More Time in the Kiddie Pool

Funny how everything is relative. It got up to 98 degrees today, but it felt relatively cool. We made it out to the back yard and into the kiddie pool. It was actually very pleasant. A nice breeze has set it. We even had to come in a few minutes early for Kellen's bath because he started to shiver! It was 94 degrees at the time.

Both of the kids had good days at daycare. Kristin told me that she ate a 'moose' today. Turns out it was chocolate mousse. Kellen's class had a scavenger hunt during the outside playtime this morning. They are having a clothing-themed week, so they searched for clothing.


Kristin is very excited to go see the Portland Beavers tomorrow. They're our local Triple A baseball team. She has been asking us to go since last summer, so we're overdue. I think Kellen will have a good time too.

The picture is Kristin playing soccer on June 6th. She has a new season starting sometime in the middle of August I think. To think that people were wearing sweatshirts and coats!

Painting

Kristin got to go to Ceramic Cafe today and painted a tile. She said she couldn't find Scooby Doo colors, but painted a Scooby snack on the tile. We get the tile on Tuesday after it is fired in the kiln. The class got a tour of the place, including the kiln room. Sounds like they had fun.

Kellen also did some painting today. More of the paint brush and fingers painting on an easel. He managed to stay pretty clean compared to the paper he painted. He was not happy when it was time to be done even though his paper was covered in paint. :)

Tonight we headed out to Target to get out of the warm house. Kristin found her school lunch bag and a new backpack. Now we wait to find out what teacher she has and what the supply list is. Another hot day, but we have managed. Now to head outside to water and it is 99 degrees out in the shade. Sounds just great!!!

Too Hot to Think of a Good Title

I'm not sure how hot it got today. As I type this, the thermostat in the front yard is reading 108 degrees. The thermostat in the backyard says 99 degrees. Neither one is in the sun at this point, but the one in the front yard had the sun beating on it later afternoon and evening. Sounds like the sun is taking its toll on Danelles garden too.


We tried to beat the heat this evening by running an errand to the book store. Kristin's birthday party is coming up and we are going to do a book exchange instead of traditional gifts. Every child who brings a book will be able to take a different book home. So we went to the bookstore to get a few extra book just in case. The book store conveniently had a toy section near the kids books, so I chased Kellen around while Danelle and Kristin picked the books. Kellen would take the toys off the shelf and wanted to open then right there and start playing. He had a hard time with the 'those aren't our toys' concept.

Please Send Cooler Weather

Today got hot and humid. Yes, humid... not common here with the heat. Oh well. It was 90 degrees by noon and got up to 102 today. Whew! The house is pretty warm, but at least the bedrooms are cool. We are glad daycare and work are air conditioned. Tonight we went outside for about 20 mintues to play in the pool. I had my feet in the pool and Kellen got my legs pretty wet... which was fine since it was 95 degrees in the shade.

Kellen is learning about getting dressed this week. The teacher wrote that he will learn to put something on by the end of the week. He already has his hat and shoes figured out so we will see if they get him to learn a new item. :)

Kristin has art camp this week. She drew a great picture of herself playing soccer. She was very proud of it and wanted to hang it in her room, so we did.

Beating the Heat

It got warm today. We managed to stay cool and have a good time though. We had a pretty normal Sunday morning. I got up with the kids and we watched a little TV and then got breakfast ready. I got away with watching CBS's Sunday Morning for a little while because the stories were animal-themed today. Kellen liked seeing the elephants and dolphins on TV. Usually we're either watching Thomas the Tank Engine for Kellen or Scooby Doo for Kristin.

After church we came home for lunch and got Kellen down for his nap. Danelle and Kristin ran a couple errands while I took care of the bills. Later in the afternoon, we all headed over to a friend's house where all the kids know each other from daycare. There was five families there. They have a beautiful backyard with a covered patio and lot's of shade. And a big inflatable pool for the kids. Kristin and Kellen were both very well behaved and Danelle and I got to enjoy some conversation with other adults.

Power Outage

Okay... we made it through the winter for the first time in years without loosing power, but today we were not so lucky. This morning before swim lessons we lost power. Just in time for the heat wave we are in. Hopefully this will be our only outage! The power was back on when we got home from swim lessons. At swim lessons, Kristin found out her long time friend Kylie is in her class. Kylie was out on vacation, so missed the first 2 weeks. The girls were excited to be in class together.

