Animal books

The kids love animals and books, so it doesn't get much better than animal books!

They've been acquiring quite the collection lately and sometimes we will play "scientist", where we pretend we're scientists and we have to learn about our stuffed animals to take care of them, so we read the animal books. Anyways, as a result all the animal books were together in the play room so I snapped a pic of the kids together with their books. Paige loves the horse book and the dog book. Connor loves them all, but especially the dangerous animals book and shark books.

We were playing scientist yesterday and Baby Pinky (Paige's pink monkey) was sick and I said "Oh no, what are we going to do?". Connor grabbed one of the thickest books we have and said. "I know! Let's just turn to page 78!" He flipped to page 78 and sure enough, it was the section on monkeys. I was pretty impressed, and I guess I really shouldn't have been surprised. He knows his animals and definitely knows his numbers.

Jail

Connor is really interested in jail right now. He always wants to talk about it, read about it, watch YouTube videos about it and play games about jail. The other day we took our yearly professional family pics and we did them downtown. The area where we were shooting was very "urban" and there were metal bars over the windows in one area. Connor was gaping at them and asked what they were for. He obviously thought they were a jail and was very excited about the idea.

We bought him a few jail toys recently so he can play some jail games. Andrea was at Target with him and he picked out a Batman jail. I was on Amazon looking for some jail books and came across a neat police station set that had a jail in it. He's really enjoyed them so far and loves when the good guys catch the bad guys and lock them up.

Horsey Farm party for Asher

This afternoon we went to Asher's party at a local horse stable. Andrea and I had actually looked at it a few months ago for Paige's party. The kids absolutely had an amazing time, and it was truly a "country" experience for the families. We did our best to keep the bugs off the food, the kids away from the poop and everyone's hands clean.

Paige loved feeding the little ponies. She really wanted to ride one of the "little horsies", but they were just there for petting and feeding.

One of the big horses dropped a big pile of poop near the fence and the kids all ran over to take a look. Connor was pretty grossed out.

The best part was definitely the horse rides. The horse rides were short walks around a pen, and Connor and Paige wanted to go again and again. After all the kids had taken their turns, most of them lost interest in the horses. At the end of the party, Connor and Paige kept getting back in line again and again with Sophia, Danny and Kenlyn. They probably each rode six of seven times. It seemed like the owner of the horses was getting a little annoyed giving rides to the same kids, but we pretended not to notice.

Yeeha!

We also went on a hay ride. We all piled in to a trailer filled with itchy hay and then they drove us out in to a field with a bunch of big friendly horses. The horses stuck their heads right in with everyone and gobbled up the hay. The kids shrieked and freaked out, some of the parents did too. It was an up-close experience with the horses.

All in all, it was probably one of the most memorable parties we've been to, really good fun.

Roman's party at Slinkee's

Today we went to our friend Roman's birthday party at Slinkee's. The kids played on big bounce houses, ate pizza and cake, and then played for a while in the arcade.

Overall the kids had an awesome time playing with all their friends, however when we left Connor ended up in a bad mood. All the kids had been given tokens to play in the arcade and Connor spent every last one in the claw machine, trying to win a stuffed animal. He was heartbroken when he spent his last token and we had a talk about how the claw machines are a rip-off and almost impossible to win. It was hard for Connor to watch Paige play other things with her tokens. A little while later, Roman's mommy came by and gave everyone some extra tokens and sure enough Connor went back to the claw machine and used them all up again. At the end of the day we had just a couple extra tokens left over and I gave them to Connor and unsurprisingly he went right back to the claw machine. He never won anything and when we left he was pretty upset, but maybe he learned something.

Connor's Creeks Academy Soccer - First Game

It's soccer season again and Connor started with a new club with Creeks - Academy soccer. Connor's been going to practices for a few weeks and today was the first game(s). We have grown accustomed to the way that the recreational league worked with formal teams and matchups. Game day, so far, with Academy are more like scrimmages with the children on random teams and they switch matchups multiple times throughout the hour. It was pretty fast paced with the coaches tossing in new balls when the balls went out of bounds. According to the head coach, the goal at this point is to keep the action moving and the kids playing and touching the ball.

Connor got a lot of playing time and scored four or five times throughout the day. They did 3 on 3 and he did have to sit out occasionally since there were five boys on his team. He enjoyed cheering for his buddies from the sideline too.

It was a hot day and we were happy to go back home and swim afterwards. Paige and Connor spontaneously held hands on the way back to the car and I snapped a quick pic. Paige looks thrilled in the pic and Connor looks tired and hot.

Eventually, it sounds like they'll put the kids with others that are more in their skill level and perhaps on formal teams. It was fun to see our little man play today, he seems to be enjoying the season so far.

Labor day Orlando visit

This weekend we went to Orlando for a short visit over the holiday weekend. We went to a Marriott that had a neat water park and a bunch of fun amenities. On Saturday we played in the water most of the day and did a little mini-golf. On Sunday we played some more mini-golf and at the park before we left.

Connor is pretty stinking good at mini-golf and we figured out on one of the holes there was a trick to getting a hole in one fairly consistently.

Paige was a bit wild with her club and was a little out of control unless we helped her. Mommy was a good golf coach for Sissy.

It was a fun weekend trip and we will definitely go back. Next time, we'll probably stay a couple nights too to make it worth the drive.

Kenlyn's Campout Party

On Saturday we went to our neighbor's birthday party. Kenlyn turned 7 years old and her parents put together a campout themed party at the clubhouse. All the kids got t-shirts and there were a lot of camp themed decorations and food.

The most exciting part was the campfire story time with live animals. Connor had just been begging me to go to a "petting zoo" and this was a perfect opportunity for the kids to see and touch some neat animals. There were snakes, turtles, lizards, a bunny and a ferret.