Messing around in the yard

Since Moosey is healing up pretty well now we are playing in the yard a lot.  Sara and Brennan were wrestling, swinging, and playing in the dirt tonight.

Sara things the swing is a jungle gym.

Today she had school pictures at pre-school and she dressed up a little.  I told her to smile normal because when she is told to smile she usually makes a funny face. I hope it worked out because we bought a large packet of pics. 

She likes to pick up her brother and drag him around while they're playing and sometimes he's not so happy about it.

They like to wrestle and roll in the yard.

Sometimes it's fun to put rakes down brothers back too...

They love the bubble blowing bucket that their Auntie got them too.

Her brother is her little shadow.

I hope they continue to play well because it really gives me a break.  Also I hope they are friends someday when they grow up but only time will tell.

Painting and Color Cakes

Sara surprised me this week by painting a picture that wasn't just a random scribble.  She wanted to paint if for Benny's Birthday.  it has candles, grass, a sun, and an apple.  It definitely had a theme and I thought she did a great job.  I hope she has some artistic skills, I'm excited to see what she comes up with next.  Her fine motor skills are improving.

She had her first music class for Fall this week and I noticed that the quarter notes and quarter rests she drew looked much better.  I'm excited for her to have a year at pre-school also, I think it's going to be astounding how much she changes and grows in the next 6 months.

She has also been trying harder at home to be helpful. She has decided that watering the garden and the plants on the front porch is really fun.  She goes out at least once a day and waters the plants without being told.  Most times I still water after she does but that's beside the point she's doing the job as best as she can.  Also, another one of her jobs is picking up the apples every morning.  She has learned if she goes out early enough that the wasps aren't eating the apples.

Today, as a special treat, we decided to make rainbow colored pancakes, why not.

Sara was super excited to help, she loves the colored batters.  She also said that the various colors had different flavors, funny how the brain plays tricks.

Brennan tried the green.

Lastly, today Sara and I painted our nails.  I did a first coat of dark purple, then we put a coat of silver and blue sparkly on top of that.  It looked pretty cool.  I think it was a fun experience for her to go to the nail salon but I don't think we'll be going back very often.  The smell in there probably took years off our lives.  They must have had some cheap nail polish to get rid of because it lasted less than 24 hours an by the next day she was super sad that it all peeled off.  So we bought some Revlon colors and I was surprised by how cool the really sparkly one is, it has huge different bits of glitter in it, so I painted my nails too.   I didn't get any pics this time though.

Now we are going camping with our glittery painted nails and our colored pancakes, there were lots left over.  Great Basin here we come!

Yard Saling

Sara and I have really come to love yard sales this summer.  We started out with $80 budget in cash earlier this year and today we made it down to our last $10.  There are tons of yard sales just in our neighborhood, so we never had to travel very far.

We start looking for neighborhood yard sales on Friday morning because some of them start early.  We always look forward to Friday mornings because of this. Some of our favorite ones are where the whole street or neighborhood is having a community yard sale.  It's almost like going to a carnival.  The kids are selling home baked goods and drinks or homemade jewelry and people just park at one end and walk from house to house.

I usually give Sara a cloth reusable bag to carry around and gather toys or books or clothes that she wants.   She has picked out lots of really nice clothes this summer, all by herself.

Also, I have hit several garage sales where they were giving away bags of boys clothes, so I got them for little or no money.  Brennan has a wardrobe to last him until he's 6 years old I think.  While Nanna was here, I really scored and got him a huge amount of clothes for this Winter.

Here were our finds today, Sara got some much desired butterfly wings and Brennan got two new dump trucks that even make sounds.  Cost $2.

We like yard sales and It's pretty harmless fun, a good way to teach reusing and recycling things, and way better than going to Wal-Mart wandering around like zombies for crappy things.

Getting her nails did

Sara has been begging to paint her nails for several weeks.  I'm really not into such things so previously, Dan painted her nails and so did her Auntie.  I know that even though I'm not into it, that does not mean that such things should be ignored.  So I buffed up my courage and took her to a nail salon when I saw that they had a kids special.  It was $5 for nail paint and sticker.  I figured she really love going there anyway and I was right, she really liked it.

She chose the pink polish with butterfly stickers.

It was the first time I've ever been in a nail salon, I guess there's a first time for everything.  I would be willing to go again because she loved it, it was cheap, and they did a way better job than either Dan or I would have done...

Summer camping and star party

Sara went to her first star party to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower this year.  She has not been camping in a very long time and has been begging us to take her.  Also, she had never seen a meteor shower before or a shooting star.  I wasn't sure she'd really understand or get the star party but she really thought it was very cool and she was very excitedly spotting meteors on her own in no time.  Maybe she inherited the eagle eyes.

