The break from school has been so nice, just not having to be or go anywhere. The kids are excited for school to start in a few weeks, though!! Mia starts kindergarten in the middle of August, and Drake will start preschool at the beginning of September.
We have done lots of fun things this summer... some of these go back to the end of April and May... here goes!
What's more fun than rubbing balloons on your hair and sticking them to the wall??!! I remember thinking, "Oh, it's going to be a loooooong summer!!"
Strawberry picking with Cole!!
The three little crazies at Touch-A-Truck...
Mia still loves her dollies, babies, and anything else she can 'set up.' She tells me she has 'way too many kids' to take care of. :)
There was a little fair nearby last month, so we let them ride a couple rides (I know, that's kind of dangerous!!). I think I may be a true carnie at heart, though. I couldn't NOT let them ride a few rides!! We are super excited for the State Fair soon!!
Mia on the roller coaster!!
Drake lovin' the snake coaster!!
On the potato sack slide with Daddy.
Mia got to ride by herself... poor girl wasn't heavy enough, though, so she had to scootch herself down the entire slide right up until the end! :(
The opened a little beach right down the street, so we visited with one of Mia's classmates!!
Mia being Mia...
In her classroom with some of her projects at Mother's Day Tea...
Last day of school with her bestie!!
We went through several days where Mia dressed Drake in this tie EVERY DAY. She thought it was handsome.
Mia and I went on Pinterest and picked out several crafts to do this summer. Here they are working on a couple of them!!
Painting dolls in pots...
Sidewalk paint! (cornstarch, water, and food coloring!!)
By the way, she is keeping me on task in the summer project department... I found this on my counter a few weeks ago. It is her checklist of all the projects we'd planned on doing... she checks them off and reminds me which ones we still have left. No idea where she gets this. ;)
This is just a funny one... I knew Drake was tired one day, but he kept telling me he wasn't. Then I found him like this!!
We haven't done naps for several months for him, but clearly once in a while he still needs them!!
Mia doing her puppet show!! You probably can't see them all that well in this picture, but she drew a comedy (happy) and tragedy (sad) mask on the left side of the box. :)
Brock and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary at the beginning of July!! We went to the Biltmore in Asheville, NC. It was awesome, we had such a good time!!
We stayed in downtown Asheville - they have tons of cute restaurants and shops. They don't let you take pictures inside the house, but here are a few pics of the Biltmore and surroundings (I actually have lots of pics, but I won't bore you with all of them!!)...
This is the house we got to tour!!
Brock also signed us up for a private behind-the-scenes tour of the house, and it was AWESOME!! :) If you've never been there, it is a really neat place to check out.
Little Mia has been a big helper lately. The other night we made homemade tortillas, and she rolled them out all by herself!! She made sure to flour the surface and the rolling pin.
Notice the tape measure in the above picture. I'm totally not kidding. She took it out so she could measure the size of the dough balls before we rolled them flat. She wanted to make sure they were all the same size.
And she made this just the other morning. It's her morning checklist. From top left on over: Get Dressed, Brush Teeth, Floss, Make Bed. :) (the squares are the checkboxes)
It's actually pretty funny living with a kid-version of yourself! :)
A couple of weeks ago, we took them down to Columbus... they have this giant indoor play area with this 3-story?? climbing apparatus. Mia spent the entire time climbing to the top and then down again. She was so not afraid of heights. Drake was not so fond of that, but he spent his time running and jumping around the gigantic play area. There was an old-fashioned ice cream parlor across the street. They thought they died and went to heaven because they each got their OWN dish of ice cream.
This past weekend we went to Cincinnati to get together with some friends from college. The next day we took them to the aquarium there... they had a great time!
One last pic... this is what Mia drew while trying to explain electricity to Drake:
Afterwords she was like, "Now, Mom. I know that there has to be some wires or something underground to make the lights go on when you flip the switch on the wall."
They have been so cute playing together all summer. I'm hoping it cools down enough soon to go outside, because we have honestly been indoors pretty much the last couple of weeks! I'm ready for bike rides and wagon rides again!!
Sorry this was so long, but I really just keep this stuff here for myself so I don't forget anything. If anyone still reads this, thanks for checking in on us!!
