The kids and I ended the summer with a bang this year! We didn't do anything extraordinary, but we just loaded our days with family fun together. It was a bit tricky trying to beat the heat, but we survived the sweltering degrees and humidity. If we did get outside, we played early in the morning. We mostly stayed around the house at our personal hot spot...
the park :). Although, we did venture to an outdoor museum exhibit that was pretty neat at The Contemporary Austin. It was a sculpture made out of rope all knotted. It looked like a large snake slithering around different levels and even around the lake.
The kids had a fun time exploring the sculpture and we even went on a nature walk around the lake before we left. Since most days were scorching, I tried to find indoor adventures. We hit up our favorite toy store, Terra Toys, for some free play time.
There are little pockets all around the store for the kids to play and mine absolutely love hanging out there playing with a variety of toys we don't have at home. My favorite is watching Max play with hoola hoops...he thinks they are the most fun :)! We took turns having play dates at friends' houses, but did splurge one day with Tanner so we could check out the bounce houses...
For the most part, we did our play time indoors around the house. Thankfully our munchkins have amazing imaginations and don't ever get bored...they seem to always find something to play with :).
Of course we still have our squabbles, but Zoe is getting better at actually trying to play with Kason rather than being a bandit and just taking off with his goodies.
As for Max, he is always right there with us...he just doesn't always get into the picture. It's been fun to see him really joining in with us more and trying to be more involved rather than seclude himself. I love watching Zoe play with him recently, like the other day when she decided to play beauty shop...
As you can see, Max thought it was hilarious! He has really been soaking up the attention they are giving him and it is making this momma's heart just beam. Of course we had our share of mommy school activities that I've blogged about as well as craft time with play dough, coloring, and painting.
This particular day Kason started to tattle tell on Zoe how she was only painting her hands and arm, not her paper any more (which is funny since I was sitting right beside him at the table watching them...like I didn't see it). Anyway, I told him who cares, that is what's fun about art...it's a free expression. He smirked and asked if he could do the same thing once he finished all his artwork...
and you guessed right, I said you bet! Therefore, Zoe painted his hand and arm as well...hahaha...it was so much fun to watch them giggle together like they were "getting away with something". Gotta love crayola washables :). We had a lot of fun on Wednesday nights this summer. Westover had family events all summer which was a nice change since Daniel is usually off-site on Wednesdays and it's just the kids and I at the building. The children's ministers put on a Frozen sing-a-long night...
there was even a church-wide kick ball tournament...
with bounce houses and snow cones for the kids...
yep, we love it here! Of course one favorite way for the Clayton Crew to beat the heat is by hitting up the movies...
Daniel and I are serious movie junkies but we have to thank Mimi and Doc for this trip. They treated Kason to see Planes Fire and Rescue for our last family fun day before school started. Another special treat before school was that Doc, my dad, came to stay with Max the Saturday before the first day of school so we could take the kids for one last hoorah...
Kason has been begging to go ride the water slides at the Aquatica side of Sea World. He would only ride this one ride with Daniel and I...it was pretty cool because at the end of the ride we got to float under a tunnel with stingrays and fish swimming around us.
I know we will have many summers before us with kids out of school and plenty of time to play together, but these last days of this particular summer felt like closure. Like we were closing a chapter of our lives and getting ready to start a new adventure. These memories will hold a special place in my heart as we ended this chapter of just the four of us spending all our week days together playing, snuggling, laughing, squabbling, hugging, rough housing, singing, learning...this list can go on and on. What a joy and absolute blessing to be a stay at home mom to these three munchkins...there is no other crew I would rather beat the heat with during these last few days of summer fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment