Daring Dawson strikes again

This kid shocks me daily with his daring behaviors and tonight at the pool was no different.

He was jumping off the side of the pool and into the arms of Mike or I the entire time.  In these pictures he did not get his head wet, but very shortly later he was going all the way under with every jump.  Believe me, there were many.

I love how his little fists are clenched in this picture.  He was so pumped to be jumping in the pool.  

A little while later I was standing in front of him while he was playing on the side of the pool with toys.  He purposely walked around me and jumped into the pool.  He is such a little daredevil.  This may be totally normal 21 month old behavior, but believe me this is not how his brother or sister acted at this age.  In fact, Carter hated getting his face wet and only started doing that in the past month or so.

And did I mention that Dawson has escaped from his crib two times in the last three days?  I really, really, really, really don't want to convert his crib to a toddler bed soon, but I don't think I'm going to have a choice.

Heard around the House

Carter:  Mom, Slinky left a lot of clues for us in the woods.  But I wouldn't touch them if I were you.
Mom:  No, please don't touch them.
{By the way, Slinky is Jason and Tiffany's dog.}

Ava:  Mom, I fixed my mind.  We are having ice cream tomorrow at Carter's birthday party.
{I think she means made up her mind.}

Ava:  Dawson, you are my cute little chubba cheeks.  Mom, get him out of here.
Me:  Well, that was quite a turn around.

Dawson is now letting his two cents be heard.  To get to the YMCA or the soccer fields we pass a cow farm.  The car was completely silent until he spotted a cow and began to yell "MOOO.  MOO.  MOO."  We also pass the high school that has a big mural of a polar bear on front of it.  He screams every time "PO BEAR, PO BEAR."

Summer Evening Walk

Not too many of these left.  I need to do this more.  Forget about the dishes in the sink, the crumbles on the floor and the laundry piled up on the couch and just focus on my kids and have a fun summer evening walk.

I love watching them talk to each other.

SHHHH!  No talking in the woods!  We are hunting!

Bird!  I hear a bird!

Sticks are a boy's best friend.

Need a double stroller, but don't have one?  My kids love piling on top of each other.

I once read a book {I can't even remember the title of it} that stated that kids are over stimulated and under stimulated.  They are over stimulated by television and video games and they are under stimulated by not spending enough time outdoors.  They need to feel the grass, dirt, sticks and breeze, all those things they don't get inside.  I think that this summer we have definitely succeeded!

Stone Soup

Today I read Stone Soup to the kids and immediately they decided that we needed to make Stone Soup too.  When I taught preschool I did a unit on Stone Soup and we usually made it in the crock pot during class.  Today it was so fun making Stone Soup with my own little preschoolers.  

Carter was in charge of opening the tomato can.

Yes, there really were {clean} stones in our soup.  I felt they added a great deal of depth to our soup, haha.

chopping

peeling

The Littlest one even got in on the action.  As long as I was feeding him grapes.

They had a ball and helped me in the kitchen for about an hour.  We even made biscuits.  I allowed them to use cookie cutters, so along with our "rock soup" as Ava called it, we enjoyed christmas tree, santa claus, dove and heart shaped biscuits.  Fun afternoon activity that kept everyone happy, entertained and learning.  I'm all for that!

Gluten filled Heaven!

Aunt Pam brought delicious donuts to Carter's birthday party.  Yup, easy to say that they were enjoyed.

Oh yes, Pig Pen is a fitting nickname

Tonight after dinner, Dawson decided to crawl into my garden and make himself at home.

With his trucks in tow, he enjoyed scooping, digging and flinging dirt.

Yes, there was plenty of flinging.

By the way, he is shirtless because dinner got a little messy so I stripped him down and sent him outside to play for awhile.

Check out that caked on dirt.

Oh yes, pig pen is a fitting nickname.

Mom, no need to bathe me tonight, I just took a dirt bath!

Birthday Party!

Yesterday we celebrated Carter's FIFTH Birthday.  We were so lucky to be joined by Grandma, Bo, Uncle Jay, Aunt Tiff, Meme, Nana Jackie and Aunt Pam.

Carter is our little hunter man, so we requested everyone dress in their finest camo.  Bo was happy to oblige.

We retired to the basement for a break from the heat and with the objective of creating a camo hunting blind.  The kids painted, colored, glued and enjoyed making the hideout.

The Camo-ly

{instead of family?  get it?  I crack myself up.}

Our favorite family artist Aunt Tiff drew a wonderful deer.  Carter had a ball hitting it with his bow and arrow.

Aunt Tiff and Uncle Jason

Batman Hunter

Seriously, one of my favorite pictures of these two.

Carter also received a new bike and we have big plans on taking it on a bike ride this afternoon!

Blowing out the candles!

Thank you to all our family.  It really means so much to us that you come and put up with a meal of corn dogs and hot dogs {birthday boy's choice!}to celebrate birthdays.  We love you all!

