our summer so far

Well, we’re now at the end of Week 4 of summer and the big kids have been busy with their respective summer camps. Cameron has done 4 dance camps now, 3 ballet (Cinderella, Little Mermaid, and Swan Lake) as well as a Hip Hop one and she has absolutely loved them all!

Dylan started out his first week at an Lego’s Engineering camp where they motorized all sorts of really cool creations (robots, cars, helicopters) and learned a bit about physics, gears, gear ratios, thrust and torque and other things related to moving objects!

After that first week, he went to a 2-week session of Camp Spot where, among other things, he got to go on a boat called the O’Neill Sea Odyssey! Now he’s in a camp with K. called M is for Magical. I know very little of this camp, except that they seem to be making plenty of interesting art, since it is only 2 hours a day and Heather is kindly taking Dylan to and from camp. Dylan seems to be enjoying it, though!

In addition to camp, the kids are continuing with swimming. Dylan and Cameron made great gains this year. Dylan is advancing to Competition and Cameron is moving into Little Strokes (a couple of levels below Comp).

Chloe finished out her Music Together session a couple of weeks back, but we started her at Studio Sprout, a local art studio for little kids (Dylan and Cameron also used to do art there). She totally loves it! And because she copies everything her big sibs do, she’s a pro at many of the projects they’ve done so far: bubble art (she successfully blew through the straw to make the paint bubbly instead of sucking the paint/soap mixture in!); painting (of course), and using a glue stick. I know that last one sounds weird. And, admittedly, I was a bit surprised that some of the other little ones (the class ranges from 18 mos – 3 years) had trouble using their glue sticks. Chloe just went to town though! She also loves seeing the chickens in Rebecca’s garden! Since she watched some eggs hatch in the incubator at school, she now feels chickens are her favorite animal!

We are looking to start her in gymnastics starting next week. I’m really looking forward to this since I don’t really see her much. Since Cameron’s dance is on my way to work, I take her (and sometimes Dylan) while Tom takes Chloe to school. Cameron’s dance starts at 9am, so there is very little time in the morning to hang out and not much time after school/work either! And, our poor littlest one is away from us for the longest period of time. She is at school between 8:30 and 9 and there until close to 5:30 on most days!

I can tell she misses our Friday mornings together…I get amazing but clingy hugs in the mornings and evenings and requests to come with me when it’s time for Cameron and I to leave. I’ll look forward to spending a couple of mornings with her again!

So, the kids, of course, have not ceased to grow! Dylan just lost his first front tooth (top) last night and Chloe did a huge pee pee in her potty first thing in the morning (after waking me up at 4am with a request to go pee–she had already gone pee in her diaper, but this woke her up and she told me she needed to sit on the potty–and subsequently waking up dry later on!)

Anyway, there are many many pictures (huge backlog === hugely long post! Sorry!)! (Also, you can click on an image thumbnail to see the larger view and then navigate through the pictures using the arrow keys below the picture).