Syracuse Heritage Days

We moved to Syracuse just in time for Heritage Days. While we didn't do this on purpose, I am so glad that we were here for it! It was so much fun. We heard there was going to be a magician on Friday night and headed over to the park to see it, little did we know there was a carnival as well! It was so much fun.
This magician was PERFECT. He had the kids eating out of his hand and my boys were so impressed, I think they all want to be magicians now. He was perfect.
I loved looking at the boys' faces.  
I never can resist a picture of a ferris wheel.
This was the favorite ride of the night. The boys called it the "Harry Potter ride", but it was in fact an Indiana Jones ride. They went on it a few times.

They loved the slide to the end with the little bouncy area.
Hunter was the only one who used his tickets for something other than "Harry Potter". He wanted to ride the motorcycles.


It was such a fun night! I think Heritage Days is going to have to be a tradition! Later on this night Josh took the boys to see the fireworks. McKay and I stayed home (McKay would have been miserable at the fireworks!)

Summer "Homework"

Since the boys were little we have done "homework" as our daily routine. I have usually just bought workbooks from anywhere I have seen them. The grocery store usually has a few as well as school supply stores. I have also bought quite a few from bookstores, especially Barnes and Noble, they have a big section. I really like teaching my children, (and I think that I am still living my childhood playing school :) I even have stamps that I stamp on their papers when they do a good job (you know as an incentive for them for them to do their best, and I am playing school, nerdy? Yep)

Anyway, after they start school, and gotten real homework, I haven't really done the workbooks during the school year, but I think it is a great idea for the summer. There is a TON of time to get everything done in the summer. Our days are usually unscheduled and open, so I just add them back in to their "stuff" that they have to do every day.
This is the first year that I have ever done "Summer Bridge" workbooks and so far I am really liking them. They have a set number of pages that you do every day for the whole summer, they have stickers in the back that you can put on the pages that the kids do to "pass them off". I have liked them. They have been a little more expensive than the ones I have gotten in the past, but I have thought they were great.
The boys really like doing them too. They don't ever even fight me on doing "homework". I think they actually really like it. It is also good that it is getting them ready for the grade that they are going into. I also have some plans to go to the library to learn about a subject each week. The boys have been telling me some things that they are interested in learning about and it is going to be fun! Frogs are first on our list.

Do any of you have things that you do or have heard of others doing in the summer to keep learning going? I would love it if people would share some of their ideas or great ideas that they have seen others do.

Card Board Cars and a Gift Idea

We have a LOT of cardboard all over our house. In fact I feel like we have boxes coming out of our ears. The good thing is that I have a lot of fun ideas to use the cardboard (stay tuned). The other day the boys wanted to do something and I was busily trying to unpack so I didn't have time to necessarily do something with them. I gave them each a box and told them to turn it into a car. It was fun to see what the boys came up with.
Lincoln decided to do some "schedules" instead of a car and helped everyone figure out their schedule. He was thrilled and still busy, so it was all good.
I ended up getting sucked into the project and we made steering wheels that actually turned, which the kids thought was great (although they weren't very pretty, they were functional). The boys had wings and fins on their car so they could both fly and swim. Pretty creative huh?
This was another thing we made with the cardboard. I copied this idea. One of our favorite friends just turned 40 and his wife threw him a surprise party. I saw this little idea and thought it would be right up his ally. Um...hopefully none of you are offended :) We thought it was pretty funny, as did he. I just cut out some cardboard squares from a random box and used packing tape to put them all together (Josh did the taping part. He is such a good sport!) Then I hotglued scrapbook paper to it, hotglued some floral foam inside it (this is at the dollar store!), covered the floral foam with tissue paper and started sticking suckers in it. I wanted to make the writing part look a little nicer, but our printer isn't hooked up, and I can't find any of my scrapbooking supplies, so we made do.

Clothes Pin Stegosaurus

Cheap paper plates are a kid crafter's best friend. When we have a "paper plate night" for dinner, I am always protecting my stash of cheap plates because I have so many uses for them when crafting with the kids (and let's be honest, they aren't that great as actual plates). I saw this idea here. For this craft you need green paint, a paper plate, some white cardstock (for the legs, regular paper curled too much when we painted it), clothes pins (found mine at Dollar Tree, oh how I love Dollar Tree), and some "googly" eyes.
I decided to do the same thing with paper plates. I just cut one in half and then did a dino-ish shape.
The boys painted everything green.
and we glued them all together. Easy, and cute.