Aaron got the last of the 3 window AC units in today. In the afternoon we took the kids over to Parker's house. They watched the kids for us so we could have a date night. We went out to dinner and crazily went to hit a bucket of balls at the driving range. I say crazy since we both have not been golfing in at least 2 years (I can't believe that) and it was hot!!! We had fun though and it was amazing how well we did for not touching our clubs in so long. Thank you Kellen for giving mommy muscles!!! Kellen is a lug, but it seemed to help me get some distance today!!! :)

Night-Night

Kellen likes to play a pretend game he calls 'night-night' where he puts blankets on you and pats your back. Then he yells 'WAKE UP!' and says 'My turn, my turn' and then his playing parter has to put blankets on him. Tonight he played the game with Kristin. A few nights ago, he and I were playing the game and he must have rounded up 7 layers of blankets. Boy was I warm. Since then, we've tried to limit the number of blankets involved.

Kristin had me design a maze for her to complete on her little doodle pad. I always enjoyed doing mazes when I was a kid, but never really thought about how to design one. I found it pretty challenging. Especially after Kristin said 'Dad, that one was really easy, can you do another one and make it harder?'

Danelle and I hope to have an evening out tomorrow night to celebrate our anniversary. Danelle didn't feel the greatest today though so fingers crossed that she doesn't wake up sick! We were hoping that the bug had missed her.

Preparing for the Heat

Kristin caught her second fish today at Horning's Hideout. She got to go there with her daycare class. Everyone, except for one, caught a fish. :) Kristin's was the biggest evidently. Sounds like they had fun fishing and playing on the play structure on the other side of the pond than we usually sit on.

Tonight Aaron got 2 of the 3 air conditioners in (kids rooms). We are going to get hot this weekend into next week. There is even talk of the 100s. Yuk! At least we will be able to sleep. While Aaron was putting in the AC units I took the kids up to the school for a little bit as tonight was pleasant out. It was nice to be outside again. Hopefully we can get at least one more night outside before it gets too hot again.

Here is Kellen being silly a couple of nights ago.

Peg Flute

It was on the hot side again this evening so we stayed inside to play after dinner. We played with both the wood and plastic train sets. Kellen knows the names of all of the trains.

The train sets held Kellen's attention for longer than I thought they would, but he eventually moved on to pegs. Kristin assembled a tower with the colors in the same order as a rainbow, and also put together an imaginary Scooby Doo, Shaggy, and the rest of the gang. Meanwhile, Kellen made the 'flute' you see in the picture. Though it sounded more like a horn when he was pretending.

Kristin had fun exlporing a little basket where we keep about 5 years worth of Happy Meals Toys. She found an old Wiggles hand held radio that we keep in there too and was busy playing the songs and dancing along.

The Letter Y

Another hot week for us to look forward to. Joy! The kids both had good days. Kellen is learning about dinosaurs and Kristin is learning about different places around the world this week. Kristin came home with "fake sushi" today. Very neat idea with twizzlers, rice krispy treats and fruit roll ups.

After dinner we took a family trip to Home Depot. Something to do to get out of the house when it is just too hot to be outside. We needed to get some weather striping to put up the air conditioners. We think it will be inevitable this week. :(

Kellen has taken to playing with these foam letters we have for bathtime. He likes to find the letter Y and has picked it out the last 4 nights. He has that letter down. I wonder 'why' he likes the letter Y? He hasn't been able to tell me other letter names correctly and generally will ask me what it is. He is interested in those letters though.

Popcoooooorn!

For whatever reason, Kellen didn't want to fall asleep at his normal naptime today. His late naptime interfered with a scheduled trip to the library, so Danelle took Kristin and left the boys at home while Kellen was still sleeping.

The girls ran into one of Kellen's daycare teachers at the library, who was there with her daughter picking out a movie. Kristin told me all the details at dinner time. Her story was something to the effect of 'They picked our the movie Cars. They're going to watch it tonight. I'll bet they make some popcorn. Why haven't we made any popcorn lately? Kellen must have been listening, since he then chimed in with a squeal, following by 'Popcooooorn!'

After dinner, the kids played with the train set and then Kellen put blankets on Danelle and his stuffies while Kristin looked through her libray books. At bathtime, Kristin was telling me all about our last trip to the beach, which was in the spring of 2008. I wondered what triggered the memory until she told me 'remember, we got to watch the movie Cars after we went swimming'.

