We signed the kids up for a few weeks of daycamp this summer at their new school in hopes that they might meet a friend or two who they might recognize on the first day of school and to also just help with the transition. Today was their first day. We got there a little early so the boys had time to play on the playground before going to class. That was great. There was no Colm clinging to my leg, which I was a little worried about; off he went to play on the playground without even looking back. They also gave a glowing report when I went to pick them up. Liam has made a friend (who is a girl) who likes to play Star Wars as much as he does and Colm told me about a quilt he made with patterns. Colm also was very proud of himself because he got to take his lunch in a lunch sack like a big boy. He thought that was pretty cool. 🙂 Huge sigh of relief from the parents.
Our neighborhood has a summer book club for kids. Today was the first time they met after having read the book Snaggle Doodles. We met at the clubhouse and the kids talked about the book for a bit. The book was about a group of kids who invent something, so the mom who runs the bookclub brought a bunch of stuff/trash and the kids worked together to make their own invention. After they were done, there was a drawing to see who got to keep it and Liam won. Once he got it home he made a few adjustments and added a bit more tape to keep everything in place. And in case you are wondering…it’s a robot.
Two weeks ago the boys had Vacation Bible School. Colm loved it. This was his first year and he was so excited to do something the “big kids” get to do. Not only that, but one of his buddies was in the same class.
If you have a boy that is over the age of four and they have any interest at all in swinging lightsabers or fighting (that was a joke, all boys that age fit that description) you NEED to send them to Jedi Camp. I will admit that I was a little worried that it was going to be mayhem and it would just be a bunch of little boys bopping each other on the heads with their lightsabers. It was not-at all. Last night we went to their performance. They have been working all week on choreographing and practicing their two battle scenes and they did it!! One of the scenes had about seven kids in it and the other had three. They got up on stage and performed their battle scenes without a glitch. Their teacher has a degree in stage battle arts (or something like that) from the University of Hawaii. He taught them defense moves and offense moves and when you put them all together you have a battle scene. See for yourself.
I love to watch Jon and Kate Plus Eight, but if she talks about organic food one more time….Ugh….She acts like her kids are going to spontaneously combust if they eat something that isn’t organic. They had a handful of M and M’s at their aunt’s house and she got all pissy about it. Lighten up…if someone is willing to watch all of your kids for the afternoon I think you can relax a little on your eating rules and regs. Honestly, I think she keeps bringing it up so that some organic food company will sponsor them. Have you ever noticed how much camera time their Juicy Juice bottles get? Two words…product placement.
Another food-related story that made me snicker to myself. There is a mom at Colm’s preschool that was yammering on and on about how she doesn’t let her kids eat this, that or the other and how they always bring their own snacks to school not because they have food allergies but because she doesn’t let her kids eat what they serve for snacks at the school and how the kids are totally fine with that because they understand that they don’t eat certain things, yada, yada, yada. So, flash forward a week or so and the mom, preschool teacher and the child are all standing outside the classroom while the mom scolds her daughter for eating the snack they had served at school the previous day. They had eaten chocolate covered raisins that they had fashioned into ants because they were studying insects. It’s not like they had served them DIng-Dongs and there was a reason behind the snack choice. I just had to snicker to myself because clearly the child does want to eat what the other children are eating at least part of the time and she has started to flex her four-year old muscles to show that she can make her own choices and she will when her eagle-eyed mother isn’t there making the choices for her. Again, as mothers, we pick our battles. This mom has chosen to fight this one, but I still thought it was a little bit funny.
I am not a big garage saler, as a matter of fact, I never go to garage sales, except one. I try to go to our church’s garage sale each year to try and find the boys a winter coat. I can’t stand to pay full price for a winter coat that they will outgrow practically before the winter is even over. So, today I went and I got Colm a winter coat, a turtleneck, two pairs of shorts and a book and I got both of the boys a pair of snowpants for a grand total of $9.75. Not bad.
It cracks me up how much Colm loves to watch the movie Mary Poppins. Does he seem like the Mary Poppins type to you?
Liam came up with the idea this week that we should have Father’s Day Olympics. He came up with the list of events, we got medals for the “winners” of each event and I made an Olympic banner. It didn’t quite go as planned since the weather was not cooperating though. We had to move it to the basement and change some of the events, but it was still a good time.
Long Jump
Archery
Fencing
Happy Father’s Day
Last week Liam went to Chinese Culture Camp. It was great. They learned how to write using Chinese characters, learned to say a few things in Chinese, made and ate some Chinese foods, put on a Chinese opera complete with masks they had made and learned about Chinese art and some symbolism that is used in Chinese paintings. They also watched some movies about China, did some mapwork and made a dragon which I never did get to see. Oh well, here are some pics they sent.
