Megan's birthday party

We celebrated Megan's birthday yesterday since we'll be out of town on her birthday. We'll probably still celebrate up in Utah, but we got presents out of the way here. Which means some of her presents can keep her happy on the drive. :)

We got this bouncy house for free from a friend of ours (Ryan's preschool teacher, and Rachel's piano teacher) who got it from another friend for free. Score! As good as a trampoline, but we can fold it up and put it away, and it fits inside when it's 100+ degrees outside.

 Megan did not love it when everyone else was bouncing. But she did enjoy it when she got to bounce solo.

Grandpa and his iPad are two of Megan's favorite things. And Grandma. :)

 We did face paint and balloon animals. But since this was my first time making balloon animals we didn't get any more complicated than dogs, swords, and hats. And light sabers, which were just the straight balloon. :)

 Megan (and our whole family, really) has gotten really into Phineas and Ferb lately and Megan's favorite character is Perry the Platypus. And she says Platyputh so cute-ly (is that a word?). So she got her own stuffed Perry, and a Perry the Platypus cake, which I was pretty proud of.

She blew out her candles, then started poking her fingers in the frosting and licking them off. When I came at Perry with a knife she was appalled that I would even consider it. "No tut Peddy!!" (Don't cut Perry!)

 Everyone loved eating Platypus (cake).

You can see her stuffed Perry peeking out in this picture. She had a hard time caring about opening the other presents once she opened that one.

 Then she opened her own computer and she really couldn't move on to the next present.

 Especially because she had to protect her computer from the likes of Ryan who was overeager to try out the new toy himself. Many fights have broken out over that computer in the last 24 hours.

Megan got a new baby and a stroller, along with a couple stuffed animals and she's in stuffed animal heaven.

 Megan has really gotten into playing with babies lately. She has named her babies: Baby Shasha is the one that lives here and sleeps next to her in her crib, Baby Nene (nay-nay) lives at Grandma's house, but she tries to steal it and bring it home every chance she gets, and Baby Amy is any one of the 4 dollar store babies we have. And now she got a new baby that laughs or cries when you squeeze her tummy. Last night after playing with her babies and stuffed animals for a while she reverted to her favorites, the babies. It was so cute watching her line them up one by one, then sit next to them on the stairs. Megan sure is a cutie pie. Or as she says it, tootie pie. :)

I bought some fabric for "Easter" dresses during Spring Break in March. I knew they wouldn't be done in time for Easter, so I figured they'd be Spring dresses. I finally finished them yesterday, 5 days after Spring ended. Not too bad.

 They're ready 9 months early for next Easter. :)

Soccer

Annie has been asking to try out soccer since she decided to not go back to gymnastics in January. But I kept putting it off. This summer I noticed that the city had a soccer class for 4/5 year-olds that seemed perfect so I told Annie that we could do it. Just once a week, indoors, seemed perfect to see if she really would like it. She got all excited, then when I went to sign up it was full! (What kind of soccer class only has 8 kids in it?) So I went ahead and signed her and Ryan up for a regular soccer team, which means 2 practices a week, plus a game. In the summer heat. Ugh.
Half way through the first practice Annie decided she didn't like soccer. She had had swimming lessons earlier that day, it was hot, and she was exhausted. I convinced her it would be better the next week when we wouldn't have swim lessons and she agreed to try again. Ryan has a blast, but gets tired part way through most practices. And Annie still gets tired, but doesn't seem to mind as much, and pushes through.
This morning was the first game and Annie did NOT want to go because she was so nervous. But they got out there and had so much fun. And there were special snacks at the end, so it was a success. (Annie is a food lover, so snacks make the whole experience great.) They had fun running around being cheered on, too. Games are way more fun than practice, Ryan and Annie both agreed.

 They have a great coach that is great with kids.

Ryan and Annie before kickoff.

 Annie got to take a turn at goalie. She loved it because it was less running. :) And the ball stayed down at the other end for most of her turn in the goal.

 Grapes for half-time snack.

 Water break:

 Ryan had a turn as goalie, too.

I don't think he realized that he was supposed to try and stop the ball from going in. Or that he could use his hands. He watched a ball roll right past him into the goal without moving to stop it. But it was good. We have a few kids that are very athletic that kept scoring, so it was good for the other team to get another point so it wasn't such a blow out. :) Though we still won by a good margin.

Ryan and Annie both came away super excited and happy about soccer.

Summer kickoff

Like we do most summers, we made a bucket list of fun things to do over our next 7 weeks of summer vacation. We're 4 weeks in and we've got it 2/3 done. Not bad. Except I know we're not going to get to most of the remaining ones with vacation and back to school shopping and prep. Oh well.

We kicked off the summer with a sprinkler party the day that school got out. We made water blobs, played in the sprinklers, squirted each other with water blasters, and played with water balloons

And had popsicles. Ryan and his friend apparently wanted a swimming pool. They made do.

The next day we went to Chick Fil-A with Jacob, then went swimming with Grandma and Peyton and McKenzie. Ryan, and especially Annie have been getting really good at swimming this summer.

