I picked John up from his summer "camp" yesterday and came straight home so I could finish my lunch. John's been at a preschool camp all week at the church where he goes to school. And he's learned all kinds of new songs. I'll need to make some more videos! But, let me get back on track. We came home and I ate. About 1:25p the sky opened up. We'd seen the darkening sky, but in this instance, we actually got rain. And lots of it! Almost 1 inch fell over about a half hour. The bad news is that a lot of that ran off.
The good news is John got to play in it and I got some photos!
This is how it started. Since it hasn't rained in ages (at least at our house!), the gutters were all full of tree junk. So to the right of the doorway the water spilled over the gutter by a lot. So John would stick his hands in there and before too long, he had water running down his arm and his shirt was partially soaked. At that point, I figured, "what the heck!" and let him get out in it all he wanted.
He did take a break or two.
And I got a serious photo or two.
And then he went out some more. I had to draw the line when he wanted to stand in the puddles of water. I was concerned about ants. We've seen quite a few mounds around and I didn't want the floaters in search of dry John, I mean, land.
I've always thought his short hair looks cool when wet. What a swirl!
And he thought it was cool that he could make footprints on the concrete, multiple times. He usually only gets one or two when he steps out of the tub.
After a nice evening stroll last night, John wasn't ready to come inside just yet. So we went out back to play a bit. And I could resist the lovely light and the 50 mm lens. Oh, how I love it! I should use it more, but I get lazy and don't bother to put it on the camera. Shame on me!
After playing with the chalk, John decide he'd work on his basketball skills. He's been playing Wii basketball. I think he realized yesterday, that there's more to the game than what you see on the Wii. He was making great aim at the basket, but he just wasn't taking distance to the basket into account.
He looks pretty serious about his attempt here, huh?
He decided that his slide and his car needed some washing because it had bird poop on it. And so he pestered us until he could finally wash it off. We'd been watered some of the poor stressed trees in the backyard.
He just thought it was the best to be able to control the hose!
Then he started acting silly and had to be warned to NOT get the camera wet. That would have been bad. Very bad. Or maybe not. ;)
We went to the Houston Children's Museum with our friends J & B (and S, too) on Friday. Aside from the seemingly endless number of kids that were there, we had a great time. One of the first places we went was Kidtropolis, which consisted of a town full of places to explore. Everything was hands on. Of course, John's favorite part was driving the vehicles. How he managed to find his way to the driver's seat of the ambulance, I'm not sure. There were tons of camp groups of older kids there. But he held his own. I expected to find him a mess of tears in the crowds, but he was just fine.
Then he went shopping at the grocery store. He selected a nice fish, some cheese and a cantalope (that almost didn't fit in the basket!). Then he "paid" for his food.
After leaving the city, we went to the Invention area. We made a rocket and launched it in the neat launch chamber they have.
And then we built a hot air ballon and launched it in the wind cylinder. Check out the video!
After eating a picnic lunch, we went outdoors to the Waterworks area. There were lots of places to shoot water, build boats and play with flowing water. Here the boys are playing with the lock system. John was a bit disappointed that he couldn't actually splash in the water, but that didn't keep him was getting wet enough. Without arranging prior, J and I managed to dress both the older boys in orange which made for an easy way to identify them in the crowds. Unfortunately, after we were done with water and changed them, it was much more difficult to keep and eye on them.
Not to be missing any of the vehicles, John made his way into the front of this old VW van that was on display. I couldn't help but think of my brother, his old van and it's demise and had to tell the story to J as the boys played.
It was a fun day and I think we'll try to go back again, maybe when there aren't so many kids. But, I think our next museum will be the Natural History Museum where thay have dinosaurs. John's been asking me and B thought that would be fun, too. They were ready to go that day, but we'd had enough fun for one day.
While there was a large play structure right above him, most of his time was spent in the rocks with his sand toys. And I heard no complaining. He did take a break to swing for a few minutes. Even while all the other boys were climbing, he was enjoying digging. Until the van loads of kids from a daycare/camp showed up. He was totally done then, feeling like he was going to be swallowed up by them!
After our errands this morning, we went to the bowling alley. I think the last time we bowled was at least a year ago (or maybe longer?). John was pretty excited when I told him where we were going, although for at least one minute he made me think he would have rather stayed home and played on the computer! You know, bowling isn't cheap these days. But on Tuesdays they run a special. And we discovered that they have other, better specials going on this summer. So this won't be our only trip to the alley this summer. And besides, we aren't paying tuition for preschool right now so we can splurge a bit this summer.
