Summer Break Week 1 - Dragons

This summer I'm trying something new.  Now that the boys are a little older, there's a lot more things I can do with them.  But in addition to outings, I wanted to try and keep some academics in our activities (while disguising them as something more fun).  So we're doing themed weeks, where some of our outings and activities we do during the day will all have the same theme.  This first week our theme was dragons.  We played a game where I hid easter eggs (some one color, some different color on top and bottom) and then gave the boys pictures of dragons.  The boys then had to find the egg that matched the dragon's coloring. The boys both loved this game, especially Gavin.  We spent over an hour playing different variations of the game.  We also made our own dragons by painting toilet paper tubes and connecting them together.  And over the weekend, we went to see the movie "How to Train Your Dragon 2."

I didn't get a lot of pictures of our dragon activities, but we did a lot of other things this week as well.  Take a look!

We went to the Round Lake Children's Museum this week, and we go there a lot, so I rarely take pictures anymore.  But I just love the expression on Dec's face paired with that crazy hat!

 The kids love to help me bake, so when the bananas looked like they might turn on us, we decided to make banana chocolate chip muffins.  I took video of this as well, because the pictures don't really do justice to the giant mess these kiddos made.  Gavin even took flour and patted it all over his face, much to Declan's delight!

 Showing off his messiness.

 Painting dragons.

 Declan really liked using all the colors, and he looks so cute in Mommy's old t-shirt as his smock.

 Dec doing some reading while I walk him down Midlothian to watch the cars.  Gavin has camp two mornings a week so Declan and I get the chance to hang out just the two of us.  We spend a lot of this time just going on walks, playing at the park, or running errands.

 On today's walk we saw a worm crawling across the path.  Declan was enamored with the worm and we watched it for a good ten minutes.  He even asked me to take this picture of him with the worm.

 The walking path by our house has a part that faces out to a busy road.  Dec likes to sit on the bench and just watch the cars go by.  He loved to do this last year too, so I wasn't sure if he would have "grown out of" this passion or not.

 As you can tell from the worm picture, Declan really likes nature as well.  We spent a lot of time watching the ducks, geese and crane that were in the pond on this morning.

 Declan has become a really good climber.  We try to hit up new parks and whenever we do, Declan always challenges himself to climb everything there.  This crazy rope structure is actually at our neighborhood park, but because Dec is a little short for his age, he can't get to far up this rope course...yet.

 Gavin had been asking to make smores, so here he is enjoying his first one!  Dec wasn't too into them (both the boys don't like eating messy foods, although Gavin has obviously gotten better at dealing with that).

 We also went strawberry picking!  Last year the boys weren't into picking the strawberries at all, and the crop wasn't very good.  This year the berries looked great and both boys really enjoyed it.  Gavin liked learning from the farmer how to look for strawberries and he did a great job of evaluating the berries before picking a good one.

 Gav showing off one of his picks.

 Declan wasn't as into the picking process because that got in the way of eating all the strawberries.  We just discovered that Declan loves strawberries, and he ate at least a dozen while we were out in the field picking!

 Might be hard to tell here but he has a mouth full of strawberry!

 After picking our strawberries, we stopped in the farm shop for some fresh donuts.  The kids decided that we were having a "donut picnic."

 The farm also has an area with attractions for the kids:  a petting zoo, slides, tractors to climb on, a big jumpy thing, etc.  Here the boys are meeting Norman, a cow that was only 10 days old!

 Dec looks like he is running in fear here, but both the boys really loved the goats.

 This is the big jumpy thing they have, its pretty fun, and Dec had more fun jumping and landing on his butt then just continuing to bounce.

 Dec about to slide down a very tall tunnel slide.  He HATED it and screamed and cried, but then asked me to go up again with him.  So I did and we went down a different slide, and he screamed and cried again, so that was the end of that :)

 Gav on the other hand LOVED the giant slides and went down over and over.

Catching Up

Well, summer break has returned which means lots of fun adventures for the Gillespie boys!  And with summer break comes just a little bit of free time for me, so that I can post the occasional blog about all our adventures.

The polar vortex really screwed up our school calendar this year, so we've only been on break for a week at this point, but we've managed to do a lot of fun things already.  I'll actually use this post to show off some pics from activities we did before school ended, and then post a Week 1 blog as well (mainly because I just have too many pics to put in one post!).

