cousin sleepover party

Since we had a blowout party last year and didn't really have a crew to invite this year, Seth decided to have a cousin's sleepover birthday party.  Very easy for a mommy to plan.  He has read the entire Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and we've watched the three movies with him.  It seemed like the perfect thing to put on his cake (box mix triple chocolate with homemade buttercream icing):

 He opened presents from cousins, more on the volcano in a later post...

 First we took the cousins to the pool.  The adults even got in on the fun.  Here are Aunt E and Nathan on the slides...

 Someone may have been abusing her "only girl" status...

That evening we went to a movie in the park.  Evan really wanted to win tickets to a baseball game in BINGO.  We'll try again next year, Ev.

 Nathan on kid duty...

 So we had pizza, candy, and ice cream, and then went home for...

 ...ghost stories!  Elise and the boys had headed home mid-movie, so it was just the NC cousins sleeping over.  Evan and Amelia moved out before they settled in for the night, but the other three camped out in the bonus room all night!

pool time

We've tried to sneak in as much pool time as we can this summer, in between storms.  Here they are with buds Hannah and Mason:

 And waiting out a pool break:

zucchini bread

Before the plants when mushy from too much rain, we had a bumper crop of zucchini and cucumbers (right now we only have tomatoes and watermelon left in the garden).  I have made lots and lots of zucchini bread, and it's frozen for the months ahead.  Nathan has become an expert at shredding zucchini.  The recipe I found said to squeeze the water out of the shreddings.  Who knew a zucchini contained so much water?

VBS

The first week of summer vacation was spent at VBS.  We haven't joined a church, but found one to attend.  The kids had a great week, and I found the best found the best volunteer job ever...snack assistant.  The last day they had water fun:

And here they are at the closing program...Amelia is behind the baptismal font, Seth behind her left should and up three rows...

I'm glad they had fun, and we met some more people, but I was not sad to take the five song CD off repeat in the van!!!

summer photobooth

I was in charge of Seth's class party.  My hands were slightly tied, because his teacher wanted it to be toned down, and you know I don't do that very well.  I have end-of-year-water-party down to a science, but that wasn't allowed.  And it's kind of a good thing, because it POURED that day.  I came up with a few indoor games, another mom brought strawberry shortcake kabobs, and I created a summer photobooth, which the kids loved.  Of course I deleted all the pictures after I printed them out, but here is one on my kids that we have hanging on the fridge:

The next day the weather was only a little better...it felt really weird to be excited about the start of summer when it was overcast and 74 degrees...

butterflies

The very last thing covered in second grade science was life cycles.  The butterflies came in a week later than planned, but luckily, they all started to emerge from their chrysalises the second to last day of school.  Seth's was the supposedly the first to appear, and Seth named him Casper.

field day

You can't have an end of the school year without field day!  I was the room mom in Seth's class, so I had to fill the water bottles donated by a local orthodontist and cart them around.  Since preschool was done, Amelia was my assistant for the morning.

 I didn't get a lot of pictures, because I was running kids to/from the bathroom most of the morning, but here is one that is always a huge hit, the parachute.

Amelia got bored, so I handed over the camera.  I have a lot of pictures of grass to delete.  She took one of me and my book club buddy, but I won't post that one.  Here's a fuzzy one of me and Seth...

 ...and a perfectly clear self-portrait!

The kids seemed to have a good time, and it wasn't super hot.  Fun morning!

playing in the crowd

Amelia sat with us during the recital.  We took a lot of pictures to pass the time.

 

dress rehearsal

 I have tried for a week to upload the video of Amelia's ballet dress rehearsal.  I give up.  It was cute.  They danced to "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid.  Here she is after rehearsal with her group:

She loved ballet and her teacher, Miss Ashley!

This was about 30 minutes from home (in good traffic), so we hustled back during the Friday evening commute because Seth's school was hosting a movie night at the park across the street.  The kids had a blast.  We watched Madagascar 3 and they saw a lot of buddies.

first harvest

Our little garden is very bountiful!  In early June we harvest our first zucchini.  Since then we've had a bunch of cucumbers, more cherry tomatoes than we can eat, and a few big tomatoes and snap peas.  

