Finishing the year, summer and more...

I got a little behind on my post so here is a long catch up! We ended our monthly themes discussing ocean animals. We didn't cover as much as I had originally planned and hoped for since we were coming to the end of our year and extremely anxious for a break, but our activities we did participate in gave us a good idea of a few concepts. I'm still loving my Apologia books to gather some great information for our themes.

Things we discussed were:

• Animal Names
• Facts about jellyfish and whales and dolphins (hoped to do more but it didn't happen)
• Currents, tidal pools and the different levels of the ocean (all briefly)

The Sea Life Aquarium hosts a homeschool week a couple times throughout the year. It has been a great opportunity for us to go at a discounted price. It was perfect timing for the week to arrive as it was a great kickoff to this months theme. The activity for the week was making jelly fish. The boys were excited since they had just asked me that morning when we could make a jelly fish. While visiting the aquarium itself, we were able to catch the shark feeding time. For a family of three boys, this was pretty exciting.

Our last writing project of the year was writing about each theme we did throughout the year. I included pictures in the book to act as our "year book". They loved looking at the pictures of everything we did this year!

Our last field trip of the month was to a candy company.  We saw how all the machines that make the candy worked, tasted some of the yummy products, held a 10 lb bar of chocolate and even came home with some of the delicious candy that was made there.

Our last day of School Party:  

As our pre-K and Kindergarten year came to an end, I began to notice pictures of graduations on Facebook. I'm kind of sentimental about these things and felt that I'd really wanted to make sure they didn't miss out on that. K had attended pre-school elsewhere and was able to experience a graduation himself. I kind of like to keep things even with my boys so since we had already been planning on inviting family over for a Memorial Day swim, we decided to include a little ceremony as well. It was simple but fun and a great way for them to practice public speaking. Our last week of school, we spent practicing one of their Awanas Verse, a song and a poem we had learned this year. C also was involved as well.

A synopsis of our ceremony:

The boys entered carrying the American Flag.
C led us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
C sang us Jesus Loves Me since this is actually his most requested song.
T recited: Luke 10:27
K recited: John 3:16
K and T recited the poem: The Caterpillar by Christina G Rosetta.
K and T sang a graduation song to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle.
Diplomas were given.

Our parents were even involved in a group Gmail chat room on our tv so they could watch the whole thing thanks to daddy. We then celebrated with swimming and a special snack that we all pitched in to make. I think they really had a lot of fun.

Making Our Special Snack:

The boys also finished up their Awana class with a special awards ceremony. They were so proud of themselves.




                                 




My plans for the summer to relax and just swim, quickly filled up with some pretty fun events.

We started off with Grandma visiting and watching the boys so that Kirby and I could attend our yearly homeschool convention. It was a great weekend and gave Kirby and I a couple of nights away.

Our most exciting event of the month was probably K losing his first tooth. The tooth fairy arrived with 3 special gold coins!

That same week, our middle man T, turned 5. Silent sob. T was an unexpected surprise for us. His arrival brought many different emotions for me. Some that I never expected. So I feel that his first five years has really just been a blur. He has seemed to grow up so quickly on me. He is a very active happy boy with a lot of energy. He is always making us smile. He is so smart and already reading very well. I'm quite impressed with his level of learning. He always seemed like it would be a struggle to teach him due to his lack of interest, but he is actually very eager to learn.

On his birthday we had our summer movies in which we invited a couple of his friends to join. He loved it! A couple nights later, we celebrated with the rest of his friends with a Transformer party. We ended it with a water balloon fight per his request. It was a lot of fun!

Our next big event was the circus!!

4th of July Fun:

On top of everything else, Kirby and I celebrated our 11th anniversary this year. We started our day out at the science museum for a special members only preview of the Sesame Street Body. It was pretty cute. While there, the boys extracted the DNA of a strawberry. They left with a souvenir of it in a necklace. They loved it!!

That evening, we were able to make it to dinner and a movie and then the following weekend, Kirby surprised me with a weekend Staycation. It was A----MAZING. We have never just hung out by the pool all weekend and that's exactly what we did!! The last night, we surprised the boys by bringing them up with us. It was one of the best weekends we have had in a long time.

We ended our summer to a really fun trip back to KS to visit our family. My best friend from high school got married and I was thrilled to be able to make it back for it. The trip turned out to be much better than I could have anticipated. It rained almost the whole time we were there which made it humid yet less hot and I miss the rain so much that I actually enjoyed it. It also brought out many insects and frogs that my boys loved looking for and catching. I also caught up with many of my friends from my past that I hadn't seen in over 10 years. I couldn't have asked for a better trip.

My cute little cousin who I haven't seen in a while. 

Catching butterflies

My Grandpa

Loves for Grandma

The best part of the whole trip for these boys was their special time with their dad. Kirby grew up fishing with his cousins and was able to carry the tradition with his boys. What a fun memory for them.

Movies with Big Pa

Golphing with Big Pa

Eating the fish they caught.

C learned to drive this truck and LIVED on it.

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My best friends from high school.

Having fun with their aunt and uncle.

The rain didn't stop these boys from having fun outside.

More fishing. I wish we could do more of this out here.

I LOVED watching them be able to do boy things. Sometimes I wish we lived there.

My niece was not afraid of this frog. She was petting it and was extremely upset if anyone took it from her.

They had a blast with their cousins and got along so well.

Our last day there and we were FINALLY able to make it to the pool.

Humid Humid Humid, but we still had a fire going!

LOVE my dad. He found this idea off Facebook and decided to try it. 

After several tries, he finally managed to make it happen. One and Only once, but it was worth it.

Popsicle sword fight?

Our on way back, we saw this on at one of our stops. Had to take a picture for daddy.

I leave you with a final random picture. The boys during our insect theme, created a fun puppet play for me with all the insects we made. It was super cute.