A few weekends ago, Ryan's cousin and his family stayed with us and we had a great time!  Our families went to Great America and Brookfield Zoo.

This was our first trip to Six Flags with the boys.  Here's Gav on his very first ride there, the double decker carousel.  We of course rode on the top level.

 Daddy and Declan on the carousel.  Dec wasn't as enthusiastic about the rides as Gavin was, but he did really enjoy the merry go round.

 Enjoying another ride in one of the little kid areas.

 Cruisin'

 Gav chauffered us around the crazy cars track.

 Selfie of Gav and I on the airplane ride.

 Gavin was obsessed with seeing as many characters as possible, which is funny since we haven't watched Bugs Bunny cartoons so he doesn't even know who these characters are!

 Just before Gavin's first ride on a "big boy" roller coaster, the Whizzer!

 When we asked Gavin how he felt after the Whizzer, he told us "my tummy feels like this" and then he made this face!  But he still said he liked it and he went on the Jetsons roller coaster later.

 Pettit cousins taking an ice cream break.

 Enjoying the boat ride is some nasty looking water that I had to plead with Declan not to touch.

 Gav wanted me to be in this picture with him and Scooby Doo.

 If you look closely, you can see Ryan and Gavin in the fourth car back.  This was the Jetsons roller coaster.

 Meeting Sylvester...

 ...and Daffy

 Declan was not nearly as trusting of the characters, so it took some convincing to get him to take this pic.  I however seem to be enjoying myself.

 Gav and Tweety Bird.

 The kids had a blast at Great America.  We got there at 10:30 and didn't leave til 5, which is quite a long day for a 4 and 2 year old.  

 We also went to the zoo with our "cousins."  Gavin is really into maps lately, and he was loving navigating our group around the zoo.

 Gav and Ella, our navigators.

We didn't take a lot of pics at the zoo because it was just Janelle and I with the five kids (the dads were golfing).  So although we had a ton of fun, we were too busy having fun to stop for pictures!

4th of July

As we have for the past few years, we headed out to Geneseo for the 4th of July.  "Windmill" grandma and grandpa usually throw a party on the 3rd when Geneseo has their fireworks, and we can watch the fireworks from their driveway, so it's ideal for people like us with little kids.  Gav had a great time playing with all his cousins and other young family members, and Declan got in on the fun too.  Like last year, Gavin loved the fireworks.  Declan was asleep last year, but this year he managed to stay up for them.  He wasn't too sure about them, and you'll see in the pics what happened as the night went on!

 

I love this pic because clearly we asked Gavin to say cheese and take a pic, and although he obliged, he wanted to make sure he didn't miss the start of the fireworks!

 Gavin can't contain his excitement over that firework!

 We have found that blankies are key for the first few firework watching experiences!

 A good artsy shot by Daddy showing Gav and grandpa watching the firework display.

 And he's out.  I can't believe Dec fell asleep during the firework display!  The boys were so tired the next morning that after waking up at their normal time (6am, sigh) they both knocked out for an almost 3 hour morning nap.  Unheard of in our house!

 Great shot of 4 of the 5 Gillespie cousins and our friend Jonah!

 Normally on the 4th we go to Pork in the Park for lunch.  We tried that this year but the line was insanely long and we quickly and wisely gave up on that and headed to the Dudas for a bbq and pool party!  Here Gav is enjoying the kid's pool (after a little convincing to get in and try it!)

 A cool shot of Gav walking under the waterfall.

 Declan and I hanging out in the kiddie pool.  Dec actually loved swimming too and he and I spent most of our time in the adult pool.  I think he currently prefers me holding him in about 3-4 feet of water because that's what we do for swim lessons.  On this day I sang Wheels on the Bus to him about 30 times (while doing the motions geared towards "swimming").

 Gav's other favorite game in the pool this day: piling toys on the water fountain!

 

 

Gavin and Declan spent the next few days with windmill grandma and grandpa while Ry and I spent some time at a casino just outside Iowa City.  As they always do, grandma and grandpa took great care of the boys and did tons of fun things with them.  They went to the Niabi Zoo, Happy Joes, played in the inflatable pool, trips to the park and outings to watch baseball games.  They are such lucky boys (and so are Ry and I to have such awesome babysitters!).