Kellen Meet Kellen

Today was the first day of swim lessons for us... we missed last week due to kids being sick. Kristin had her lesson first. She was excited and a little nervous to find out she is now in the big pool! Her class only had 4 kids, including Kristin, and 2 teachers. She did well and had fun, except she got some water up her nose towards the end. While she was swimming, Aaron, Kellen and I were in the viewing area. There was another little boy playing by Kellen at a play table. The kids parents said Kellen to their son and of course our Kellen looked and so did we. It was fun to meet another Kellen, about the same age too. The other boy's sister (not named Kristin) is in Kristin's swim class of 4. Small world! Anyway, Kellen and I got in the pool after Kristin. Kellen had a lot of fun and kept asking to go back in the pool after class was over.

We had Kristin's friend Courtney over this afternoon for a playdate. They seemed to have fun. The rest of the day was pretty normal. Aaron is sick unfortunately and ended up at the doctor's office today. Sinus infection. Hopefully he will feel better soon.

Friday!

Another warm evening. Kellen's teacher reported a slight fever at pick-up time. Danelle got some tylenol in him right away and that seemed to help. The fever didn't seem to impact his mood as he was in pretty good spirits all evening. He had me playing pegs with him and also pretending to go 'night night'. I'd lay on the floor and he covered me with blankets.

Kristin got to go on another field trip today. Wow, three in one week! Today her class went to the park across from the library near where they have the farmers' market. I asked Kristin if she ran through the fountain and she said, 'no, we weren't allowed. It was Miss Heather's decision'. I guess I can understand not wanted a bus full of wet kids on the way back to daycare, but it sure was warm enough to be in the water today.

Been a busy week with three days in a row of working late. Danelle has been a trouper getting the kids through the dinner hour without me each night. I think we're both looking forward to sacking out.

Getting Warmer

No we were not playing the "hot and cold" game. But, it is getting hotter each day this week. Today got up to 95! Yuck! This keeps the kids from getting their afternoon outside time at daycare. So, they come home with lots of energy. After dinner and some work on Kristin's birthday party invitations, we headed outside for some playtime in the sprinkler and with the water table. Kellen wasn't too sure about the sprinkler tonight. He did have fun trying to get Aaron and I both wet with a bucket. Kristin can now work on a bucket brigade. She has been trying to learn how to throw the water out of the bucket without throwing the bucket too! She got it tonight.

Kristin did have a field trip to the library today. I forgot about this until we go to daycare this morning, which means I forgot her new library card. I eneded up giving her mine so she could check out 2 books. I will have to remember that one in a couple weeks. Kellen got to eat strawberries, blueberries and raspberries today as they were talking about how these berries were different. Sounds like the kids enjoyed the eatting part!

Rock On!

Kristin continued her 'Camp Rock' theme for the week today at daycare. She brought in her Yamaha keyboard and shared it with her class. Sounds like that was a huge hit. She also got to go on a field trip to someplace called the Guitar Center, where she got to play a guitar and also a set of drums.

Kellen was his normal happy self this evening, except right after dinner. He didn't get dessert since he didn't finish all of his meal (peas of all things, and they weren't even bitter). We spent some time in the back yard with the water table and squirt guns. It got up to 91 degrees today, but by the time we got out to the back yard it was quite comfortable in the shade. The kids tagged up on me with their squirt guns.

The picture is from our trip to Horning's Hideout last week. We were airing out the truck prior to going back home and Kristin climbed in. We must have wore her out.

Just Another Day

Today the kids seemed to be pretty close to back to a normal schedule. Kellen is learning about berries this week and painted a blueberry today. Kristin is in Camp Rock this week at daycare... rock n' roll. She is taking the keyboard tomorrow for share and an activity it sounds like (maybe they are forming a band!). This is the keyboard I got for Christmas I think in 6th grade.

Tonight we took a walk up to the school playground after dinner. Kellen had fun attempting to be like sister in climbing up the slide. He needed a little help and spotting by dad and mom. Then we headed home to water in the back yard before baths. The kids had more fun having me spray into the air giving them rain basically to run under.

Back to Work

Back to work today for Danelle and I. The kids were back at daycare. Kellen took an extra long nap at daycare, and Kristin even requested to take a nap too, though it sounds like it ended up being too noisy for her to sleep.