Paper Plate Paddle Ball

Yet another activity for a "boring day". The boys were bored the other day and I had just seen this cute idea, and thought they would love to do it. I was right, they played it on and off all day long and then wanted to take it to grandmas when we went to visit. It was really fun. All you need is some paper plates, craft sticks, tape and a balloon and you are good to go.
Just tape the craft stick to the paper plate and blow up the balloon, done.
Palmer wanted to show me his backhand.
We tried to play it outside, but the grass kept popping our balloons so we moved downstairs.
The boys love the fact that our basement is unfinished and spend a lot of time down there riding bikes and skateboards.
This was really fun!
Our new neighbors came over and played paddle ball with us. Luckily it was easy to make more paddles :)
Another easy idea to keep your kids entertained!

Father's Day 2011

Father's Day this year was just a few days after we moved into the new house. Things were pretty wild around our house, but we had a good day (hopefully Josh did too :) As our table was in pieces (and is in the process of being refinished-hooray!) we set up a little breakfast for Josh at the counter. The sad thing is that there is really only room for 3 chairs so the boys gave him the boot and he had to eat his Father's Day breakfast standing up :)
One of our gifts to Josh was a package of "Juicy Fruit" gum. Back in 2008 when life was pretty crazy around our house (Mrs. Utah and such), I totally FORGOT about Father's Day. Right up until I sat down in church and heard the person conducting the meeting wish all of the father's a happy Father's Day. I felt SO BAD! I looked over at Josh and he just smiled and said "I wondered if you were going to remember." I looked around for anything in my bag to write him a little Father's Day note and I only had a Juicy Fruit wrapper. I wrote a little message to him and the boys passed it to him. He thought it was funny and has kept it ever since (I am waiting for my chance to get rid of it as it is a reminder that I am a space cadet!) Anyway, this year must of been a good year for Father's Day, because he got the whole package. He liked it :)

Can you see all of the boxes in the background?  We are ALMOST done unpacking. 
Another of his gifts was a new pillow...random, but needed :)
We went to our new ward on Father's Day and had a great experience. The people were so nice and welcoming. Hunter came home with this cute Father's Day poster he made in his class.

The boys and I made these little cards for Josh and my Dad.


I found this idea here.

Josh and Hunter took a little Sunday nap together.
Josh liked the Father's Day cards.

This is the package we made for Grandpa's cards.
He liked them too. We went to my parent's house for a Father's Day dinner with the Palmer side of the family. It is always so much fun to be around all of the cousins.
Later that night Hunter was running to go outside and tripped running straight into the door frame. It swelled so big that it made me a little sick. He WOULD NOT let us put ice on it. We ended up putting cold water on it for a little bit and it went down. We were so terrified that he had a concussion. Luckily he is a tough kid, he was fine and playing later.
This was the Father's Day sunset. It was beautiful
We had such a great day and I have thought over and over about how lucky I am (as are my boys) to have such a great husband and father. I am constantly amazed at what great men they are. I am a seriously blessed gal.

I Should Know That When It's Quiet...

McKay has gotten into something. This "empty" bag of flour was waiting to go to the garbage. Luckily McKay realized that it wasn't empty and "used up" the rest of it. We are a family that doesn't waste :)

Summer S'mores

My parents invited us over for s'mores on Family Night and we were thrilled to go. With all of the packing and getting ready for the move, I hadn't really felt like we had done much that was very summery. The weather was perfectly cool and it really was the perfect summer evening.
McKay and his cousin Sam have discovered the slide. He was positive that you went up and not down it.

My parents had a great fire going and the boys loved roasting their marshmallows.
All of the cousins did. I think the smell of wood burning in fire is such a perfect summer smell. I don't mind at all that it gets on my hair and clothes, because that just means that I can take it home with me and smell it a little bit longer.
And there is the perfect S'more smile.
We had quite a few of the sticky smiles going on. They were pretty cute.
See?
McKay was a little hesitant at first to try this unknown thing, but quickly became a fan, crying for more.

Don't we have a cool grandma that jumps on the trampoline with the kids? They all thought it was pretty great.
Brandon and Lincoln are such good buddies. They are both always so silly together.
McKay snuggling with grandma. McKay actually did really well on this night. His bedtime is 7:00 pm and he is usually pretty done with the day around that time, but there must be something about the perfectness of this evening that kept him happy.
Palmer was full of tricks on the trampoline (even if it meant he kicked everyone else jumping in the process...happened a few times.)
Josh took Mckay on the trampoline and he NEVER wanted to go off. He just sat and laughed and laughed any time the jumped.
They played dodge ball on the tramp.
McKay has quite the little arm. It was the perfect summer evening and I am hoping that we have a lot more of them in our future in the next few months!