Em dance camp

Emily went to dance camp this past week for a some fun with tap, ballet, jazz and other things. She had a blast dancing her heart out for the week. On Friday, they put on a little performance of the things they had learned. We saw her rhythm stick dance, their modeling show and another creative sort of dance that I don't know how to categorize. 

Lined up ready to perform

Aaron: what in the world?!

Emily modeling pajamas

Whipped cream

When I was young, my sisters and brother and I loved whipped cream from the can. We'd all stand in a line in the kitchen and my dad would give us each a mouthful of whipped cream from the can. Kyle and Emily have had it before, though I rarely buy the whipped cream in a can, instead opting to make  it myself from just cream and sugar and no added stuff. Well this week in Trader Joe's, the whipped cream caught Kyle's eye and in a moment of weakness, he convinced me to buy it. And so it is. The kids have been loving whipped cream from a can. Aaron got his first shot of it too. As my sister Kimmy said, welcome to the kid club! 

Kyle whipped cream

Aaron's first try of whipped cream. Love his reaction!

Baby giggles

Who doesn't love baby giggles?

Aaron vacuums

Aaron loves the orange vacuum. He has now figured out how to turn it off and on. Vacuum away my son! 

Kyle & Emily birthday party

Kyle and Emily celebrated their 7th birthday with their friends at a trampoline park. They had a great time bouncing, playing dodgeball and eating cake with their friends. I took a bunch of pictures, but most are just blurs of the kids bouncing. Needless to say, they all had fun bouncing to their hearts content. 

Kyle dodging a ball

Kyle in action!

Emily on the rope swing

Cake time!

Aaron loved hanging out with Claudia. He was especially happy that she was feeding him cake!

Aaron going into the foam pit to Claudia

Emily with Devyn and Haiden

Kyle and Olivia

Nonstop Kyle

Sometimes you just can't take off your rollerblades, elbowpads, kneepads, and helmet to eat lunch. 

Science museum

Today we ventured back to the science museum because it had rained last night so the ground was too wet for outside activities, the kids didn't get enough of the place last week when we went, and we needed to get out. So it worked. And we had Simon with us so it was even more fun for the kids to run around and explore together. 

Destructo human takes on destructo nature

Aaron discovered his shadow a few weeks ago and it was cool to see him see his rainbow colored shadow here. 

A bicycle built for 3

Goldilocks giant chair for 3

Kyleisms

Kyle sure kept us entertained tonight with the things he said. It never ceases to amaze me the things that kids come up with. Here are a few things from Kyle tonight:

Jeff and Kyle were putting some tabasco on their meatloaf. Kyle, reading the label, asks, "why do restaurants sometimes say 'no tabasco beyond this point?'" He just couldn't understand why there was a limit to where you could have tabasco! It was quite hilarious. It was a bummer to explain to him that it didn't say tabasco at restaurants, but tobacco. Now Kyle can read and he can read very well, but he is a speed reader and a whole reader so it's just so automatic that he sees what he thinks he sees in the first half a second. 

We were discussing how I didn't use the 99% fat free ground turkey in the meatloaf because that would be too dry and that we need some fat in our diet and it's okay to have some fat in your diet, if not important. Kyle says, "Yes, it is important. You need it for your hips." Oh the innocence! 

Brotherly love

This is how boys play. Kyle sure loves his baby brother. And Aaron sure loves his big brother. Kyle will do whatever it takes to get Aaron to laugh. He sure will be a great dad someday. He is so patient with Aaron and so loving. 

And some big hugs.

Olympic Training Center

Today I took the kids out to the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista. There are only 3 in the US - Lake Placid and Colorado Springs being the other two. It's pretty cool that there is one right in our backyard! In the words of Kyle, it was super, crazy hot out. While there wasn't too much for the kids to actually interact with, they were excited to see the BMX bikers out practicing on their course. They have the Beijing and London courses replicated there for practice courses. We also saw the women's rugby team out practicing and a men's team (either soccer or rugby) on their way for a workout. 

New bikes

Happy (early) 7th Birthday Kyle and Emily! They got their new bikes today for their birthday. They had outgrown their other bikes and it was time for new ones. They got ones with hand brakes only and gears! Pretty exciting! It was a bit frustrating for the first few hours adjusting to just hand brakes and trying to shift, but they have done great and love their new bikes!

Fourth of July

Our 4th of July was pretty fun. While we don't have the crazy, busy 4ths that many others do, ours was busy for us. We started the day trying to get to the beach in the morning with the rest of Point Loma. But by the time we were ready to bike over to the beach, Aaron was breaking down for a nap. We thought we could push it since he woke up late, but figured it was in our best interested to let the boy sleep and go to the beach after nap. So he napped, very short, but he napped, and then we biked over to the beach. It was very crowded, but it felt so much less crowded since we didn't have to deal with car parking. It's amazing what a difference that makes. We set up our 'camp' and got to our beach afternoon. We saw plenty of people we knew there and had some fun in the water and the sand. Aaron showed he was a true California boy, with the surfer blonde hair and all, loving the water and even riding on someone's boogie board in the water. Emily made some friends with a handful of girls her age and spent time out in the water on a giant raft with them. Kyle stuck close and played a lot of catch with us and saw some of his friends from school too. It was the perfect time at the beach. 

