Sponge Bombs

I saw this awesome idea on the "One Charming Party" site. I knew I just had to do this with the boys. Not to mention my new found love (obsession) for the dollar store. I just bought some regular old sponges (plain, not with the extra scrubbing stuff on them), at Dollar Tree a pack of three is $1 (I am starting to sound like a commercial for them...). You then cut each sponge in half and then cut each half in half again so I had four pieces out of each sponge.
I took 2-3 sponges worth of sponge strips and tied them together in the center with dental floss TIGHTLY. The end. Easy, very fun to play with.
Not to mention pretty cute to look at as well.
The boys played a game where they had a big tub of water with the sponges in it and would throw the sponge bombs to someone who would try to catch them all. They got points based on how many they caught and put in the bucket.
Palmer was pretty into it and he kept running and diving for the sponges.
Lincoln thought he should stand in the tub of water.



McKay was dying to play with the boys (as he usually is). We put on his swimsuit and let him play around in the water as well. He had a blast splashing around.



Then of course the water guns and spray bottles came out and the boys started a water war with each other and the neighbors. It is a fun activity if the kids want to get wet, but not too wet.

Perfect Summer Evening

Last Friday night we didn't have anything planned for our Family Friday Night Activity. I had been pitching a tennis ball to the boys during the day for them to practice hitting with a bat and when Josh got home they were dying to play a REAL baseball game. So Josh set up a little field and the game began.

The light was beautiful and the evening seemed almost magical. The boys had so much fun playing baseball with Dad as I worked on a project and snapped pictures of them playing.
They took turns pitching, catching and hitting. Josh and I even took a turn. I don't want to brag or anything, but I totally got a homerun. You are pretty impressed right? :)
It was just perfect.
Josh the master took some turns as well showing the boys how it is done :)

There was a ton of silliness which made the night that much better.

Poor Hunter wrecked going down a dirt hill on his bike.  He took all of the skin off his nose doing it!
Lincoln pitching.


Sasha got to run all over with us too, which I think she loved.  We have a hay field by us and she is itching like crazy. She was rolling around the grass all night.

After we finished playing baseball, Josh suggested that we play "Anti-I-Over" (I have no idea how you spell it). It is where you have two teams one in front of the house one behind. One team throws a ball to the other team and if the other team catches it in the air (or with one bounce in our case) that team takes the ball and runs around the house to throw the ball at as many of the other team as possible. If you are hit by a ball you become part of the team that hit you. Sasha kept stealing the ball and running away with it, which always made us laugh as we chased her trying to get it back.  We played it for hours until it got dark and had a BLAST. I got sucked into the game and had the funnest time! We had such a fun night and made some wonderful memories. That is the best part of summer for me!

Kid's Activity-Dollar Store Spray Bottles

I am always looking for cheap activities for the boys to do. I saw this one a long time ago and have wanted to do it, I can't remember what blog I found it on originally. I now live closer to a dollar tree and I have fallen in love. There are so many great things there for only a DOLLAR (yep I'm quick). I bought three spray bottles, told the kids to get on their swimsuits and let them go crazy. They liked the variation from water guns.

It was a lot of fun for them and they ran around like crazy.
They have done this activity a whole bunch of times since I bought the bottles, which is always a good sign that they like something.

My sweet little Hunter always forgets that he can shoot back. He always ends up just running for his life away from his brothers.


Toward the end Hunter finally started shooting back :) Great activity for $3!

Heritage Days Parade

We really loved experiencing Heritage Days. We went to the parade Saturday morning and it was so worth it!
The boys were thrilled at all of the candy and otterpops that we were handed through the course of the whole thing.
Josh and I were thrilled to sit back and watch our boys scrambling around for candy, laughing, being silly and waving their hearts out at every person who passed by.
McKay just chilled with the parents and had a bit of candy every now and then. The "dum-dum" suckers are his very favorite and keep him content for a long time, which is always a plus :)
Lincoln waved that flag for all he was worth. He was so cute to me. I think he was the most enthusiastic about the parade and he did not let one piece of candy go un-scrambled for, even when most of the other kids had decided it wasn't that big of deal. Lincoln was in it from beginning to end.
This parade had such a small town feel, which Josh and I both loved. I love summer so much and a lot of it is for moments like these, where we are so grateful to live in the United States and think about all of the blessings we have from living here. The flag never ceases to move me.
The scramble.
You have to love a tractor in a parade.
Look at all that candy.
One of the best things was the Otter Pops. We would finish one and get handed another. They were perfect for a hot day. The whole parade was so much fun.

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.