plants are trashed, everyday Jim goes out to the garden and looks for treasure, most often bringing me very little cantaloupes that he scouted out that can't be eaten, but this one was yummy, the kids loved eating their hard work.

 My super learners, this year we are doing two coop's one for Addy which is small and has older kids in it, and one for James which is made up of 7, 3 and 4 year olds. I am taking my turns up front since I will need a respite when the baby comes, so it has just been a coop party at our house. Addy's started last week and we worked on "all about me" our senses, our body parts, our feelings, and lots of measuring of our bodies, it was fun, and so easy with a small group.  James group started this week, and we focused on being super learners and how to learn, since most of them have never done any kind of preschool.  So these pictures are for our behavior board, the kids open their windows at the beginning of preschool showing they are ready to be there and learn, if they are having trouble they have to close their window, no one wants their window closed and for the most part this nips our problems in the bud, we orange screened them  so we could turn the background to match our board, I will take a picture when it is all done, the kids love opening their windows. We used a rocket ship the last two years that was very used.

James has been so excited about coop and having his own group, it was a huge motivator for him to finish potty training, I wouldn't say we are completely done, but he is doing so good with it. Sometimes I forget he is only 2 and half, he keeps up with the big kids so well, he does coop with addy's group when it is at our house and he just clips right along with the girls, we have plenty of work to do, don't get me wrong, but we do love the playing too! Today we did Apple, Apple, Pumpkin and had so much fun with the apples and pumpkins from our yard, we did painting and patterning, we made apple nachos with caramel and raisins and played games like duck duck goose, but with the appropriate apple apple pumpkin, the kids loved dissecting the pumpkins and apples.... OH the FALL so many fun things to learn about!