Week Three of Our Summer!

We're actually in middle of week five, but we're too busy making the memories to keep up with recording them. So Week Three it is for now.


On Monday we painted with the paints we made the day before.
Adel had a great time with her OT.

And then we went to the library.
We signed up for the summer reading program. It's like a board game, where you can color in a square after you accomplish what the square says. Things like checking out books, reading for 30 minutes, or going to a library program. The kids who participate in the game got free backpacks from the library.
At the toddler RIF, they gave out puzzles, blocks and games to play. As always, Zusha and Gedalya built houses with foam blocks and asked me to take photos. I managed to snap this one before Adel's cutie little friend Ruchela came to restore order.

(This photo was taken a couple of months ago.

But the scene is pretty consistent. )

It was a fun day.

On Tuesday we went on our first trip!
First we checked the map. I may have to write a separate post about the boys' map obsession.

Here comes the train!

And here we are at the "carousel park."

This park, which we discovered on one of our specialist visits with Adel last August, has a long and lovely history with the boys.

 It was right after a very heavy rainfall (the sidewalk in front of our house was totally submerged by a heavy stream of rainwater), so the park was empty. Eventually three or four families started trickling in, but for the most part, the whole park was all ours!

And on the way home, we had a nice surprise. We were standing on the station. Instead of going out, we stayed on a bit to see the trains go into the tunnel that was just a short way ahead. Then suddenly, this  awesomeness on wheels graced the boys with its presence. How cool is that?

On Wednesday there was a Curious George workshop at the library. I had no idea what it was, but it sounded fun so I brought the kids. Turns out it was some sort of lesson for older kids about literary techniques and how the illustrator uses the art to convey certain feelings, so after a few minutes we just left.


On Thursday, we decided to go on another trip. This time to the bay.

But there's too much to write about it, so look out for a separate bay post!

Friday was plain old Friday. Although we did do something fun:

Cupcakes! Yum!

None of the designs came out after the cupcakes were baked, but we had a lot of fun making them. And they delicious!

Sunday was so busy that it needs its own post. After I edit the photos.
But the next post... I promise I will finish up with our butterflies! The release and all.

Days with Poozils

Sharing secrets...

Adi just loves it when the boys whisper secrets to her!

And she loves marching around with her brothers.

Actually, the brothers love it, too!

If only I'd remember to put her shoes on more often! It's just that when it's soooo hot, I don't feel comfortable putting shoes on a  non-walking baby. But on the occasion she does decide to walk, like here, I should remember to take them along.

So that's how the Poozils spend their days.

Laughing, running, playing, marching, crawling, sharing secrets, hugs and giggles!

Shake it Up

I guess you can tell I gave a blog a little makeover. Nothing special, just thought it was time for a change. Blogger has SO many new options now. The choices used to be very limited, so I had to do HTML work every time I wanted to customize the blog. One day, a few years ago, I opened my blog and saw that the header was sliced up. Blogger suddenly put a limit on header size. And since I wanted my header to stretch over the posts and the sidebar, I had no choice but shrink the body and the sidebar.
Eventually the programmers at Blogger came to their senses and lifted the limit. I totally forgot about it, since I already fixed up the whole blog to fit the new standards. But now... now the level of customizing is almost unlimited, so I decided to take advantage.

I removed the blog header because now the body of the blog is too wide for it. The photo that's in it is over a year old. And without a photo header, the blog loads faster. Besides, I have dozens of photos on every page of the blog anyway. Maybe one day I'll make a new one.

The tags now show at the bottom of each post. The tags in the sidebar became a list, but I will change it back into a tag cloud soon.

Now for the fun part of the change: you can rate posts with stars! Even if you don't have time to leave a comment or have nothing to say, you can just click a star to rate each post. Fun? I think so! You can vote however you like, since I won't know who clicked 1-star anyway.

And finally, I am now able to post my photos really big. Some readers might like this, others might not. You can always express your opinion in the ratings. LOL

I had these interactive pets in my sidebar for a year or so, and now it's time for them to step down to a post. Hopefully the blog will load a little faster now.

Best Summer Vacation, Week 2

On Monday we finished off the sand art project with two lovely flowers.
Like so:

Doesn't it look sweet?

Then we went to a park which we haven't visited in a while because it's a mile away from us (and not on the way to any of our regular places.)

There we had a grand old time running around over, under and through rainbows.

And blowing bubbles!

Actually, "blowing" isn't the correct term. This humongous wand swivels, creating lots of big bubbles.

And of course, the classic favorite park activity, splashing!

 When we were getting ready to leave, the boys asked me about the train. The D train is right by the park, and they were curious to see where it goes under the ground. We already had a fun adventure going to see the F train go under the ground (that's another post!) and now the boys were hungry for more. So we followed the tracks.
Eventually we did get to the right spot! We saw the tracks descend, and we got to the next train station. We went in to look around and to ask for a train map. The boys collect them. They love train maps to pieces. Literally. Which is why we need new ones every so often.
But more than discovering the train going underground, we found a whole train-fixing center.

You can't see it clearly, but really, it was cool. There were tracks upon tracks of broken trains cars and special repair trains. By then we had wandered pretty far away from home and it took us close to an hour to get back home. It was a HOT and tiring day, but the boys had a wonderful time.

In contrast, Tuesday was mild.

We played in  a local park, scooted on scooters, and FINALLY went to buy the night diapers I forgot about the previous Tuesday.

Wednesday was craft day at the library. The boys made button pins.

They made three deigns to fill it with, and they rotate them depending on the day and their moods. :) The picture at the foreground here is Earth.

Adel didn't make a craft, but she did go on a ride on the way home!

The girl LOVES rides.

Thursday was a super fun and exciting day at the library. They had a reptile program.

This man has pets. Not hamsters or fish. He has a python, anaconda, snapping turtle... lizards, frogs....

and...

...an alligator. Her name is Wally. :)

I have lots more photos of these wondrous creatures...
Like Bluey here.

But they will have to wait for another post!

Sunday:
Our Sunday's activity can be found in the two posts below!