Cucumber Love

Aaron loves cucumbers.

 His patented "cucumber thumb" joke.

 Tough bite.

 Aaron's new smile.

Singing their praises.

Garden stones

For another one of our "stomatitis quarantine" projects, we decided to make garden stones. Everyone got a turn to mix up the concrete, then we poured it in aluminum pie pans and decorated with sea glass and decorative stones. The decorating part got a little crazy so we don't have pictures of that, but the finished product turned out nice!

Pool Party

We have really been enjoying these sunny Seattle days! It's been especially nice since we've been stuck at home for the past week while Matthew recovers from his bout of stomatitis. And, I hope the weather continues to be nice because as of yesterday afternoon (2 hours after we got the green light from our doctor to see other people again) Aaron and then Daniel started presenting symptoms of full blown hand, foot and mouth disease. So, we'll be on our own until next Friday. :(

In the meantime, we'll continue to chip away at my list of fun things to do this summer, and keep playing in the pool...with sticks, rakes, and cups.

Sidewalk Races

Yesterday we spent the morning out on the sidewalk with our many different vehicles. It was a big day: Aaron learned how to use Matthew's scooter by himself and Matthew finally figured out how to pedal the tricycle (steering while pedaling is the next goal). The boys have so much fun riding from the corner of our block to "the jungle"--an area up the street from us with bamboo and overgrown plants lining the sidewalk.

And they're off! 

 Daniel laps Matthew in the cozy coupe.

 Matthew doesn't seem to mind.

 Here comes Aaron on the scooter!

As usual, Daniel takes it to the next level: towing the wagon with the glider bike as cargo.

This may look like a sweet moment, but don't be fooled--Matthew was escorting Aaron back to the garage so that he could have a turn with the scooter instead.

There he goes again!

Climber

Aaron loves climbing. A lot. Yesterday he discovered he could climb up our fence. It does resemble a ladder, but unlike the bunk bed, there is no nice soft platform when you get to the top...

He had to be pulled off the top of the fence multiple times yesterday. I'm pretty sure he's just doing whatever he can to keep up with and/or outdo his brothers.

Aaron conquered the ladder in the play structure a long time ago. Recently, though, he discovered this:

 I can't believe he's only 20 months. Talk about trouble!

Pom Pom Poppers

We are all about weapons here, lately... :/  Everything in our house has been turned into some sort of gun, and things outside are now being used as catapults. So yesterday, I decided to cater to this new obsession and create some fun pom pom poppers for the boys to play with.

 Daniel models the apparatus. It is basically a plastic cup with the bottom cut off and a balloon taped to the rolled edge. 

 Just shooting the pom poms around the room was not fun enough, so we created targets!

 Figuring out how best to shoot the pom poms.

 Matthew takes the easy way out.

 Aaron contemplates using bigger ammunition.

Daniel finds that the smaller the pom pom, the farther it goes.

 Good thing we're only shooting pom poms. This would be dangerous.

Aaron takes a snuggle break.

 Getting serious.

 

 While his younger brothers took a nap, Daniel decided to kick it up a notch. Here's his modified shooter, complete with handle, scope, laser, and sight. This kid does not mess around.

Again, I'm glad we're only using pom poms... Daniel has now asked if we can take the targets outside so he can shoot rocks at them using his home-made sling shot. Oh dear.

Bird Feeders

I have a pretty long list of activities to keep us busy this summer...problem is, we've been SOOO busy that we haven't made much of a dent in my list. I'll take that as a good thing. Here's one of the projects we did get to: bird feeders!

 It's so hard to get a good photo of all three of these boys, but here they are making the feeders. We kept some stale bread (the ends of the loaf, go figure), poked a hole in them and threaded a piece of twine through. Then spread some almond butter on and sprinkled birdseed over that, and voila! A completely edible bird feeder!

 Daniel was very meticulous with his seed sprinkling. 

We hung the bird feeders on the tree outside our kitchen window so we could all watch easily from the table.

 Our first visitor.

 I thought we had put the feeders far enough toward the ends of branches so that squirrels couldn't get them, but...

 Squirrels are tenacious little guys! This one kept running and jumping off the fence onto the bird feeder and would hang by his back feet trying to tear the bread off the string.

Within a few days, this was all that remained. It was a fun project, and super cheap and easy, so we'll definitely do it again. Even if we are just feeding the squirrels...

Beach trip

Chris left for Minnesota yesterday, for his second session of summer classes to complete his Master's degree. I meant to post every day while he's gone...I'm already behind. (Surprise, surprise...it's not like we've been great at posting regularly for the past, oh, 6 months.)

Today we went to the beach in Edmonds. It was supposed to be part of our co-op summer day camp we've been doing this month, but we had to adjust plans. Matthew seemed to have picked up a case of stomatitis, which I conveniently didn't see until we got to the park. The boys were pretty sad that we weren't going to get to play, so we headed up the beach to the ferry dock to play in quarantine instead. We had a fun time on our own...

Quick message to daddy...

Daniel documented the ferries coming and going.

Here comes one!

It took Aaron a little while to get used to walking on the sand. 

Silly faces! (While Aaron tries to take pictures...)