Summertime

We've hit official summertime, with the actual date of summer, and with our school year activities ending. Vivi finished her dance class and can't wait to go back in the fall, and Journey can't wait until fall either because she'll be old enough to take dance too. Jeb had his last day of soccer and a pizza party where they handed out medals, and the spring semester at the homeschool enrichment hub ended. He really enjoyed all 3 of his classes, especially his tap class. Know that he knows you can take classes for all kinds of things, he wants to take tap, soccer, gymnastics, and swimming. I haven't been able to find a swimming class this summer, everyone is doing week long camps, which I don't really want to do. He says he wants to play soccer again in the fall, and he'll be old enough that it won't just be learning soccer, he'll have a weeknight practice and a Saturday game. Hopefully the fall semester at school will have a tap or gymnastics class he can take, and I think he'll have to wait on the others, I don't want to overschedule all the activities :)

Jeb also went to vacation bible school (VBS) at a local church. Our church is doing one later this summer but I always loved VBS and it's something to do, so when I saw that a friend's church was doing a Babylon themed program, I thought it sounded really cool. He had a blast, he loved the singing and dancing, the crafts, and the snack, and even memorized a couple of bible verses. Our church is doing one in July, and then another friend's church is doing one in August that one of his buddies will be attending, so he'll do that one too.

Vivi got sick and missed her last day of dance, so I don't have a picture of that, but here are Jeb's last day activities:

It's kind of funny, just over a year ago we had one toddler, and all we did was play dates and library story times, and now we have 3 kids who are all old enough to take classes and explore their interests. What a big change!



We also celebrated Journey's 1 year anniversary of being in our family, and of being an American citizen! Here a picture of the week she came home, still very much a baby at 15 months.

And a year later, such a big difference!

Even though our spring activities have ended, we are keeping just as busy with play dates, the library summer reading program has a craft or a show every Tuesday, and story time every Thursday, multiple trips to the zoo already, and lots of time playing outside. The kids (mostly Jeb) discovered that you can get a book about ANYTHING at the library, and this week we ended up with about 15 books, almost all non-fiction, about ambulances, aircraft, different kinds of animals, and a book about different jobs of people who work at a zoo, which Jeb loves because he wants to work at the zoo when he grows up. He can't decide if he wants to be the person who feeds the animals or the animal doctor who gives them medicine when they are sick. He also said he is going to bring a baby crocodile and a baby tiger home with him and take care of them :)

I just realized I didn't get any pictures of Vivi in this post, so I'll share a silly one. My mom dropped a plate of cupcakes off after the kids were in bed, and I put them on the table. Eric and I were in the back room talking when we heard a noise, and discovered this:

My little opportunist! She must have come out to find me but saw the cupcakes on her way. The one in her hand is the 3rd one, she left a pile of wrappers, crumbs, and frosting as evidence. And now we have to be careful, the last few nights she has been sneaking out of her room after bedtime to look for more goodies!