Thankful for Friends With Fun Yards

Bucket List items completed: One. Run through a sprinkler.

Bucket List

I love to read blogs. I love blogs that give me ideas about what to have for dinner. Blogs that show me fun gardening ideas. Decorating ideas. Hands down, the blogs that I love to read the most are those blogs that give me ideas for fun things to do with my kids.

One blog that I read regularly is Ohdeedoh. I love Ohdeedoh. It covers everything- room ideas for kids, party ideas, activities. A couple weeks ago they had a fun idea for the summer- a Summer Bucket List. A Summer Bucket List is just was it seems like it is- you write down everything that you want to do over the summer and see what you can cover. One idea that I thought was fun was writing the list on popsicle sticks. Since I, for some unknown reason, bought a jumbo pack of sticks last year and still have not used them, the kids and I got to work.

I first had them decorate the sticks themselves. I had visions of colorful designs, elaborate artwork. The kids just wanted to plow through the sticks as fast as they could. I think they really thought the faster they did the work the faster we could get started on the actual list. And what a list it was.

Stella decided that she wants to touch the ceiling, pick some apples, go to a park, go to the dog park and head to SeaWorld. Teigue would like to see some cool fish, eat some clams and mussels, go to the Del (to get ice cream) and get another fruit tree. Will we be able to tackle all our wants for the summer? Only time will tell!

Camping

What is more fun than sleeping in the woods, riding your bike down long hills pretty fast, pretending to jump over large stumps with the best dad in the world's help, hanging with your best friend, 9 other fun friends, Cutie Flower the stuffed dog and Cat the, well the cat? In my kid's world pretty much nothing.

On Father's Day weekend we headed on up to Julian with 5 other families and camped the weekend away. This is a group that we have camped with before and hope to continue the tradition in the future. The kids all get along wonderfully and, even more rare, the parents do too. We have so much fun giggling around the campfire while our kids were safely asleep in their little sleeping bags. 

For this camping trip we made it geared towards the dads and ended the weekend with a wonderful concert put on by the kids with their favorite instruments. Let me tell you, there is really nothing like 10 kids playing a different tune as loud as they can on tin whistles, harmonicas, guitars and bongos. The dads were very very impressed. To make the concert more official each kid made their own little shirts. I am pretty sure that Teigue and Stella used all the paint on their shirts alone.

Homemade Summer

Cornstarch and water were the ingredients today. 

Messy, but very very fun.

Mountain Biker

Did you know Teigue Fox is now a mountain biker? Yup. Check it out for yourself.

This actually happened back in April, but for some reason we never posted it on the blog. I was just going through pictures and noticed these. Since these pictures were taken he has gotten a bigger bike and has conquered some tough hills. He is following nicely in Brady's footsteps.

Weekend of Teigue

As I finally have some spare moments to update the blog I am discovering that there are a few monumental events that I have not posted about. The most monumental in recent weeks was Teigue's graduation from preschool.

Did you know that graduating from a preschool is on par with having a birthday? That the whole weekend should be celebrated and the graduate should decided each and every activity that happens that weekend? No? Ummm...neither did we but according to a certain Teigue Fox, those are the rules. And rules must be followed. So we started out the weekend by baking a cake.

The kids are getting very good at making cakes. They can crack the eggs with very little added shells, most of the flour goes into the mixer, and the dough is not overworked too much. It is a good thing that Stella has her little sugar intolerance or else I feel there would be loads of baked goods created in the Fox house. For once I am thankful for her sugar coo coos...

Then, the graduation. Ahhh, the graduation. Look at my little man walking to the stage. So serious, so calm, so grown up! He was very serious in his role as graduate. He sat on the stage and listened for each and every cue. He shook hands with his teachers to accept his rolled up piece of blank paper. He sand some songs. Thankfully they did not throw their caps into the air when the ceremony was completed.

As for the rest of the weekend? We played in some parks and enjoyed some time with friends while eating some delicious cake. The weekend of Teigue was quite a success and made Teigue very excited to start kindergarten. That is until he heard that he had to get up at 6am in order to be ready for his new school's 8am start time. He decided he never wants to go to big kid school after all!

Homemade Summer

I have decided that, for the summer months, each week we are going to do one handmade craft from things that we already have on hand in the house. It can be something from the trillion rocks that we have, paper fans to beat the coming heat, anything. This week to kick off Homemade Summer we made...bubble wands!

Such an easy craft to do- one that I have no idea why we haven't done it before. You just grab a pipe cleaner and shape it into a circle (or some other shape that is closed on both ends) and dip it into a solution of bubbles (which were not homemade in our case today but could easily be made with soap, water and cornstarch). Then you just blow blow blow. The pipe cleaners hold onto the solution so you get giant bubbles, and a ton of them at that. 