Heard Around the House

This morning we spent time at a neighbor's house who owns a cat.  We were swimming outside, but I came inside to take Ava to the restroom.  Ava saw the cat on top of the couch and the following conversation occurred:

Ava:  How did the cat get up there.
Me:  Well it jumped.  Cats are good at jumping.
Ava:  Grown-ups too.
Me:  When you grow up you will be a good jumper too.
Ava:  I'm going to be a good cat too when I grow up.
Me:  Hmm, I don't think you can grow up to be a cat....
At this point Ava has already taken off outside.

Yet another Ava funny:  
Ava:  I'm Dora, I have a friend named boots.  I can speak Sammich.
Me:  I think you mean spanish.

First Day of School

So, not only is today his birthday, it was also the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!

Carter and his wonderful teacher, Miss Riki

Carter told me he had a great day in preschool.  He liked playing with the train table and it was a huge confidence boost that he knew today was Wednesday, August 22nd {hmm, I wonder why?}  He made friends with the boy with the Nike's and the boy with the green shoes.  We are going to work on getting names on Friday.

Carter wore his new lace-up shoes today.  While I really, really, really didn't want to switch from velcro I know at age 5 he should begin working on tying his shoes.  

Lord of the tantrums strikes again!

Carter did great when I dropped him off, but Dawson threw a huge tantrum.  He did not want to leave DARTER!  DARTER!  DARTER!  Add in kicking, screaming and pushing and you got the entire story.  I just tried whispering in his ear "It's ok, Carter's going to school, we'll be back to get him soon."

He still wanted nothing to do with leaving his brother and tantrumed all the way home.  Even at home, he would stop playing look at me and say "Darter?"  Sweet, but still not cool at all.

Zoo!

On Monday we took a trip to the Akron Zoo.  I had plans to take pictures of Carter in their garden area, plus I thought it would be a fun thing to do before school started on Wednesday.  

We carouseled.

Journeyed to the reef.

Stared in wonder.

Of course, played.

I also took a picture of Ava in the garden area that I thought was really sweet:

She told me, "this is my flamingo zoo outfit.  I must wear it today."

Funny thing:  Dawson was on a rampage this day.  In fact he earned himself the title "Lord of Tantrums" after I tried to text Mike lots of tantrums and it auto-corrected to "Lord of Tantrums."  It was fitting.  Mike reminded me not to feed him to the Lions.

F I V E

My wonderful son, today you are FIVE years old!  

I'm so proud of you.

I'm so happy you are in my life.

I love your sense of humor, your silly personality, your kindness and your sweet disposition.

I rely on you in so many ways now, you truly had to grow up pretty fast with two younger siblings.  But you have taken on every challenge I give you, and you are a fantastic big brother.

You are such a great friend to Ava.  You two have elaborate play schemes now, like pretending to be Mr. McGregor and Peter Rabbit or hunting or firemen or just chasing each other around playing tag.  You can entertain each other for hours, or until Dawson comes in to destroy whatever imaginary place you two have created.

What are your interests?  Soccer, Transformers, Star Wars, Superheros, Lions, Sharks, and Hunting of course.  I find it funny that although you think Transformers, Star Wars and Superheroes are so cool, you have only seen the 1980's version of Transformers and have only read about the others.  

What do you like to eat?  Well, my homemade mac and cheese is always a hit, anything Mexican {you inherited this from your parents} cherries, watermelon, apples, spinach, carrots and sunbutter and jelly sandwiches.  You can't stand when I make stir fry, but we still eat it on a regular basis.  It'll grow on you, I promise. 

What's going on right now?  Well you started preschool {today in fact} at your new school.  You are just wrapping up a soccer league with the YMCA and you started to play the NJSL soccer league.  We also plan on frequenting the library every week this school year.  I think it is so sweet how much you adore our librarian Mrs. Moffat.  She is a retired kindergarten teacher and you love to visit the library to chat with her.  When you get new shoes or a new shirt, the first thing you will say is "I can't wait to show Mrs. Moffat."

Here are some of your recent accomplishments:

You are now able to buckle both the top and bottom of the car seat by yourself.  WOO HOOO!  I can't tell you how long we've been working on this!  Now you can climb in the back and we don't have to twist and strain to buckle you in.

You are really, really reading.  I can't believe how well you are doing, and we work a little bit every day about twenty minutes while the little kids are napping.  I LOVE THIS TIME!  We snuggle and talk and read to each other.

You also started staying dry at night.  It was quite a relief not to have to buy diapers or pull-ups for three children.

You are making all sorts of friends here in our neighborhood and now at school.

Other accomplishments:  counted to 53, reciting the months of the year and days of the week,  patterning, writing your entire name {first, middle and last} and we are also practicing writing your numbers.

Carter, I have enjoyed these last five years so much.  You are my snuggle puppy always and forever.  Mommy and Daddy love you so much! 

The Boys

Daddy calls this one "Pig-pen"

The Boys together

Speaking of the boys, this evening we had an open house at Carter's preschool.  After we got home I was having a quiet moment with him and I said "I'm going to really miss you when you go to preschool."  

He told me "I'm not going to miss you at all.  Don't worry, I'll send pictures."

I'll take that as a good sign.