Strawberries

It's that time of year again. Our strawberries are ripe and the kids love their daily hunt for all the new "red" strawberries. Of course it's all a bit competition to see who can find more (and I typically have to help Hailey.

Picking

Found one
Found a bunch

These look yummy

Now the fun begins

This is what it looks like when Tyler is done. I pointed out to him how much more strawberry Hailey was able to eat.....see just the greens stems a little above Tyler's nice rows....and he's doing much better now.

Happy 4th of July

The 4th was a long and wonderful day. It actually began the day prior with a trip with the kiddos to the nearby fireworks stand for some dangerous....popits and sparklers! We had a little practice in front of the house that evening in preparation for the party the next day. I was set to work the Kirkland Parade and was lucky enough to have Val and the kids join with a front row seat right where I was working. It was pretty cool to look over and see my family and to have my cute little girl come over to give me kisses and Ty bring me bites of apples to eat. A work bar-b-q afterwards filled everyone's bellies and then it was off to the park to burn off some candy induced energy before going home for the neighborhood bar-b-q and fireworks extravaganza. Hailey got a little nap in the middle of the day which kept her able to stay up till 1030pm without going totally nutts-oh. Both kids were clearly tuckered out the next day but all in all it was a pretty good birthday for America in the lives of the Quigglekids.

Notice Hailey covering the one ear while delivering the popits!

Ty getting a light from dad on his first ever sparkler!

Val and her 4th of July Love Buggy!

The Kirkland 4th of July Parade is on!

We got our spot staked out Dad!

Dad hard at work.

Shocking, I know ,that this was a favorite float of the kiddos.

I liked this one better. Hailey is still talking about the big duckie.

Mom and dad got some snuggle time while Ty chowed down cherries and Hailey wolfed down a hot dog.

This is the face when you combine eating a hot dog and loud firecrackers!

Skywriting with their sparklers.

Happy 4th of July From the Quigglekids!

Week 1 of Swimming

The weather has been cloudy and in the low 60s (with the sun peeking through every now again) for our morning classes. It really hasn't slowed the kids down too much though. It's looking like we will have nicer weather next week (fingers crossed).

Hailey waiting for her class to start on a slightly nicer day.

Tyler waiting for Hailey's class to finish

Hailey waiting for class one rainy morning

Tyler, cruising along on his back torpedo

Tyler's back torpedoes and backstrokes have been fun to watch this week. Turns out it's really hard to go in a straight line when you are looking up at the cloudy sky. I think he's used the indoor pool where he could atleast follow the ceiling lines as a point of reference.

crawl stroke

Hailey's back float (starfish). Not sure why she puts her head so far back. Does not look comfortable to me but it doesn't bother her.

Her classmates...she's the shortest of the bunch.

And of course she loves jumping in the deep end.

Summer or not

Hailey comes down every morning ready for summer and still most days as of late aren't quite summery.

Yesterday morning it looked like this outside

But Hailey looked like this....she was thrilled I was taking her picture.

She was slightly more photogenic later in the day eating strawberries.

Hailey's writing

Hailey got out her writing board yesterday and after writing Elmo asked how to spell "perfect" which is incredibly appropriate and telling for her and her personality

Nature Art

Both kids love going on "adventure"walks right now. There is a woodsy path at the bottom of our hill that goes all the way from out house up to Willis Tucker. It's a pretty good trek...maybe 1.5 miles one way (maybe a little less). So the other day the kids wanted to go for a walk and we just kept walking and we made it all the way to the park, played for a bit and then had to walk all the way back (they slept good that night). We took bags with us on our walk because Tyler loves collecting things....rocks, pine cones, sticks, leaves, you name it. And of course now Hailey likes collecting things too. The next day, Tyler and Hailey rummaged through their "treasures" (Hailey's was pretty much all sticks) and they decided they wanted to paint them. Here are the end results.

Finding the best sticks

Tyler started his with a miny container habitat (another thing he makes a lot of right now)
Tyler's "goods"

Hard at work
Tyler's finished project

Hailey's finished project (complete with rubber bug and beads)

Proud

Dave's Birthday cake

Dave's birthday was, well, a while ago now. But back in the middle of June we made him a birhtday cake and the kids were very excited to decorate it. Or perhaps I should say the kids got to sqeeze as much frosting on to the cake a possible. It ended up looking very colorful and fun in its own way.

Decorating

The finished product