I blew so many bubbles I thought I was going to faint. The kids could have cared less about my dizziness, they just wanted more more more! I actually had to stop at one point I was so light headed. Um, please take a look at my lovely son's outfit in this picture. Shirt on backwards and one Croc. Wore the shirt like that to school and the solo Croc for a good hour and a half. Does this all the time. I have no idea why he just doesn't take both of them off at the same time.

Billy enjoyed them too!

Cake!

"Mommy can we go on a cake date today?". That is a question that I hear probably 5 days a week. You see, there is this fantastic little dessert restaurant that we really love to go to down in Little Italy that makes the most wonderfully decedent explode in your mouth with flavor cakes. Scones. Oh man the scones. Buttery, flakey, just the right amount of sweetness. I wish I could eat their scones every day and not gain a pound. OK, now I want one. Anyway, Extraordinary Desserts. Amazing place. When I was pregnant with Teigue we went there every Friday. Extraordinary Desserts is the reason that I gained 60 pounds during that pregnancy. Well, I stopped remembering at 60. Why do I keep on going off on a tangent? Cake Place. Focus.

Well, basically we love the desserts. The problem with the desserts is that they are loaded with sugar (not so good for a little lady) and you have to basically be loaded to dine there as a family of 4- one piece of cake is $11. But man, is it worth it. Chocolate, berry sauce, butter...

Brady and I could take the pleading no more so we promised them a date. Then we did something else that day (just as fun as exciting, but most likely not as full of sugar). Another promised date. Another promise broken. This went on for a couple of weeks. Finally the pleading became so annoying and intense that we got in the car and headed on down. Rainbows and unicorns shot out from the back seat the kids were so excited. Giddy. Amped up. Coo coo. Without having a bite of sugar. We were in trouble.

We arrived to Mecca and the little fireballs were on Cloud Nine with excitement. Stella was singing and dancing. At one point she said that she couldn't get her hips to stop moving she was so happy. Teigue was rolling around on the banquette. My children were possessed with the Power of Sugar Yet to Come. Then these arrived. 

Teigue ordered a lemon tart with fresh fruit. Stella ordered a chocolate cake with pretty swirls. She could have cared less about what was in it, she just wanted the swirls and rose petals. They ate and ate and ate. Brady and I waited for the explosion. Thankfully they seemed to have gotten 95% of their energy out in the anticipation of the dessert so they were relatively good after they finished. Well, as good as two kids that just ate a plate of sugar can be. I think their energy level was at 250% before the first bite.

But we still took them to the park to get that other 5% out. We are not new at this.

An Equation

Two Kids + One Very Full Bag of Tortilla Chips = Grrrrrr

Summer?

It seems as if summer has arrived, minus the Gloom of June. Maybe Mother Nature feels bad because we didn't have much sun last summer? Or maybe she knows our fruit tress are ready to give us some delicious fruit but we need some sun to help the process along? Whatever the case may be we will gladly take any sunshine that she sends our way. It makes searching for sea glass so much more fun.

Or running and jumping off sand cliffs more exciting and easier to jump higher

And running in the water and watching waves that look like dolphins playing is much more satisfying when the temperatures are not freeze your ankles cold. Well for me anyway. We all know Teigue could care less.

And of course, thank you Mother Nature for sending the sunshine that lets my little monkeys look like the rays of sunshine that they are. 

Please stick around for the summer. We miss you.

Secret Lab

In our house we kind of have a routine of sorts. The kids come home from school, or after they wake up on the weekends, and watch their two shows of the day to unwind from their hard three hours of play time, painting, singing and lunch. After trying to negotiate a third, and failing, Teigue usually looks at Stella and says,

"You want to go build something cool?"

To which she replies with great excitement, "Yeah!" and they go run off. Sometimes they go into Teigue's room and build a rocket ship blaster off-er with the blocks. Sometimes they head out on to the front patio and get leaves and branches for the lovely snails. More often than not they head on to the side of the house and start dig dig digging. 

We have a small patch of yard that separates our house from the canyon where a large bird cage once stood. (Amazing the condition this house was in when we bought it) Since we ripped the cage out we have had a 4'x60' patch of dirt that we can not seem to get anything to grow in. Well, we could, I suppose, if we watered the ferns enough, but whatever. The kids have now taken over that patch and have turned it into

Teigue and Stella's Secret Lab!

From what I gather (since I am not part of the secret society) they are currently digging a tunnel to Teigue's best friend Avery's house. From there Avery is building a rocket that will blast them off to the North Pole. Yeah, serious stuff. They  have blue prints of the rocket and everything. Since this is serious business I can usually find my kids doing this for a long period of time during the day. The can usually be heard chatting or singing about really adorable important things while doing their work.

Which means they usually look like this at the end of the day

As you can see, two separate days, two identical results (although this last one had the added ingredient of water). Thank you fantastic washing machine!