Peyton and McKenzie have stayed overnight a few times, and that's been fun.

 Rachel started synchro and got 6th place at her skills meet.

 I went to camp for 3 days (we had to split our week with another stake, since our stake split in December and the weeks at the church camp were already assigned). It was a lot of fun and the girls were great. I even got to go rappelling a few times.

I don't remember why Megan and Ryan were so sad here. Probably because they both wanted to sit in my lap and Megan didn't want Ryan sitting there with him.

 One day the dress up bucket came out. Ryan's outfit was hilarious.

 Mr. Sailor girl built an awesome tower.

 Annie helped make some homemade ice cream.

 Annie was really excited about helping. She's a classic middle child, vying for more attention, so some days we have 15 minutes where she gets to pick something for just me and her to do together with no one else. She LOVES it and asks for it way more than any of the other kids care about.

The ice cream was super rich and none of the kids finished the two scoops we gave them.

 Face painting:

Rachel got a butterfly, Ryan got a car on one cheek, spider on the other, and a heart on his forehead. Annie got a heart on each cheek and a lady bug on her forehead.

Ryan has been wishing he was a girl lately, mostly because when Peyton and McKenzie are over they and Annie like to hang out together and sometimes get in the girls vs. boys mode that is common around kindergarten age. Ryan is starting to feel left out more often, where before it was usually McKenzie and Annie who would pair off, and Peyton and Ryan would pair off.

Then Ryan saw me finishing up dresses that I started sewing for the girls before Easter and he got jealous of that, too and said he wished he was a girl. So I made his plain black tie a little spiffier. 

 He was very excited about his new car tie.

Thursday the kids decorated some boxes so they could have a "Drive-In Movie" last night for movie night.

Other summer fun activities we've done so far:
Peter Piper Pizza
Made a city/roads in the front room with painter's tape
Dancing raisins
Volcano
Movie night with friends
Build a fort
Marshmallow/toothpick buildings
Sleepover at Grandma's house
We went to a full service car wash and the kids LOVED watching the car go through. They even had a water gun the kids could use to shoot soap at our car. It was a definite hit and a fabulous outing. Fun for the kids and a super clean and fully vacuumed car all for $10. I think we'll visit again after our big road trip. :)

Still to come: Utah and Idaho and many hours in the car. Then MANY hours of fun. We're all looking forward to it.

Megan the platypus

The kids' new obsession is Phineas and Ferb, which has Perry the Platypus as one of the characters. Megan especially likes him and says platypus in such a cute way. Since we have no end-of-the-school-year happenings for Megan I figured we'd share her platypus cuteness instead.

Annie's preschool graduation

We were happy to get a spot in Mrs. Heather's preschool half way through the year. Annie had a good time there and made some friends. Hopefully some of them will go on to Desert Willow next year. We don't have pictures from fun they had at preschool, but here are a few from preschool graduation last week.

They sang a few songs, and gave a flower to their parents.

 Then Mrs. Heather gave them notebooks with a mini certificate on the front.

 Annie loves her notebook. She keeps making to do lists and crossing things off.

 Annie has followed Rachel in her affinity of wearing fake glasses. I made her take off her glasses for a picture with Mrs. Heather.

Annie also participated in a preschool book club on Wednesdays with some kids in our ward. She liked that even more than her Tuesday/Thursday preschool. Probably because they spent most of the time playing. It was 2 hours, taking turns at the different houses each week, and the plan was to read a book or two and do an activity or craft, have a snack, and just let the kids play the rest of the time. 
I think this is the only picture I got of the group.

And it's not even a good picture, nor does it have Annie in it. Ryan was happy to join in the fun on the weeks we had it at our house, though.
Two weeks ago we had the end of year finale for that group and had a fun swim party at the Loertcher's house. I'm glad we got in on the fun for the second half of the year.

Rachel's 2nd grade year

Rachel's last day of 2nd grade was last Thursday. Mrs. Curtin has been the best teacher ever. We will miss her. Rachel did great in 2nd grade, exceeding in every standard. She was in advanced reading this year and next year will finally get to do advanced math, too (because of budget restraints her school hasn't had a teacher for advanced math until 3rd grade, though next year they'll have it in 2nd grade, too). She's a smarty pants, and a great student, very helpful to the teacher and other students in her class, and a great friend.

Here are some pictures from 2nd grade:

 They got to check out Mr. Curtin's police cruiser and get a safety talk last week in preparation for summer.

The kids put on end of the year plays in their groups.

 Rachel's group did Goldilocks and the 3 Bullfrogs.

From the field trip to the Desert Museum:

 The kids all wrote down a quality they thought each of the other kids in their class had, then Mrs. Curtin put them together into a year-end gift Rachel really loved.

 Rachel, the printing press expert:

 I think this was from the Red Ribbon Races earlier in the year:

 Pumpkin exploration on Halloween. I got to come in and help out.

 Rachel's class on Halloween:

And now summer is here! Woohoo! In less than two months we'll have a 3rd grader. We're halfway through the elementary years. Crazy...