Bucket List 6/17-6/24

 Yay us! We've been tearing away at our Summer Bucket List. Some days I sit with the kids while they do the stuff, and sometimes I get them started and run off to make lunch (my glamorous life and all). Here's what we did this past week!

2-liter jet packs! I've been wanting to do this since forever.

Bella was impatient with all the picture-taking. "Can you just pretend to smile? This is the face I got. I swear, the girl's secretly 14 instead of 4.

Ripping paper? Ryan's in!

The finished result! Bella wanted "princess flames" so hers are blue, pink and purple, naturally!

Here's Little Man's pack. As if he needs rocket propulsion! I think he's rocket-fueled most of the time anyway. In the end, the kids played with these for about 2 minutes and then moved on. Oh well, I had fun!

Bella wears a dress pretty much every day of the week. When she asked if she could climb the trees out back, I said (or so I thought), "Go get shorts and a t-shirt to wear." She came out with long sleeves and long pants. It's 90 degrees outside. My girl is nuts. But she LOVES climbing trees!

Just a cute picture of us. I took some video too (right before Ryan knocked the phone out of Bella's hand and it conked her on the head. Another day in paradise!).

That moment reminded me of this one, from October 2007. Bella's gotten older, but I haven't aged a bit! (ha)

Bella has begun the kindergarten class at church. They have a notebook with little devotions to do for each day. I asked Bella if she wanted to get up with me to do her Bible study. She agreed! So my night owl has been waking up at 8:00 all on her own, and she gets her own cup of coffee, her notebook and skunk Bible and we study. I about break into tears every morning at the privilege of it all.

This wasn't on our Bucket List, but one night on Joshua's "weekend" we had ice cream for dinner. Doesn't get much better than that!

Squirt gun target practice! It was great in theory, but the reality was our dollar-aisle squirt guns leaked, and the plastic cups are sitting on some sort of electrical box that kept shaking them off.

Bella goes for the farther shot. The kids got bored with this and decided to have a cup-throwing fight with Joshua. They clearly don't understand the principles of him having a HOSE as opposed to their tiny cups which, ironically, they have to ask him to fill so they can throw them at him!

 

Outdoor mud kitchen. This followed a romp through the "spink-uh-luh" as Ryan calls it. A bowl of mud, plastic dishes and an ice cream scoop and they were all set!

They were patient to take turns, but the one-ice-cream-scoop policy needs a serious adjustment.

This wasn't on our list either, but one day they'd watched "Dinosaur Train" while I cleaned up after breakfast. Apparently there was a "buh-cay-no" (volcano to the rest of you) in this episode and all I heard about where buh-cay-noes. So, we built some out of home made play dough, then did the whole baking soda/vinegar trick. Red vinegar, just for flair. The kids did it over and over and  probably would have drained my baking soda supply had I let them. Bella asked how it worked and I told her it was chemistry-she could call Papa for the details!

Bella had done this before, but it was still a thrill!

Some days, I just need a break. This was it. There was a 40% chance of rain, but I tried to play the odds (notice the word tried?) and took the kids to a park. We literally had just sat our butts down on the bench to eat dinner when it began to sprinkle. Then rain. The blow wind. Then rain hard. The kids asked if they could still go play. Sure, why not?

It's a dark picture, but here are the drowned rats. You can't see it, but Bella's whole right side is plastered with wet mulch as she wiped out on a particularly slick slide. I had to literally hose the kids down in the backyard when we got home before they could even get in the tub!

Potion Lab! Eight drinking glasses, two spoons, a container of food coloring. I stayed with them for this one because I had to keep pitching their full cups over the deck railing and refilling them. They could have done this for HOURS if we had a backyard and an outdoor faucet of some sort.

"What happens when we...? was Ryan's favorite phrase, because I'd ask him, "What happens when you mix blue and yellow water? Or red and orange?" He was content to put green in every cup and pour one into the other until they overflowed.

Bella was a little more fastidious in her approach (is that really any wonder?).

Today was Fishers Freedom Fest and here Bella is trying her punching skills. In silver sandals. And a dress. With her sunbonnet hanging off her neck. Love my little girl!

And here she is being taught how to break a board by the martial arts people. She got to keep a piece of the broken board (so neatly broken on either side...hmmm...) and they wrote her name on the back in Chinese. Ryan wanted no part of it. He's eyeing the bowl of DumDums on the chair in the back.

Checking out the fire truck...

Much like she did in July 2009!

Which Ryan actually wanted to do.

Workin' on his slapshot with the guys from the Indiana Ice.

And speaking of ice...the kids got their first taste of a snow cone. It was love at first bite! Bella uses the little straw/spoon (stroon?)...

While Ryan just grabs handfuls. He's got a wad of blue raspberry and cotton candy in his little paw. That's it for this week! Another post next weekend!