#2 some science and a cookout with friends

Our first Fresh & Fun Friday was just that!  The superheroes and princess decided a couple of days ago {after discovering it in a drawer} that they wanted to do science experiments for their free choice activity today.  The boys had made this science kit at a Build and Grow clinic once at Lowe's and it has gotten several uses out of it since then.  It came with activity cards with pretty easy experiments using everyday household items.  I like it because it is quick and easy!

{Evan was a little into the iPad during this too...}

To celebrate some of us moms who had racked up enough miles from working out to walk across the state of Kansas and back we had a cookout!  It was a great evening with great friends!

{Look at all those little kiddos!}

{Bubble time}

{A fun swing to ride on!}

{Time for s'mores!!!}

I have to say this summer is starting out great!  Tomorrow we are headed to Grandmommy & Granddaddy's house!

#1 trip to the zoo

We had a great first day of summer vacation!  It helped that we started on a Thursday, which meant it was Take a Trip Thursday using our new summer schedule!  The plan is to blog about our summer daily {or as close as I can get} to have a record of all these memories, which means 84 days of fun {that's how long the boys have until school starts...eek}!

Today, some great friends joined us at the zoo this morning and the kiddos had a blast!  The weather was perfect for it too.

{Silly girls riding together}

{Boys taking pictures of the animals}

{Half the fun is climbing up on the fence...}

{...and up on the mountains!}

{Sweet girls rocking together}

{The kids only table!}

{We watched a great performance ;)!!!!}

{And rode on a Hippo!}

{Good friends make great memories!}

Another part of our "new" schedule I have added in is "homework" {don't worry the boys LIKE the word homework still} time during nap/rest time.  They both have their own bucket now and can work on whatever they want from it as long as they do it quietly for 30 minutes.  So far they are loving it and even jumped right into it as soon as we got back this afternoon...hopefully this lasts!

no more kindergartners here

This picture was just taken yesterday...........right?

{You will see that not a whole lot has changed with Evan...;)}

I cannot even believe a whole school year has already gone by!  We were JUST celebrating the first day of kindergarten with ice cream.

Look at how much my little man has grown up!  By the way, he is now known as a FIRST GRADER...you better not call him a kindergartner anymore!

We will miss kindergarten.  Avery had a great teacher and a great class!  I couldn't have asked for a better start for him.

I cannot believe how much Avery has learned this year!  My hat goes off to all you kindergarten teachers you have a huge task in front of you from taking little preschoolers and turning them into elementary kiddos {yes, I was a teacher too and taught 3rd and 4th graders, but it is so much easier with some independence}!  Avery went from recognizing his letters and some sounds at the beginning of the year to reading actual books!!!  I still am amazed when he starts reading to me!

Of course, we had to celebrate the beginning of summer...

Woohoo!!!

And the beginning and the end of school wouldn't be complete without some ice cream ;).

{Yes, that is a pirate eye patch Ellie is sporting as a necklace.....what you haven't heard about this latest fashion trend yet?!}

{As you can see Evan can still get a little grumpy sometimes...}

We will try to cherish every second of our summer vacation because I am NOT ready for all day first grade....

the orange rah tigers

Evan's soccer season is now over.  He did awesome during all three of his games!  I am very proud of him since during most of the practices he had to hold my hand or I had to be right next to him for the majority of it.  For his games he really kicked it in gear and showed he is a rock star soccer player...I think he really enjoys the competition :).  Good job buddy!

{He LOVED being goalie}

Evan talked about bringing popsicles to his teammates for a week so he was very excited to pass them out to his friends...I think he might have been a little more excited about that then his medal ;).

our latest project, baseball, worlds of fun

Another weekend has gone by and it went by too fast like always!  The majority of our weekend was filled with our latest project....building a fence!  We decided it was time to get a fence around here, especially with a new puppy.  Ryan wanted to do it himself, we seem to be quite the "do-it-yourselfers" lately (I don't know if it's always by my choice ;).  Anyways, we started last weekend while my family was here...worked almost every night last week...and spent all our free time working on it this weekend.  It is just only about halfway done, but it actually looks like a fence now!  We have the whole back side done and are working down the side now of our yard.  It's quite a job, but we don't do small around here :).

{Digging the holes for the post...the slowest part of the project}

{Since only one little side of our yard has a fence from another neighbor it's quite a bit of fence that we needed to put up}

{Yeah finally looking like a fence!!!}

{How can you not L O V E helpers who look like this!!!}

{Love it}

{Adding a fence drastically changes the view, but it feels like we just added a new room to our house!}

I will update you when the project is all done!

What else did we do this weekend?

A little baseball!  We are now into baseball season with Avery!  He had his first game Saturday!  We are in coach pitch baseball so this is like big time stuff :).  He did hit the ball and get on base for his first game (well you always get to get on base for every time up no matter if you hit or not at this age ;).

{I may be biased, but I think he is quite a handsome baseball player!}

Then if that wasn't enough for one weekend we also went to World's of Fun!  Every year Garmin has a private event there for all of it's employees (I think I have mentioned before what a great employer they are!) so we get to make a yearly trip there.  It was a lot of fun and we spent most of the time in Planet Snoopy!  The only downside was that Ellie apparently is ONLY 35" tall and some of the kiddo rides you had to be 36" tall...but she was fine after being able to go do her own thing while the boys did the "bigger" rides!

Can't wait to go back next year when Ellie is OVER 36"!