The star party went really late so we didn't get back to our camp site until 12 pm.  Sara got right into her sleeping bag and listened to her music while we stayed up and watched for more meteors.  It got really cold in our tent at about 2 a.m. and she ended up pushing me off my sleeping pad and I stayed up most of the night covering her back up every time she shifted around.

 I think the outing was a really good experience for her though and I really wish we went camping more often.  I will try to think of at least one more place we can camp out this fall. It was also one of the few trips, maybe the only trip I've ever taken with just Sara and I, I think we need to do more of that too.  I love to spend one on one time with her.

Also, she had fun camping with Granny Karen and Grandpa, the doted on her of course and she loved it.

Sara is a lucky kid!

Nanna's Visit

Nanna has stayed with us for a month or so and Sara has been eating it up.  They have done many fun things together.

We've been to story time at the library lots.  As well as all Sara's swim lessons. 

Nanna has been reading to Sara quite a lot and spending lots of quality time with her, special time that we sometimes find it hard to give her now with Brennan and I know it's been really good for her.

We went to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum while Nanna was here.  Sara loves that museum and was super excited to go.  Every time we go, I think she gets a little more out of the experience.

She even climbed into an exhibit because Brennan was doing it too.

While we were at Thanksgiving Point, we decided to head on to the petting zoo since it's right in the same place.  Sara loved riding the ponies, she rode all by herself and was having a blast.

Sara LOVES scarecrows too.  She wanted to take a pic with a real scarecrow that they had in the gardens there.  She was really studying it trying to figure out how they made it.  We may have to go to the DI and get stuff to make a scarecrow next year for our garden, she would really love that.

A few days later, we went up to Park City with Nanna so that she could show us where she used to live during the summer.  We rode the historic trolley around the main street.

Waiting on the trolley with the golden bear.

Sara was amused by the moose with the boots on.

Riding the trolley.

Sara had her pink sparkly ruby slippers

Sara is going to be so sad when Nanna leaves.  I think she will remember forever that they watched the Olympics together and all of the time Nanna took to explain things to her.  She is a lucky little kid to have 3 very nice and very attentive grandmas in her life.

Nanna is here!

Sara has had quite a summer as a 4 year old so far.  It's been very busy and she has grown a lot.

She has taken dance lessons and swimming lessons and we have made it our goal to go to the library at least once a week.

She has made huge progress at swimming.  She can swim without any floats and dive for objects on the bottom. When she first started she would choke on lots of water, but now she puts her head under and holds her breath.  She loves her swim teacher and we just signed her up for fall lessons.

Her dance class is over now but I know she loved it and I hope I can get her in another dance class before long.  I wish I had my camera when she did her "pinwheel" dance, it was amazing.  Dance really captivated her and I can't wait to see if we can get her in another class.

The folks at the Spanish Fork library are so good to Sara.   She loves going and everyone knows her there.  We do story and music time and she loves singing songs like "Sticky Sticky Bubble Gum" and "Finger Families" and "Akin Drum".  They sing tons of songs I've never heard of so I take her just so she'll know them and maybe she can teach them to her kids.   She also is selecting her own books to check out now.  We have really been working with her on reading words this summer too.

Sara goes back to pre-school in September.  This year she'll be in the big kids class on M,W,F for three hours in the afternoon.  It'll be a huge change for her.  I think she will really pick up on a lot of stuff and I'm excited to see what she is able to learn before kindergarten.  Mostly 'll be excited for her if she learns to read to herself because she loves books so much (and maybe we need a break too :)

I think Sara has really struggled with having a little brother.  She has had moments of jealousy and she wishes all his toys were hers.  I'm sure she's feeling like the attention is split more too, it's been a bit of an adjustment for her and for us.  Hopefully we'll all pull through this and it will get better as they both age.

She is our sweet little girl still and we love spending time with her.  She can be so thoughtful and she says the funniest things. 

Sara is thrilled that her Nanna is here for so long this summer!

Nanna got her a great play-doh dentistry set that they had fun playing with.

Sara can be really funny.  She wanted to be a scarecrow in the corn.  She really likes scarecrows.

I accidentally took a close up of her but I actually rather like to see her pretty brown eyes.

She likes pushing Brennan in his new car.

She won this crown at the fair and she has been wearing it non-stop.

I hope someday the kids read these blogs and really get a kick out of everything they were doing and hopefully they will see and know that they are well loved by Mom and Dad and all their family.