Holly has been begging for a bike for the past few months. She would ask for one every single day. This month, we finally got her one. It's been so fun to see her ride it! We have a great common-area porch right outside our door and we're the only ones who use it! Holly loves her bike, and she loves her "telmet." Also, her high socks kill me. Holly is so stinking cute.

Baby Henry is so handsome. I'm so glad he's finally here!

Shortly after we moved in to our newest place, I finally did something I've been meaning to do for ages, and that's lay a couple coats of chalkboard paint on the girls' table. It's an ikea kids' table, but we found it for $4 (+ a chair) at a thrift store back when we lived in Denver. Holly helped me with the first coat, which she loved and she's so proud of her little self. 

Then, when it had dried for long enough, the girls were each given a piece of chalk. And golly miss Molly! I could not handle the mess. They scribbled and then rubbed it with their hands. I was envisioning drawing map-like illustrations, you know roads and trees. But the girls just went wild. And all the sudden my cute, clever idea was much less cute and clever. And while chalk wipes up easily, my children don't seem to wash it off their hands and arms before they go and touch seemingly everything. So maybe we'll just look like cool and trendy parents and never hand our children chalk indoors. 

Last week, we made lacing boards from a sheet of peg board that I purchased at Home Depot. This project taught me that Holly is more of a fine artist. She's not really into white-washing things, she wants to leave a mark. And I also learned that she's going to need a little bit of help learning how to lace. She likes to watch me sew and she helps me with the pins from time to time, but lacing is a whole 'nother story. I need to remember to throw one or two in her backpack for church on Sundays. Overall this was a fun project. It made a ton of boards! We need to gift some!

So far this summer school has been so much fun! I've loved finding ideas and executing them. We're going to have such a great time!

 

The full how-to can be found here.

Greta's favorite things to play with are the cart and her baby doll. When she gets up in the morning or after a nap, she heads straight to her cart and takes inventory. She'll add things here or there; a stuffed penguin, a brush, some little toys. Basically she adds whatever suits her mood. She also loves to rearrange all her little belongings. And then she pushes that cart around and curses anything that gets in her way. She has a lot of attitude and determination!