Better Late Than Never

I've been thinking for years that I need to start doing door decorations. I started teaching preschool last week, so this decoration is very fitting. Plus, the kids helped me make it (counting, patterns, colors!) So hopefully it will make them happy when they get here each morning.
Sent from my BlackBerry, please excuse any brevity or typos.

Enjoying the Preschool Room

Sent from my BlackBerry, please excuse any brevity or typos.

SuperWhy Stage

Benton has entered the SuperWhy stage (Ethan did the same thing at about this age). He LOVES the show, calling it "wa-why!". If you haven't seen the show, part of it is finding super letters that show up in random places in the story. Benton finds letters all over too, mostly in places like books, alphabet toys, the alphabet strip I have in the preschool room, etc. But he is also starting to "read" things like the brand on his spoon while he eats. In preschool, while the older kids are writing letters, Benton gives me a marker and board and yells letter commands at me to get me to write them "Y! Y! M! M! B! B!"
Sent from my BlackBerry, please excuse any brevity or typos.

Beach Day

Last weekend we drove to California for about a day.  The weekend before was our Abegg family reunion in St. George, UT (post to come) and we brought our 4 year old nephew home with us for a week (post to come).  We then drove him back to California.  We drove in Friday evening, left the kids with our nephews and niece to put to bed, and got massages with Tim and Rachelle (Mike's sister).  On Saturday we went to the beach!  Ethan told us several times to watch out for the waves and not let them get us.  His favorite thing to do was run away from waves.

Benton napped on the way to the beach and stayed asleep when we turned the car off.  I stayed in the car with him while he slept for like another 40 minutes.  When he woke up he was feeling snuggly.  As you can see in the pictures below, Mike didn't mind!

 Our nephew as a mermaid.

 Rachelle with our littlest niece.

 Benton was in his element playing in the sand.

 My pictures edited (of boys in the water) still don't come close to Mike's pictures unedited (Benton in the sand).

After the beach we went to a pool to wash off.  We drove home the next day.  I'm glad we had a full, exciting day to make the drive feel worth it!

Summer Fun Continued

On the 4th of July, Mike flew out to Kansas City.  Joe and Lauren hosted, despite only being in their house for about a week.  We played, ate, admired their house, and let the kids set off more fireworks.

Here Ethan is enjoying Nana and Papa's patio.

 We went to the pool in Tonganoxie and Ethan was tall enough for one of the slides.  He can go down one of them at our local pool too (with shoes on and nice life guards), and LOVES it.

 I think this is Mike.  The straight slide was super fast.

Sunday we hosted dinner at Mom's for Joe and Lauren and family.  The next day we made it to a cute farm and got one more chance to play with cousins!

 Ethan and Joseph spent most of the time chasing on the playgrounds.

 Benton spotted food and made his way over to mooch.

 The boys!  I fell in love with this place when we walked in and a bunch of these wagons were lined up for FREE use!

 We fed adult goats first.  I took Benton in the pen and the goats were SO aggressive.  They were putting their front hooves up on me and when I tried to stand behind Benton to help him hold his hand out with food, Benton ended up with a hoof to the face.  He was obviously intimidated by the goats, but stayed calm.  We left the pen and fed them through the fence.

Then we bought bottles for the baby goats.

 Joseph doesn't look to happy about the situation.

 Benton stayed out of the pen.  He had a few meltdowns because I wouldn't let him drink out of the bottle, but once he got over that, he enjoyed it.  (More pictures below)

 Ethan and Joseph were tall enough to ride the pony.  The ride was pretty short, but Ethan enjoyed it.

 The boys were totally worn out, so we said our goodbyes.  Ethan cried when he had to say good bye to Joseph.

 Benton wanted hugs too.

 Papa's lawnmower was a hit.  I thought I got pictures of Ethan with Papa, but I guess not.  I am not sad we don't have grass to mow, though!

 Ethan dresses himself now, and this is how he came up one morning.  He went to the gym as Jake (a Disney cartoon character).

 Ethan's photography:

 He's so independent in the pool!  It makes the pool a lot more fun for everyone and is really cute to watch.

 And some farm pictures that got out of order:

Ethan was following the map.

 Benton feeding the baby goats.

 I don't remember why, but I brought donuts home one night and the boys were very enthusiastic about it.

 More pictures, courtesy of Ethan.