I loved showing up on a bike, carefree and spending the time that we wanted without the worries of parking and such. Thank goodness Aaron has a bike seat and we could use the bike trailer to haul the beach stuff. Oh and Aaron was soo very tired on the way home that he completely passed out in his seat. I had to hold his head up to prevent it from flopping about. See picture below. 

After dinner, we took in the fireworks from the neighborhood with about 5,000 other people who found it a great place to watch as well. Kyle and Emily watched with Simon and Aaron walked around watching the fireworks with the wide eyes of a toddler, loving it. 

Sunset Cliffs

So we just discovered that Sunset Cliffs is crazy close to us and is awesome! I've read about it countless times about how great it is and whatnot, but we've continued to go to Cabrillo or Torrey Pines for our hiking adventures. Well, Sunset Cliffs is pretty spectacular and is literally in our backyard! So the kids and I ventured out there in the morning to check it out and see what it was all about. We were not disappointed. Despite Aaron eating the ground mutiple times, he still enjoyed being able to (somewhat) roam around and climb and hike. Emily and Kyle loved being gem miners in the dust and watching the surfers below. I can't wait to take them back there and bring Jeff too. 

Pierced ears!!

Emily's been asking since she was 2 or 3 years old to get her ears pierced. Well like the normal people that we are (not), we were at the mall this weekend and on a whim decided to ask Em if she wanted to get her ears pierced. She actually said she wanted to think about it. We told her that we were here and could do it now. So she thought for 2 seconds and said yes. And we let her do it! That was what it took - just being there, ready to do it on the spot, in the now. Not the planning and finding the right place and a pediatrician to do it. Just being at the mall and going to Claire's like most of the general public getting their ears pierced. Yes, she did cry because it hurt. It does hurt. It feels like your ears are on FIRE. But she did great. She got over it once she saw her earrings about 10 seconds later. And she chose great earrings - rubies for her birthstone. She sure is a girly girl. She loves her new earrings and looks so beautiful with them. She told me she was excited to share earrings with me, but she understood if I didn't want to share my sapphire earrings (my birthstone) since she doesn't want to share her ruby earrings. 

Nice picture

At storytime, a photographer was there taking pictures of the kids (I assume this was to build her portfolio for her business). Anyhow, here is our picture. It doesn't seem to come through as well in this smaller picture, but how Emily and Aaron's eyes pop is stunning in the full resolution picture. 

Children's museum

Today we headed down to the Children's Museum for some fun. We could get in free with our Science Museum membership so we thought we should capitalize on that. By the way, that science pass pays for it's weight in gold, year after year with the science museum and the MANY reciprocal memberships it offers. Anyhow, we brought our neighbor's son, who the kids have spent MANY MANY hours playing together with this summer and everyone had a blast. 

First, Aaron wanted to be our chauffeur. The kids climbed into the car and Aaron bolted for the driver's seat! 

The kids loved the climbing wall to get their inner monkey on. 

We hit the park across the street afterwards for some more climbing. One thing I know about kids is that they have a TON of energy. And they need to burn it off. So they did. Oh and Aaron met a cute little yorkie and loved petting him. But he knows very well to let a dog smell his hand first. 

Kyle, Emily, Simon and Aaron climbing. 

Happy hour

Kyle and Emily had karate so Jeff and I took advantage of a lighter load and celebrated happy hour together (with Aaron) with some bocce ball at the brewery down the street in biking distance. Aaron sure loves to cheers! 

Aaron's crib in the morning

Now that Aaron is in the same room as Kyle, this is oftentimes what Aaron's crib looks like in the morning if we don't get to him first. Kyle and Emily do their best to entertain them to buy us just a few more minutes of sleep. They are so good to us! 

Fairy fest

For our second year in a row, we headed up to Encinitas for the botanical garden's fairy festival. Emily still loves her fairies, though it's not as pervasive as it was last year, she and Kyle both had a blast doing the different fairy projects they offered. This year they made fairy potpourri, painted fairy treasure chests and gathered materials for a fairy house. And on our way out, Emily got to hold a bird. I want to call it a parrot or a macaw, but I can't remember what it actually is. Nonetheless, they had a great time. Aaron had fun too though his fun was more of the toddler wandering around and picking up bark kind of fun. At least this year he was awake for it. Last year he was passed out, sweating in the bjorn on me.