We bowled four games together. After about 1 games worth, my arm started to hurt. I guess Wii Bowling doesn't really prepare you for swinging an eight pound ball. John used two methods. I think he liked this one the best because he didn't have to wait forever to see his ball actually hit the pins. In fact John called this ramp the "speeder."
This method resulted in a much longer wait to see how many pins you'd actually knocked down. He was patient enough. In all our games we only made one strike and two spares. But we broke 100 in one of the games! Regardless of the score, we both had some fun!
Last week, I bought some clippers with the intent to save a few dollars and cut my son's hair (oh, and trim up the hubby's neck). I spent about $40 for the two sets of clippers (one regular and one mini) and one small cape, which can be used for superhero play when not in "salon" use. At the going rate of $18.95 (not including tip) I can break even in a couple of months.
John was pretty tolerable of his mom that was using clippers for the first time. I only made two kinda bald spots, right behind each ear when I tried to use the ear tapers (I knew after the first side and decided to make it symmetrical). They didn't mesh so well with the number 5 guard I was using. Oops! I will say that the ladies at the kiddie salon make it look easier than it is. I also discovered that John has a little patch of hair above the right side of his forehead that grows in a different direction. So while his "bangs" don't look so straight, they are in theory. My BFF wasn't so sure of my response when she questioned it. More importantly, my hubby was proud of his wife and thought she did a good job for her first haircut. And JHP - he keeps saying he doesn't have any hair left, when he really does. Oh, and he really likes the cape!
John has recently started singing songs more completely than he has in the past. Since he got to actually participate in VBS this year (as opposed to just hanging in the nursery), he's picked up some new songs to sing. Even his instructor (and my friend) Dawn was surprised at how quickly he picked up the words to these songs. Here's a song about good little ducks that obey their Mommy.
And here's another about a fuzzy little caterpillar. When he sings it normally, it's just so sweet. But hold on to your seat, he's going to go through it this time pretty quickly.
John had lots of fun at VBS this year. He totally got into all the activities, the lessons and the songs. And I think he really enjoyed hanging with a bunch of kids his age. I'm sure he's missed school although he hasn't asked about it. But of course, when you get a bunch of kids together, sickness always tends to happen. And he caught it on Tuesday. He's such a healthy kid that it didn't keep him down for long. When others were enjoying the stomach virus for a couple of days, his lasted about 3-4 hours and then he was eating again (and keeping it down). I kept him isolated from the other kids that day while I worked my "job". He didn't complain about getting to watch his DVD player non-stop for 3 hours.
One of the few photos I have of just John. (I want to be careful about posting photos of other kids without permission.) Here he was working on his body outline with the words "God made John". I had to laugh when I looked a little closer at this photo. John is drawing one of his "creatures" on his poster. While he hasn't launch full scale into drawing lots of things, he does routinely draw "creatures." He learned the shapes from one of his games on his Leapster.
On Monday, we had to work much later after the close of VBS to get things straightened out for Tuesday. While I was typing away at the computer and the others were straightening out paperwork, John and his friend K were rocking out on the Sanctuary stage to the music playing in their heads. They found some cool props (and even a real microphone) to get their performance moving. They'd seen adults and teens up on stage that morning and were just thrilled to get the chance to be up there themselves. Surprisingly, they were totally occupied and content for the duration of the 1 and a half hours or so it took us to get our work done.
For our opening sessions, we gathered in the Sanctuary, The Pre-K groups joined us. Being in the youngest group, John and K got to sit on the front row, making it real easy for them to get up and dance along with the music.
Our Children's and Family Ministries Director, Lee Ann would walk around during the songs and allow the kids to sing in the microphone. John even got a chance. As you can tell, John LOVED it. He's such a ham! K respectfully declined the opportunity. I don't blame her. I'd have passed, too.
One thing I don't want to forget is how John was all about the girls at VBS. He had great fun with K all week. She was in his class. And they'd often hang out and play afterward while the mommies did their work. For the puppet show Thursday night John sat next to K and he'd lean over every so often and put his arm around her, giving her a squeeze as they sat on the floor together. She tolerated him, but was more interested in the show than him. And then there were the older girls. His VBS teachers had some older kids they were looking after and they would often come to their room after VBS was over and before I picked John up. And never fail, he'd always be in some girl's arms. He's such a charmer and they all fell right into that trap. He totally loved the attention! It reminded me of when the neighbor girls used to come to visit a couple of summers ago. Too bad they don't live next door anymore!
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