Danelle took Kellen to get some new shoes after dinner. He had outgrown his old ones. He walked in the door sporting his new kicks and was very proud of them. 'New Shoes! New Shoes!' Danelle said he picked them out himself. While they were at the store, Kristin and I worked on a guest list for her birthday party. Well, Kristin worked on it and I helped her a bit with some spelling. We also took a short walk around the block before bath time.

Thanks again Oma and Poppa for the wonderful visit! We all had a really good time.

Last Day with Oma & Poppa

Today was Oma and Poppa's last day for their trip. We had a pretty low-key day, but the kids were wound up. We ended going to a new park that opened a couple weeks ago up on Cooper Mountain. We had great views. It is a nature park with trials. We walked the short trail (0.8 miles). We thought Kellen would walk it, but he wanted to be carried. So, Aaron and Poppa carried him. Must be because he only had about a 1 hour nap. The kids also had fun playing store, tea party, and other games with Poppa and Oma. It ended up raining tonight so we stayed inside after dinner. The kids had a lot of fun in the past week.

Thank you Poppa and Oma for coming out and spending the past week with us!!! We all had a great time and lots of good memories.

Monkey Doo

Today we went downtown to the Portland Saturday Market. Lots of craft vendors and some food vendors too. It's moved a bit from years past. It's now a little closer to the river, but you can still take the streetcar ('light rail' for the purists) train right to it. We decided to take light rail so we parked on the east side of the river and took the train back to the market. Lot's of different things to see in that setting. There was a group of people advertising for an upcoming pirate festival, and they were in full costume. Kristin asked me if they were real pirates.

After checking out the market, we headed to a restaurant in NE Portland for a late lunch. It was one that Danelle and I used to go to back when we lived on that side of town. The kids were well behaved, aided by a play area they could use while they waited for their meals.

At dinner tonight, Kristin was trying to figure out the concept of "monkey see, monkey do". Poppa decided to copy Oma's idea for dessert, and Kristin decided that meant Oma was "monkey see", and Poppa was "monkey do". So we all had fun calling Poppa "Monkey Doo" for a little while.

After dessert, we went outside and set up the water table for the kids. They of course got each other all wet and then Kellen started trying to get the adults wet with his little bucket.

Boat

To catch up a little, Kristin, Poppa and Aaron went ice skating yesterday. Oma went along and watched. Sounds like they had fun. I stayed home with Kellen while he napped.

Today we headed out to Hornings Hideout for some salamander catching, playing, and yes some boating. They have paddle boats with super soakers for fun. Kellen actually ended up on a boat with Aaron and later I joined them. There was a boat with 2 kids on it that decided to come after us and get us all wet witht he super soakers, but we did manage to also get them wet too.

Tonight we tried to stay low key and stayed inside and played. The kids were both tired and cranky from the fun morning and afternoon. Hopefully they both sleep well.

Our First Grader

Kristin will acknowledge that she is no longer in kindergarten, but she says that she's not in first grade yet. This morning we went to her elementary school and Kristin gave us a quick tour of the first grade classrooms. There are five of them! Wow, that's a lot of kids. She doesn't know which class will be hers yet, so we poked our heads in all of them for a quick peek. Then we headed out to the playground so Kristin could show Oma and Poppa the famous monkey bars. Kellen had a good time on the playground equipment too. He wanted to do everything his big sister was doing.

In the afternoon, we went to the Beaverton Market. There weren't near as many stands as there are on Saturdays, but we still had a good time. Kellen enjoyed sitting on a bench and watching the fountain in the park.

After dinner Kellen had a giggling good time pretending his stuffed elephant was tickling Oma and Poppa while Kristin played with some ribbons that Oma brought her. She was making them into bows to put in her dollys hair.

Pleasant Day

Today was a pleasant day. It is not often you can say it only got to 70 degrees on a July day. :) Tomorrow more of the same nice weather.

The kids however are both struggling with colds. Kristin appears to be a day behind on Kellen and was coughing a lot today. We took them in to the doctor this afternoon to make sure it was nothing more than a common cold. Seems to be just a cold or an allergy cold. Kellen did much less coughing today, so we hope they are both on the mend.

Aaron and Poppa put in a new water heater today. Hooray! They did a great job and it sounds like the project went smoothly.

