The Phillies

Johnathan and daddy got to go to a Phillies game w/Grammy and Opah last week--Johnathan's first major league game. He was one excited little boy; it was so cute. He got his and daddy's gloves out in the morning and set them on the counter in the kitchen so they wouldn't forget them and was trying on this jacket that used to be Scott's when he was a kid seeing if it fit--it did. Apparently Scott wore this jacket every day of his life when he was around Johnathan's age; so Johnathan was excited to try on daddy's favorite jacket.

They had a great time; Johnathan was spoiled by Daddy, Grammy and Opah with all sorts of treats; the Phillies won, and there were fireworks after the game. You can't ask for a better evening when you're a little boy.

Cupcake Kit

Cupcakes are fun to make, but would be especially fun with this kit; $20 at Fred Flare.

New Jersey--the Garden State

In our talks about America and New Jersey this week I told the kids that our state fruit is the blueberry; so we went to this amazing farm down the road this week to pick some and got a whole lot of other goodies too.

peaches and sweet plums

who knew peach picking could be so dangerous

and the blueberries




then we got busy eating all of this great fresh fruit and making all sorts of yummy things.


the Blueberry Pops like Johnathan's eating in the post below were really good!

First Stop in our Around the World Summer--America

We just got back from beautiful Vermont for a week with my side of the family and decided to keep talking about America this week and all of the beautiful and interesting things about our country. Every day at lunch I gave the kids a printout to color while I was getting lunch ready; they colored a map of the U.S., the American Flag, made some indian symbols and then we narrowed it down to our state of New Jersey; in this pic they're coloring our state flag and we talked all about what's on it and what it symbolizes. We didn't get a chance to get into Philly this week, but maybe next week we'll head over to see the Liberty Bell and Betsy Ross House.

You can print some great stuff about your state from this site: Apples4theteacher.com

(we were down on the Camden Waterfront yesterday watching boats and the kids all started jumping and yelling excitedly, "mom look it's the New Jersey Flag and it's the same as the one's we colored." it was cute that they thought that was cool!)

Lazy Summer Days and Ice Cream--the perfect combination

Our Summer

I like to stick a little bit of learning into our summers; so we came up with a them for the summer and we'll do fun stuff to tie it all together. Our theme is "Around the world in one summer". I found some cool books at the library:

"Around the World Cookbook"

This cookbook is so cool; it has sections on different parts of the world and recipes to go along

an Atlas for kids

and a book of stories

We took the atlas outside yesterday and drew a picture of all of the continents on the driveway with sidewalk chalk.

We'll talk about maps and how to read them; visit fun places in the area, cook together, read lots of stories; maybe talk about a different part of the world each week; should be fun. I was thinking the kids might like the old movie "Around the World in 80 Days" at the end of the summer. so that's the plan; we'll get started after we get back from vacation next week and I'll try to post what we're doing each week.

Audrey's Big Day

Audrey had her ballet recital on Saturday and she was so cute and excited. I think Scott and I were more nervous than she was; her class was the 6th group to come out and boy was it hard sitting there waiting and wondering if our little girl was ok, how was she feeling; was she going to do it? Then her time came and out bounces Audrey, smiling and having fun; whew, now we could relax and enjoy. So cute!

waiting before the show
walking with a very proud daddy

She's growing up! This year of ballet was a major confidence booster for Audrey. I loved her teacher, so patient and kind. It's really neat and hard at the same time to watch your kids overcome the little hurdles that come their way. At the beginning of the year the class would do freeze dance and Audrey would sit on the side and watch; you could see the struggle she was going through by the looks on her face--"It looks like so much fun, dancing around and being silly, but I couldn't" I would watch through the window and want to run in an hold her hand and start dancing w/her. Then one time she tried it; and she was hooked. You could then see on her face how proud she was of herself for doing it, it was so cool to see her letting go of all of the "what if's" and having fun. She does things in her own time and that's ok--It's taken me a little bit of time to get into the "it's ok" mindset. I'd feel bad for her sitting on the sidelines watching and try to get her to join in, only to end up with a crying little girl; so I've learned over the past year to let her sit and watch and she'll get in there when she's thoroughly inspected the situation and feels that it's ok to try. We are SO proud of her!

Carnivals and Classic Cars

We went to a Chili Cook-Off this past weekend. We didn't end up tasting any of the chili, but had fun looking at the cars and riding on the rides at the carnival.

Johnathan's favorite

and Zach's

Audrey's first reaction to anything she tries; then after the initial fear is gone; she'll want to do it 100 times; she's so funny!

Picture Puzzles--fun game for little people

We've had this game, Picture Puzzles, forever and all of the kids have loved playing with it; I can't remember where we picked it up. It's a good one for Zach right now at age 2 because it's simple, but it's still fun for the older kids too because they like making up fun games to play with the cards.

It consists of big cards with different body parts of all kinds of characters and you have to match them up.

Other games I like for the youngest kids are:

Cranium Cariboo

Don't break the ice--Zach's favorite, he loves to whack things

Hi-Ho Cherry-O

Zingo

A lot of times when Zach is playing we'll play games that are meant for older kids, but shorten them because he can't sit as long as they can; so he feels like a big kid playing the games they like.

What are your favorites for the littlest in your families?

Yay for Summer! Free Family Film Festival

I've blogged about this before, but just wanted to post the link again for Regal Cinema's Free Family Film Festival for this summer. I love that they do this. You can take your kids to the movies--all G or PG--on Tuesday or Wednesday mornings at 10:00 during the summer at participating theatres for FREE!!

It's so nice taking little kids to this because you don't feel like you've just emptied the bank account only to see you kids jumping from seat to seat, up and down, etc. Just enter your state at the bottom to see if any theatres near you are participating and to view the list of movies they will be showing.