Alex is 6!

My sweet lil' Man is six today! Alexander Adam is sweet as pie.  He loves life and everyone in it!  He enjoys the company of his siblings, building legos, listening to audiobooks, detailing land of cubes stories, doing experiments, calculating math problems, telling stories, drawing and remembering Pop Pop.  Alex loves to eat, especially meat! He can swim on his own and dives down deep. Alex always has a smile, gives hugs freely and tells us "I love you with all my heart!"

Alex brings so much joy and happiness to our family!  His love and generous heart are a gift to us all.

Wet and Wild

We decided to cool off in a different creek in Chapel Hill. The kids convinced me that the floats would be a perfect addition and they were right! Finn played so hard - digging, running, following the kids in the creek! We spent three hours hiking and splashing in the water. 

 

 

New Fairy in Town

You never know what might happen if you threaten suggest tossing old sticks and clay bricks...

two houses, a fairy pool and statue of me (note the bun and wings😂) make the fairy village more complete. A tiny little frog even hopped in and out of the houses while we were working!

Wolf's Birthday

Alex announced it was his lovey's birthday, so we all sprang into party planning mode! Friends, gifts, snacks and cake made for a magnificent celebration! 

Happy Birthday Wolf!  

Thinking Thursday

On Thursdays, each kiddo get a new book.  They have a week to read their book and trade with one another.  By accident, this has been a very popular addition to our summer! Thanks to Cousin Emma, Coby, Aunt Liz and the Battle of the Books lists, we have had quite an awesome selection for all the readers in this house!

In addition to reading their books this week, we had rainy weather so we found some virtual escape rooms!  We had to do some extra thinking but it was a lot of fun. Here are links to the two we did this week!

Harry Potter Virtual Escape Room

Space Explorer Training

Eno - Take 4

This week we brought our tubes to the river - EXCELLENT CHOICE!!! Anna finally caught the baby turtle she has been trying to catch all summer.

Dollar Words

On Math Mondays, we work on math skills.  This week, we had a fun challenge we learned about in a book called Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea.  The goal is to find words that add up to 100 (or $1.00) using the key A=1, B=2, C=3 etc.!  The kids had a time limit and could not use any of the dollar words from the book and came up with exactly ONE word - TELEPHONE! Alex had a modification in that he picked site words and had to add to calculate their totals.  It was a great challenge for all and they hardly knew they were doing math. :)

Water Works

Whatever Works is my motto this summer!  

Water balloons definitely work!

 

Green Bean

A cute new friend for a day!

 I know we have a lot of these friends for a day, but I really liked this little guy's name - Green Bean!!!

Eno - Take 3

We took another field trip to the Eno this week.  We had a great time in all our usual spots and then we decided to build water slides with rocks.  Hopefully, they will be there when we return next time (possibly with even more work done) with our tubes!

Education NC

In May, the kids and I were interviewed for a story about the remote learning happening through the Specials teachers at Mills Park Elementary School.  In June, the article was published in EducationNC by Taylor Shain.   Taylor Shain is a documentary filmaker and video producer with EducationNC. 

The article is HERE

The video is HERE

Backyard Bonanza

Backyard games extended to the front!  The afternoon started with car washing - goal was to get as wet as possible and maybe clean the car!  We then took a breather with popsicles by the pool😂 (this 11-year old pool makes an random appearance each summer). Next, a sidewalk chalk competition which we had cousin Leo and Grandma Mary Judge - winner got a milkshake with our movie.  Then there was a water balloon fight! We wrapped up the festivities with a competition to see who find the most water bombs - winner got to choose the movie!