 Here's how it looked in early June:

Memorial Day cookout

Our neighbors invited us to a "bring your own meat/BYOB" Memorial Day cookout.  It ended up being a mini-street party.  Seven families, 25 kids.  Needless to say, the water balloons we brought didn't last very long.  I thought this was funny, while eating ice cream, they separated into boy/girl groups...

weekend fun

The time changed didn't mess Nathan up too much, and we played hard all weekend.  On Saturday we went to Discovery Place (I had won free tickets from a local parenting magazine).  There weren't any new exhibits, but the kids had fun.

Nathan brought back an incurable sweet tooth from his trip, so we checked out Bruster's for the first time.  I'm a huge fan!

Since we don't have a neighborhood pool, we used the money we would have spent on a pool membership to buy season passes to Carowinds.  That Sunday we went for the first time.  We took a quick stroll through Planet Snoopy and then spent HOURS in the waterpark.  We had a blast!

character?

On the same day as Amelia's program, students with good character were encouraged to wear mustaches to school...here is Seth's invention:

no more preschool!

That Friday was Amelia's very last day of preschool.  Her program was mid-morning, so there was no way Nathan could sneak over to watch it.  Amelia was bummed, because she wanted two people in the audience.  After I dropped her off, I ran a couple errands and signed Seth out of school for a couple hours:

As soon as we walked in, I saw this pic on the screen, and I thought I was a goner:

 Then the kids marched in.  It took Amelia a couple minutes to find me in the crowd, but here's her reaction when she saw who was sitting next to me:

 The first thing she did after the program was hug her brother:

 One last picture with her marvelous teachers.  I am so grateful for the year she had:

 Her diploma!

We took Seth back to school and then went to the park for an impromptu playdate with friends.  No more tuition payments, yea!

class gift

 I volunteered to organize the class gift for Amelia's preschool.  I collected cash, and then I found this super cute project on pinterest.  I was worried it wasn't going to work, but it turned out perfect.  All year long, the teachers had asked the kids so many open-ended questions, and the responses were priceless.  I sent home sheets for the kids to answer five questions about each teacher.  I then printed out their responses, and a couple other moms helped me cut them out to the size of a dollar bill.  We then alternated reponses and dollars, and made a little booklet out of them using padding compound. (There is a step-by-step tutorial on how do to do this online.)  Here is the finished project, and one of Amelia's responses:

first week on the new job

Nathan's old job was a contract position, which was his only way to get his foot in the door in Charlotte last year.  But that has meant no sick days, no vacation time, no corporate insurance.  On May 16, he started a new job in a different department at the same bank.  That Friday, he was taken up to the executive suite for a meet and greet lunch.  On the rooftop, a peregrine falcon had made her nest, and Nathan got to see the babies.  (They fledged this past weekend.)

 

The following week, he went to San Francisco for a team meeting (and to meet his boss in person, ha!)  They did a lot of group activities, including a scavenger hunt around the city.  Tuesday night they went to a restaurant in the water.  He saw the seals on the wharf...

 Inside the restaurant:

 Alcatraz:

 The original plan was for the guys to fly back Wednesday night, but they couldn't get them on a flight, so they sent them to a baseball game instead:

 Tough life!

It was really more play than work, but he deserved it.  There will be a little travel involved with this new job, but I'm excited that he'll be racking up miles so I can go somewhere again! 

strawberry pickin'

That afternoon, the kids and I went strawberry picking at the same farm we had picked our pumpkins in the fall.  It was one of the first (and few) hot days we had, and the kids pooped out rather quickly, so I did a lot of the picking myself.  Turns out they use a different type of strawberry plant here, and I was highly sensitive to the leaves.  I took a shower when I got home and had hives/a rash until I went to bed that night.

 Here's a whole of lot deliciousness!

I froze most of the berries, but I did make two strawberry yogurt cakes with the fresh berries we didn't eat.  One of those I froze, and we're still snacking on it!