Summer Camp & Indoor Park Play

Keats has to wear the green vest when he is in class at the NW Kids Club. Here is is this morning, acting silly & saying he's "too shy" to get up. He LOVES the attention...especially from the girls!

Evolution of a Bounce House

Uber excitement!

Anticipation!

And GO!!!

Utter joy.

You can dig for ancient dino bodies...

...and, apparently, ancient horse excavation can be done as well...???

True that!!

Just cracks me up how, if the container fits in his mouth, it goes in his mouth.

Random Tuesday Stuff

Pics that were lying around on my desktop...

Above is one Colin Daniel, age one. He is the son of my friend, Lynn, who lives in NY. Aside from having an adorable backside, Colin's other claim-to-fame was being born on Leap Day 2008. (and I did ask his mom if I could share this pic!)

Mike took phone pics of Sully enjoying a fudge bar last night.

And this is just Keats & I, waiting for his ice cream last week. I took him out as a one-on-one date.

Sully's New 'Do

I asked Melina to please, please, please watch one of the boys on Friday. They had been fighting soooo much and, with Mike being out of town, I was getting pretty grumpy. So, I took Keats to her for the day. She took him to Chuck E. Cheese with the group of kids she was watching, including her own brood. They had a blast.

I took Sullivan to Lake Oswego for a haircut and to do a little shopping. LO has a neato kid haircut place that I like to take the boys to every now & then. Sully had a funny stylist that gave him a good haircut and then asked me if he could gel Sully's hair into a "faux-hawk". It looked so cute I let him keep it in for the day.

The playground pics are from George Rogers Park in Lake Oswego. This park was about a half-mile from our home in LO, so Keats used to go there all the time. This was Sully's first experience with it.

Community sand box in the park.

This is my new 'do.

This is Orange Julius. We helped him get a foster home, then fostered him ourselves for 24 hours, and then we found him a new forever home! He was such a sweet kitty!

Safety Town

I can't believe I forgot to publish these pics from Keaton's graduation from Safety Town. He attended the class from July 9th-20th and absolutely loved it! It was held in a school gymnasium; I took some pics of how they set up the streets & crosswalks. Really cute stuff. By day two the kids would yell at the parents if we stepped on the wrong spot (like crossing outside of a crosswalk) when we were taking them to their house or picking them up to go home. Keats was in the white house, fyi. ;o)

The class sang a bunch of safety songs and then each child was called down to receive a diploma. The girl next to Keats and the one to the far right were the two volunteer teens that worked with Keaton's class. I don't remember which is which, but thanks to Katie & Hannah!

And here is his graduation gift from his mama: a fresh, hot slice of Cinnamon Chip bread from Great Harvest!

(Keats lost his front tooth literally as we were walking out the door to the Safety Town graduation.)

Food Inc.

Mike and I had a free day on Saturday while the boys were with a babysitter. We headed to Portland and chose to see Food Inc. Wow...great movie but could we have chosen something less infuriating, confusing, depressing, and informational for our first movie-date in ages? Sheesh.

I highly recommend Food Inc. for everyone. Just maybe not for a date. Not exactly romantic to see images of how livestock are (mis)treated and learn how much our government is really controlled by corporations. Grrr.

The movie is NOT an anti-meat movie at all. It is simply informational regarding how food gets from it's beginning to your plate...and the lack of safety and health concerns and human rights that occur along the way. It all comes down to HUGE corportations making HUGE profits and at the expense of everyone...in every way: health, finances, even life-expectancy and quality of life.

I will NEVER buy Tyson chicken again. Ever. I am now researching exactly who owns them, whom they own, and which products I need to avoid. Not only do they torture their chickens by feeding them stuff that makes them too fat, too quickly so they cannot support their own weight, but they are also cruel to the chicken farmers. They just suck all the way around.

We aren't big meat eaters around here anyway but now we'll be very picky with what we do eat. I'm also going to start learning how to create a much larger garden next year.

Food Inc.: See it!

Twenty Minutes Well Spent

Back To Nature

Keats, Sully, and I headed to Minto Brown Island Park to check the blackberry status. We found plenty of blackberries ready to pick, uncountable green berries that should be ready in a week or two, and plenty of fun things to explore.

I am pretty sure Keaton had to smell each one of these yellow flowers. All gazillion of them. ;o) He declared that they smelled like "fruit snacks" so we now refer to them as Fruit Snack Flowers.

A boy and his stick = a happy boy!

The Park is public but there are wheat fields and honey collectors all over the place. These pieces of farm machinery are parked in one area of the park.

I think this tractor must have recently help plow the newly-plowed wheat fields.

A bee! A bee! Sully LOVES bees! He'll go right up to one, stick his hand out, and say, "C'mere, Bee! C'mere! Hi! Hi Bee!!" No stings...yet...

Mmmmmm.....blackberries straight from the bush!

Newly plowed fields with the big stacks of hay bales.

Just cute Keaton.

One-On-One With Sully

This morning, the boys were annoying each other as much as they possibly could. I decided to get us out & on a little hike but Keats decided that didn't sound like any fun at all. Luckily, Mike was able to let Keaton stay home with him so I was able to take Sullivan by himself. This gave the boys (and their mom) a much-needed break from each other.

I swear, they are either laughing hysterically, screaming at each other, wrestling & giggling, or threatening each other with bodily harm. Mostly they love hanging out together but they sure fight!

I took Sullivan to Orchard Heights Park. He was able to play on a downed-tree, a playground, splash in a creek and throw some rocks, and pick blackberries! He was SOOOO excited to find out that some of the blackberries that grow wild along the path were ripe! I honestly couldn't pick them as fast as he could eat them. He picks them, too, but he also gets so scratched up that I try to do most of the picking. He has a nasty scratch that goes the length of his right calf after a tangle with a wayward, thorny vine today. But he was still very excited to get the beloved berries!

The berries are just now ripening, as you can see from the picture of the vine, and I would guess that in a couple of weeks we are going to be able to take our containers to the parks to get our fill of berries. Last year I made a syrup out of some berries (basically cooked them and added something to thicken it a bit) and the boys went wild with the syrup over some ice cream. They remember it well and are anxious for me to make it again. Bummer that I never write down a recipe for things I create! ;o)

Random Tuesday

I forgot to write about something that happened at the beach. I bought a t-shirt for Keats but couldn't find anything cute in Sully's size, so I bought him the shell in the picture above. He was SOOOOO excited and reached out for it yelling, "It's a conch shell!! It's a conch shell!!"

Um. Que? How does my barely-turned-three-year-old son know what is a conch shell? I have no idea if this is, indeed, a conch shell, but I was rendered speechless by Sullivan announcing that it was.

I tried catching Keats unawares while he was doing Wii Fit yoga but he turned just as I snapped the pic. He loves yoga! He loves the Wii but expecially likes Wii Fit.

Keats also loves these splash pads that are scattered around the city. Sullivan doesn't like them at all but Keats could play at them all day.