Making Music With Cousin Rose!

We were so delighted to have Cousin Rose, Memere & Pepere visit us on Thursday and join us for music group. We had the best time singing, dancing, and making music together! Grace and Jack were so excited to share their love of music with everyone. After music group Jack, Grace, and Rose all sat down together to play the keyboard -- the three cousins are absolutely adorable together! After music group we met Daddy for lunch and then spent our afternoon together at the Maine Wildlife Animal Park. Thank you Cousin Rose, Memere and Pepere for the fun day. The only thing missing was Cousin Kimberlee, Auntie Allison, and Uncle Steve but we hope to see them all soon.

Back To The Lake Beach

We are so excited to have a weekly forecast of warm and sunny weather after nearly two months of rain and cooler temperatures. We celebrated the first day of more summer-like weather by going to our lake beach. This is the first time we have been there since summer began! We enjoyed every minute of our time there and we all can't wait to go back this afternoon.

Middlebury's Festival On The Green

Every July we go to Middlebury to visit Maddy and Poppy the week of Middlebury's Festival On The Green. This is something we look forward to all year and it is our favorite week of the entire year! All last week we packed our lunch and attended the festival's "Brown Bag" concert series under the tent in Middlebury's beautiful green. We always arrived about an hour early to get the perfect seats and we had the added bonus of watching the performers warm up before their performance. We enjoyed all of the performances -- watching marionettes perform the classic fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, listening to world music, learning about musical instruments played around the world, watching a physical comedian, and listening to folk music. We are back in Maine now but we will be talking about all of the beautiful summer memories we made in Vermont for a very, very long time to come.

Making Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream With Maddy

Story Time At The Ilsley Public Library In Middlebury

7 Months Old!

Ahhh!

There is nothing like being seven months old today.

Our super sweet boy had his wellness visit with his pediatrician on Friday. Jack now weighs 22.95 pounds and is 28 3/4 inches long.

On Wednesday We...

...talked about the Middlebury Falls with Maddy...picked strawberries from Maddy's organic garden...cuddled with Uncle Adam...walked across the footbridge.

Look At All Of The Fun We Are Having In Beautiful Vermont

The Lazy Days Of Summer

After several more days of rain this week we took full advantage of some sunshine today. After music group this morning we headed to the park and enjoyed our afternoon there feeding the ducks, eating lunch, and simply loving every moment of being together on this beautiful sunny summer day.

Tomorrow morning we are leaving for Vermont. We are so very excited to visit Maddy, Poppy, Uncle Adam, Great Grandma & Pop-pop all next week!

Our Colorful World

We went on a scavenger hunt this morning to find items in nature that match the ones we painted in our egg carton. This was one of our all time favorite activities. I think the entire neighborhood heard Grace squeal with delight each time she found flowers, rocks, blades of grass, pine needles, raspberries, strawberries, acorn tops, and berries that matched the colors in our egg carton. Jack also giggled loudly each time a new color item was found and placed inside our egg carton. What a perfect way for Jack to learn about colors. Our favorite color find today was a ladybug!!! After much thought we decided to place the ladybug in the red color compartment. If you look closely in the picture above you can see that the ladybug had other ideas and she decided to climb into the light green color compartment instead! We all looked high and low for orange and blue color items but we were unable to locate any. These colors will be a fun challenge for us on our next "color walk." We will be going on a "color walk" each day because we had so much fun with this activity. It will be so interesting to see how the items on our "color walk" change as the seasons change.

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst the lovely things. ~ Plato

Feeding The Birds

Food for hummingbirds

A Rainbow of Color

We are so happy that the rain has finally gone away! We painted this egg carton many weeks ago for a colorful outside activity, however, it has been raining & raining & raining over the past few weeks. Because of all that rain the egg carton has been resting on a shelf untouched -- just waiting for a bright sunny day. Grace, Jack, and I are all so very happy to see the sun shining today and now we can finally get outside with our painted egg carton. Stay tuned for our colorful activity!

Best Buddies!

Way Up!

We went to Bath, Maine yesterday and today to attend Bath Heritage Days. We talked to Grace and Jack all about the festival before we arrived. Grace was excited to hear that there would be a merry-go-round there -- just like the merry-go-round in one of her books. When we arrived yesterday the merry-go-round was quickly forgotten once Grace took one look at the large Ferris wheel. Grace quickly pointed at the Ferris Wheel and asked if she could ride "that" instead. We told Grace that she could ride the Ferris Wheel after we ate our lunch. Sadly, soon after we were done eating yesterday dark gray clouds filled the sky and a very large thunderstorm moved in quickly. So, Grace was unable to ride the Ferris wheel. Grace talked about the Ferris Wheel the rest of the day. We surprised Grace this morning by telling her that we would be going back to Bath again today. Once we arrived and it was actually time for the big Ferris Wheel ride Bob & I were nervous for Grace to ride on such a large and very high ride. I rode with Grace and I couldn't believe her reaction -- she loved every second of it. Grace wanted to stand the entire time and wasn't the least bit afraid of being up so high. We even stopped at the top for awhile and Grace couldn't have been happier with this! Grace later told me that she loved everything about the Ferris Wheel but she just wished it would have gone a lot faster and a lot higher! What a brave girl!!

Jack & Monkey

Jack LOVED being outside today at the Bath Heritage Festival. The highlight of our beautiful day together was spreading a blanket under a tree and watching a boat parade along the Kennebec River. You can see the sparkle of excitment in Jack's blue eyes ~ he loved every moment of watching the boat parade and being outside in the warm sunshine with his beloved Monkey.

Our Reasons To Celebrate

Bath, Maine

Happy 4th of July

All you need to make this adorable flag are sweet little hands and feet!

Fireworks!

Jack & Grace made these beautiful fireworks to celebrate the 4th of July! Grace painted several coffee filters blue while Jack & I painted several filters red. Next, we cut the coffee filters into strips while leaving the centers in tact. We poked a pipe cleaner through the center of the coffee filters, secured it, and spread out the strips to create our own 4th of July fireworks!

2 Years, 7 Months Old

Our Amazing Grace turned 2 years, 7 months old on Thursday. We celebrated Grace's special day by going to the Children's Museum. Although the weather was dark and rainy that day, Gracie girl brightened the day with her smiles, laughs, and her sunny personality. Grace is always a ray of sunshine!

Full!

The C drive on our computer is full (oh no!) so I'm not able to load any more pictures onto our computer until we create some free space. I have several posts ready to go including some more 4th of July projects and our trip to the Children's Museum yesterday. Our Amazing Grace also turned 2 years, 7 months old yesterday!! Hopefully, I'll be able to post those tonight with pictures.

Have a fun-filled Friday. :)

Hand Print American Flags

Grace & Jack made these sweet little hand print American flags to celebrate the Fourth of July on Saturday! Once the paint dried Grace added shiny silver stars. Grace and I talked about why there are fifty stars and thirteen stripes on the American flag. I talked with Jack about the different colors and how the paint felt on his hands. Grace, Jack, and I have more Fourth of July projects planned for tomorrow and Friday...stay tuned!