campfire!

We've decided that our island going campfires need to be a tradition, so we had another one... This time we remembered the marshmellows!

Paul gets artsy with the camera...

And then we lit the castle and did sparklers!

On the way home, Levi said: "Mama... I have to make a picture of this..."

take my picture?

Look at my kids sitting with the dogs. Just look at Levi, sitting still with Chewie.

And here's the picture of Mrs. Candy and baby Emma that he made for them. There's everything from pirates and whales to Mrs. Candy and her baby and their pool.

I. love. kid. art.

we love our boat

love, love, love going out on the boat!

don't forget

I used this picture at the top of the blog, but wanted to make sure it got archived, hence the backpost :)

recap of the week

We went and had lunch with Nana at work one day. That was a ton of fun!

Blocks...

Okay, let's see if I can narrate this: blue cloud, Joseph, the donkey, Mary. That's baby Jesus in the yellow triangle (stable), grass, a lake, a bridge, a castle and a soldier coming to get baby Jesus (he gets away), more water and a brown boat, the dots are footprints and the arrow is North.

This one's pretty great too: letters, Joseph leading the donkey with Mary riding it. The Brown dude in green clothes & hat is Robin Hood, there's a castle, with a cool little guy in it. There's Wall-E next to that (soooo cool), EVE below the castle, baby Jesus to the left (he's surrounded by hay), and to the left of him is MO in the spaceship. Below that is the truck that Wall-E lives in.

I cannot believe the level his art has jumped too. I swear it's tied to the confidence he's gained from the reading lessons. And this is what I've been working on: six more dolls and a ton of dresses. I also made a doll-sized backpack and a pair of fairy wings. Not sure if people will be interested in them, but I had the ideas and thought I'd try them out! In case you're wondering, there are 2 redheads, 2 brown-haired brunettes, and 2 black-haired brunettes in the works.

aquarium

I took the boys to the aquarium, which is run down here by the Smithsonian. It's such a neat little place, and the morning of our visit it was packed with a group of homeschoolers out on a field trip. There was everything from babies to teens, and they were all really nice to us (including the mommies). I was impressed.

Anyways, my little ones were sooooo excited. They wove through the other families, pointing and calling for me to come see what they had found. It was great!

This is part of the touch tank. You can put your finger in the little holes and the peppermint shrimp will tickle you while they clean your fingers. Levi thought that was really cool.

Micah was really excited because the lady watching over the touch tank (who was super friendly and great with kids) picked up the starfish and let him touch it. It curled over one of its legs and ran its little feelers all over his fingers, which made him laugh (and Mama too)!

I have to explain these (if anything, just so I'll remember): the tank to the left of Levi's hand has two seahorses (they're so big they look like toys in the pic), and the tank to his rock looks like it holds a rock, but it's actually a young giant hermit crab. They get up to a foot long. Which is nothing to leatherback sea turtles: up to 1600 lbs, and 6 feet long. That's a turtle as long as my father is tall. A. turtle.

Here's the flower my Levi picked for me...

And here's the view from the museum. Do you think the Smithsonian employees in D.C. get jealous?

more fun stuff

Levi is still building these amazing cities! And Micah is still floating along!

fun together

We spotted a sea turtle, with a tiny baby turtle riding on her back. Levi dug a hole and filled it with turtle eggs!

When he saw this picture, Micah shouted, "My FEET!"

And of course he shouted about his hands for this one. I bet he's wondering why Mama would take a picture of those...