Kristin finished a craft project with Poppa... a bird feeder. She was quick to show it to me hanging outside when I got home. It turned out well. Now we wait to see if the birds can find it.

Goin to the Zoo, Zoo Zoo

Today was a trip to the zoo with Oma and Poppa and the kids. Danelle missed out as she had to work. We got to see one of the elephants getting a bath. The elephant just laid down while the zookeepers washed her down with a hose. The baby elephant, Samudra, or Sammy, is now an 1100 lb todler. Both of the kids enjoyed watching the baby elephant run around the exhibit.

Another highlight of our trip was a ride on the zoo train. Kellen really liked waving to people at the crossings and also got excited whenever the train blew its horn. Kristin enjoyed an interactive exhibit about chimpanzees. In the photo she is doing a rope swing.

We ate lunch at the zoon and then came home in time for Kellen to sneak in a late nap. Kristin made out during this time, doing separate arts and crafts projects with both Oma and Poppa.

No pool tonight, as the high was in the low 70s today. More of the same for the rest of the week.

Kellen came down with a cough today, I'll probably take him in to see the pediatrician tomorrow. We'll see how he sleeps tonight.

Science Museum

Today we all headed to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) with Oma and Poppa. The kids really like it there as it is very hands on and they can learn a lot about the different sciences in fun ways. The first section we went to was about energy, physics, chemistry, etc. The second area was about earth science and the human body. We also stopped in the science playroom for a little while.

The temperature didn't get as high as predicted today. :) Only 82 degrees and very pleasant. It cooled off fast tonight too. The rest of the week looks to be cool and pretty nice. We are happy for the cooler weather for Oma and Poppa to enjoy with us.

Oma & Poppa Come to Visit!

Oma and Poppa arrived late last night after the kids had gone to bed. Other than it being a long day of travel, it sounds like everything went well for them. Danelle and I both had Friday as a holiday, so we hung out as a family and tried to beat the heat. Kellen fell while running in the kitchen and did a header into his white chair at the art table. He bit his bottom lip pretty good on the inside, and also dinged up his gums over his top front teeth. He was bleeding a little bit, so we called the advise nurse to see if we needed to take him to the ER, but she said no, they don't do stiches on the inside of the mouth and that we should just use a cold compress and give hime some tylenol. The bleeding stopped after a few minutes and Kellen has done remarkably well since then. He's got just a minor fat lip, and was back to his normal happy self by today.

Oma and Poppa joined us for a walk this morning before the heat set in, and then we hung out inside the house for most of the afternoon. We did some shopping at the mall in the late afternoon and then went to a restaurant for dinner. After dinner, it was outside to the backyard and the kiddie pool. It was still quite warm, but with the low humidity and being in the shade, it wasn't too bad. The kids enjoyed playing with the new pool toys that Oma and Poppa brought with. Kellen liked squirting Oma and Poppa with the squirt gun.

Release and Heat

Well, heat around the 4th of July tends to be a trend here. It is HOT! It got to 96 degrees today. That means the kids didn't get to play outside this afternoon at daycare, which helps them get out some energy. We also didn't go outside for long tonight as it was still 93 in the shade. We did venture out in the back yard where it is shaded in the evening. We released our moth. What a fun thing to watch. Kellen was facsinated with the moth this morning when Aaron showed it to him... he calls it a butterfly as he does not know the difference. He wanted me to draw butterflies today while we waited at the dermatologist. The kids also ran through the sprinkler for a few mintues and we soaking wet by the end of it. Kellen got brave quick and is now running through the middle of the sprinkler stream.

Metamorphisis

Can't remember if we wrote about it here, but the kids found a green caterpillar about a month ago or so. Kristin put it in her 'Junior Bug Catcher', which is a small plastic see-through container with air holes. Danelle added plenty of lettuce for it to much on, as well as a twig. Then we put it on a shelf in the garage and forgot about it... until tonight. Danelle discovered that we have a new.... moth. Not a butterfly, but Kristin was still WAY excited. Kellen was already in bed, we'll have to show him tomorrow.

Danelle took the kids to get their hair cut after work today. The kids are looking pretty sharp now. After dinnier we managed to get outside and enjoy the weather. It got on the warm side today, but it was very pleasant in our backyard between the shade and a nice breeze.

More pictures from Sunday's trip to Hood River. We'll try to get 'butterfly' pictures up soon.