State Fair

My sister-in-law, Dominique, and I took Ayden to the CA state fair yesterday. While it was HOT and crowded, we still had a good time and ate some yummy fair food! Ayden loved all of the rides and was very disappointed to go home.

They had a mock jungle set up with some animals in aquariums.

One of the buildings was all about animation, so of course some of Ayden's favorites were there!

The rides were a big hit! I had to ride with him on the first little roller coaster, then he rode the rest of the rides on his own. He would not, however, ride if he had to share a seat or car with other kids.

Cooking Wednesday

I've been seriously slacking on the cooking projects that I promised Ayden we would do this summer. I decided to copy a friend a make pudding pops.

We started with white chocolate pudding...

After I took the first picture, he ran to get his chef's hat and had me take another

...added some oreos...

We had to use dixie cups and Popsicle sticks (except I accidentally bought tongue-depressor size, whoops!) because I haven't been able to find Popsicle molds to replace ours that broke....The lady at Target told me "All our summer stuff is pretty much gone, it's back to school time, didn't you know?" Ugh - I don't want to even think about going back to school!

Yummy!!!

Camping

We went camping last weekend at Collins Lake with our neighbors. We all had a great time and it was fantastic to have other kids for Ayden to play with!

Fun swimming in the lake to beat the heatand you know it's hot when mommy gets in a lake

The kids looked for shells and dug in the wet sand...played a few games...

hung out at the playground...
The hilight for Ayden was roasting marshmallows. As soon as we finished dinner both nights, he was all about the smores!Ayden & Zachary waiting patiently by the fireAyden & Jessica relaxing

We are hoping this becomes an annual camping trip and that more neighbors will join us!

Our Little Swimmer

I edited together a few short videos of Ayden swimming. It was the hilight of our week, that's for sure. It is so fun to see his progress and he is so proud of himself...now we are working on him getting his arms out of the water :)

Busy, Busy, Busy

We have had a busy week!

Playing trains with daddy

A fun trip to the Explorit Science Center in Davis with Brandi and Wyatt Figuring out what things will fly

Which tops will spin the longest?

Which ball rolls the farthest?

putting on a little puppet show

design your own race track

Ayden finished his first session of swimming lessons for the summer. He is much more confident in the water and can swim on his own for a short distance. Now, we just need to get him to use his arms!!

eating TWO lollipops (the bribery his teacher used to get him to swim farther than he wanted to)

Video from swimming lessons coming as soon as I can get all of the snippets edited together!

4th of July

Yesterday we had our 2nd annual neighborhood 4th of July parade and pancake breakfast. Ayden was so excited to decorate his bike for the little parade. It's amazing how much older he looks here than last year. Ready to go...complete with the noisemaker!

Pancakes and juice boxes after the parade

Ken helped flip the pancakes

There were face painting and tatoos!

Ayden, Caden, and Zachary - These three are all three years old and live on our street....I think we're all in for trouble in a few years :)

After a relaxing afternoon, we headed to a park to watch fireworks. Zachary and Ayden played a little baseball while we waited for it to get dark.

Sparklers!!

Silly boy!!

Music Mike

One of the best things about being home in the summer is doing fun activities around town, and hanging out with neighborhood friends.

Last week we went to see Music Mike at a local library. Music Mike is a local guy (celebrity if you ask the kids) who is great at entertaining the kids!

dancing with his pal Zachary