The Tower ...

Matt and I have been hoping and dreaming about some kind of play tower for our backyard most of the winter and spring.  Thanks to Matt's amazing engineering skills, his thoughtful planning, and my dad's building experience, we have one!  Well, almost ... there's a few more details before we're opening it up for anyone other than our family (mainly for safety reasons), but the girls are having a great time already on what there is.

Matt got most of the necessary materials a few weeks back and my dad stayed with us from Friday through Monday morning to get the main part of the structure up.  A bit of rain set things back on Saturday morning, but Matt and my dad worked so hard when the weather cooperated.

The tower is awesome.  The girls have played on it several times every day this week, and in a different way each time.  We still have ideas and dreams for little things we can add on, but right now we're just happy with what we have.  In fact, the girls are up there watching a movie right now, while Ethan is sleeping, which is why I have some time to do an update :)

In addition to the tower, we are finally able to play in the pool!  The girls and I have done it each day since Sunday, with Ethan joining us most days, too.

With being able to harvest veggies from the garden and Anna done with her summer school class, we may never have to leave our home :)

Field Trip Thursday

Last week on Thursday the kids and I did our first summer field trip to Aztalan State Park.  We did our best to prepare for the trip in terms of learning about the site before we went, but the girls and I decided that the outing was a bit of a bust until our family made the most of it, then it was a hit :)

Here's a few highlights ...

The girls climbed to the top of the tallest mound built about 1000 years ago by the Native Americans.

We visited with a group of college kids doing some a summer archeological course on the site.

We saw the rebuilt stockade sections that would have surrounded the original Indian village.

After pushing Ethan around in the stroller while the girls and I looked, here's how we found him.  (Don't worry; I moved him to a more comfortable sleeping position.)

The museum we were hoping to visit after lunch, and which was supposed to be open according to the signs, was closed.

So we went to a park in Lake Mills and bought some strawberries from a farm stand.

Then the girls played on some park benches for awhile.

Hopefully our next Field Trip Day will go well, too.  As the girls will tell you, our word of the summer is "flexibility"!

Summer, summer, summer!

We have our first several days of summer under our belts.  I would say that I love it, except for the fact that Anna has a summer school class from 8 until 9:30 on Monday-Thursday this week and next.  Our school district has a great summer school program and Anna chose to do a Writer's Workshop class this session. 

So Anna and Kate still have to go to bed at a decent hour so we have to bring them in and put them to bed while it's still light out :( What's worse is that we have to go and pick Anna up each morning and it's right smack dab in the middle of Ethan's nap.  Oh, well.  He faired pretty well on Monday and Tuesday, but today was kind of rough for him.

With the rest of our days we've been playing lots, going to parks, relaxing, and having a pretty good time.  I'm quite tired at the end of each day, so I'm trying to figure out better how to pace myself during the day.

The girls had a little trouble finding a rhythm together, but now they are great together.  I think they both love having each other as a playmate all day every day.

Ethan also is enjoying having Anna home.  She is SO good with him and he obviously adores her.  Kate has always been good with him, too, but Anna's just that much older to be able to really understand how she can help out with him.

The highlight of Father's Day (beside pumpkin cake) was our family water fight in the afternoon.  Matt and I filled a bunch of waterballoons and set up various filling stations for the squirt guns while the girls were resting and Ethan was napping.  Then after all of the balloons and buckets were used up, Matt set up a red-neck slip and slide in the front yard.

 

 

Everyone (including Mr. Ethan who had his own tray of water to play in and lots of screeching girls around him to watch) had a memorable time :)

With the warmer weather predicted this weekend, we finally got the pool set up.  Hopefully the water will warm up quickly so we can enjoy things out there in the afternoons again!  Until then, the girls have been ridiculously happy playing with buckets of water :)

End of the School Year!

Anna is officially a 1st grader now having been sprinkled with "first grade dust" (a.k.a. glitter) this morning by her kindergarten teacher!

 

What a wonderful year it has been for her!  We loved her school; we loved her teacher; we loved the whole experience.  She has grown so much in the past 9 months and we all feel incredibly blessed to have had such a positive year.

Here's a few pictures of her class doing their skits for us on Monday morning.

Anna was Polly the Parrot.

Yesterday Kate, Ethan, and I had a special day on our last day just the three of us.  Kate voted on a trip to the bakery for donuts.  And yes, Kate ate that whole donut ... well, except for the last bite.

We also went to the Stoughton library and the toy store to get Anna a birthday present.  Fun times were had by all, except maybe Ethan :)

This past weekend was amazing for our family.  We didn't have to be anywhere but church on Sunday morning for worship and just loved being able to be our family on our own terms.  Saturday morning Matt and I got a bunch of work done outside so we decided to do a family trip to a park in the afternoon.  Anna and I rode the bike train while Matt drove Kate and Ethan to meet us there.  Very nice time.

On Sunday we were able to goof off a bunch outside in the afternoon after going to early church.  At one point I decided that we should try for a family photo shoot since we didn't really have any good pictures of all five of us.  Here's the results :)

 I also tried to get some shots of the kids last week, but the girls just wanted to make silly faces at me.  Go figure.

 

And now we're on summer mode.  We have a few activities sprinkeled here and there throughout the summer months, but for the most part we're going to simply soak up the sunshine and be on our own schedule.  Hooray!

Check-ups

Ethan and Kate had their check-ups today.  Our kids are wonderfully healthy kids, and we are very grateful of that.  Here's their stats:

Ethan at 6 months
Height - 27" (58%)
Weight - 17 lbs. 15 oz. (53% ... on an empty tummy)

Kate at 4 years
Height - 41" (75%)
Weight - 39 lbs. 9 oz. (80%)

Ethan seems to be fairing a bit better this time around with his vaccinations, but we've also done a better job of keeping the ibuprofen in him.

Here's a few other highlights from the last week

In the last week or so Kate and I have managed to finish bagging the apples on the tree (the pears were already done), plan the squashes, pumpkins, and corn, put up the pea supports, and weed the asparagus, onions, and beets.  I've been working a bit at a time on putting our leaf mulch down the in garden.  Once that's done, the garden will be fairly well taken care of for awhile.  Now we just need some warmer weather to encourage everything to grow.  So far we've had asparagus, rhubarb, and lettuce, but we're all ready for more ...

Last Saturday evening we headed over to the Petzold's home for a potluck with our old GIFT group.  We grown-ups had a nice time and for the kids it was like a family reunion; success on all fronts.  (Except that Ethan showed everyone there that he's still a major spitter upper.)

Sunday after church we had our first meeting with our new Bible Study group; we're looking forward to getting back into this, especially since we're not leading it this time :)

Saturday morning Matt spent a good chunk of the morning at Menards getting the supplies for our soon-to-be-built "tower" in the backyard.  He and my dad are hoping to build most of it a few weekends from now.  It's going to be so much fun!  (The girls helped unload the lumber.)

Ethan's working more and more on solid food.  He doesn't care much for the mashed up baby food, but has enjoyed the little bits that we're giving him from our meals.  I think his favorite so far was a nice ripe pear; he must have gummed and swallowed most of the slice I gave him because I only found a small piece of it after lunch today.  The cool, hard veggies have also been nice for this guy's sore mouth.

Anna has only a few more days left of kindergarten and then we'll switch into summer mode.  It's been a great year for her, but we're all ready to not have to deal with the school routine for awhile.