Popinator

When I saw this video of the Popinator I couldn't wait to show it to Noah and Joshua. I just knew they would love it!
They did, and Noah quickly added, "It gets the old coconut juices flowing." He's already working on a list of Popinator inspired inventions.

My only question - Was the Popinator actually created by Dr. Doofenshmirtz?

4th of July Fun

We had a "blast" celebrating the 4th with the Kaufmans.  For the boys this year it became all about explosions and blowing things up. Most repeated question: What can we blow up next? A little scary for moms but everyone ended the night with all fingers intact!

Another free digital scrapbooking design by Smilebox

 Saying goodbye to 3rd and 5th grade and hello to summer!

Kicking it off with our annual stop at DQ.

Summer Days 

Acrostic Poem by Noah

Swimming in the pool.

Under a nice shady tree.

Monotonous days are gone.

Many flowers in the yard.

Every kid is devouring ice cream.

Refreshing lemonade stands on the street.

Doodling on paper outside.

Always riding bikes.

Yellow sun shines down.

Sunny summer days.

Before picking up the boys I started summer on my own with a stop at the Joslyn to see the Egyptian exhibit. 

Even the Egyptians loved their flips!

Happy Birthday Joshua

It's been all about Joshua this week as we celebrated his 9th birthday. Wow. Nine.

Having a birthday on a school day isn't easy for anyone but we tried to live it up as much as possible...apparently with food. 

His first request was for breakfast in bed. I'm proud to say I was able to fulfill the eggs, bacon and toast order before I left at 7:00 a.m. (Really, this was a HUGE accomplishment!).

The second birthday request was for ice cream at Ted & Wally's. Joshua was hoping for bacon ice cream again, but it was not to be. He thoroughly enjoyed the chocolate chip and walnut cookie + Dutch chocolate double scoop instead. 

The third request was sushi which is, of course, something we all loved. I'm still not sure if he chose this for himself or because he knows we all like it so much but it was delicious.

Here are some photos of the day...

Picture collage made with Smilebox

I  have to display the Harry Potter snitch cake before the wings started to droop. Much easier to make than the first request of a 3-D Hogwarts castle which I had to veto. I love you Joshua but I'm not taking a personal day to make a cake. :)

 Thankfully, someone noticed my mistake before we lit the candles...

How old are you?

Dance, Dance, Dance

Since the beginning of January the 5th grade has taken part in Dancing Classrooms. You might recall Noah's feelings toward it from this posting on Facebook...

The day Noah has been dreading finally arrived....

Noah: We had dancing classroom today.
Me: How did it go?
Noah: Awkward.
Me: Why?
Noah: I had to touch two of them.
Me: Girls?
Noah: Yes. I actually had to dance with four but I only had to touch two. I kind of got use to it and then it was fun. We only had to touch with pancake hands.

It didn't take long before he warmed up to it, moved past pancake hands and  eventually came to love dancing. He will tell you he only likes the fast dances, Swing is his favorite, and not the slow ones. Sorry Waltz and Foxtrot. 

Side note: We were talking about the types of dances and I mentioned that I danced the Waltz in my 6th grade music program. Noah responded with, "You can remember back that far? All the way to the 1900s?"

Noah has enjoyed the dancing so much that he's interested in taking an advanced dancing class over the summer - unless it's at 8:00 on Saturday mornings. Hopefully it won't start until after we've been to the Farmer's Market. :)

The video below showcases the dances they learned. Noah would say that the Swing dance is a "nightmare" due to the fact that he's dancing with one of the three girls in his class that "didn't know the dances." He's harder to see in that one so I didn't really notice anything nightmarish but let me just say, he was not happy. When we got home though he did teach me the Swing dance steps, I pulled out my Swingers soundtrack for "Go Daddy-O," and we danced around the living room. Now that was fun.