Father's Day at the magic house

It was supposed to rain on Sunday, so John chose to spend the day inside at the Magic House. (Sadly, the predicted rain didn't happen. Happily, we still had a great day.)

We got to the magic house early before they were open (completely by accident. We thought it opened at 10, they opened at 11.)

As we were there early, we had time to walk around and enjoy some of the outside features. William found this sculpture of kids playing and joined them. Then, he convinced Amelia to join the circle so he could dance in the middle.

Gemma is hilarious

She loves making faces and looking at herself. And we love it. Here she found some Easter bunny ears and requested them in her hair. Then she proceeded to entertain us with her faces. Who needs TV with entertainment like this?

The dilemma with the table

This is from this winter sometime. I'd guess February-ish. Gemma spread her special purple blanket on our coffee table. Then she straightened it out and lined up the edges with the smaller end of the table. As she smoothed it out, she noticed it didn't quite reach the other end. She slid it over so it lined up with the other end. She looked at the other side. It wasn't covered now. She carefully slid the blanket over so that end was covered. It seemed like it should cover the whole table. But no matter how many times she slid it back and forth, it always left several inches bare on the other side.

I'll admit, I enjoyed watching her try to figure out how to solve this problem. I even laughed out loud when she started getting a little frustrated. I have to hand it to her, she didn't give up, even when she was totally frustrated. She just kept trying. However, it quickly became clear that she wasn't going to give up. She was going to make that blanket fit. She got up on the table and used her toes to hold the Blanket in place while stretching it to the maximum with her hands. Still not long enough.

At this point, it was time to call it quits. We were on the verge of a meltdown (it was bedtime anyway, one does not take deep disappointment well when one is tired), so mama intervened. I was impressed that she was not easily distracted - not book or toy would pull her from her task. Finally, I physically took the blanket and whisked her off to bed.

Luckily, for me, this wasn't something that carried over to the following day. By the next day, she was on to something else entirely.

Summer fun

We had a picnic outside today for lunch as we are working on a landscaping project (more on that later). The kids are loving this unseasonably cooler weather. We've had temperatures in the 70's and 80's, which is at least 10 degrees cooler than usual. William and Amelia climbed in this canvas chair on their own. Miraculously, there wasn't any fighting! They wrapped their arms around each other and requested I take a picture of them together.

Splash pad, video #2

Kids at the splash park #1

This is a splash park I dragged the kids to today. As you can see, they had a terrible time despite their complaints on the way in to the park. They were totally bored and didn't enjoy themselves one bit.

Notice anything?

Do you notice anything?

It's exciting!

Gemma is finally forward facing as she is over the age of 2 and is very, very close the upper weight limit of her car seat in the rear facing position. As you can she, she is totally thrilled! She has been excitedly pointing out all the things she can see now!

FYI- it is now advisable that kids ride rear facing until they are 2 years old, although it isn't a law. More information about this topic here:

http://extendedrearfacing.org