We have a house!

We finally closed on our new house today. It has taken such a long time to get to this point (at least that is the way I feel). We had our "final" walk through last Thursday and there was quite a list of things for the builder to finish and touch up before closing. Yesterday, we did another "final" walk through with our builder and there were still items (like replacing a bathroom mirror, touch-up paint, grouting missed spots, rewiring an AC fan, repairing broken baseboard, and few other things) that needed to be finished. Our builder said he would have everything complete by noon today. After we signed the papers and got the key this morning, we went to the house. There were still workers in the house. My husband was not very pleased because he had planned on having a family picnic on the back porch to commemorate the first day it belonged to us. We did not do that because I could not imagine sitting out back and eating with people watching us while they cleaned windows and put the barbeque together. We got a call from the builder at 4:45 to say that they were done and the workers were leaving.

I am so glad the building process has come to an end. I am ready to move in. We are moving some things over during the next few days and then will move the bigger stuff over the weekend. It will be a busy week. During the next few days we have scheduled: painters, garage door replacement, pool table delivery & installation, wallpaper hanging, refrigerator delivery, installation of blinds & plantation shutters, new furniture delivery, phone & internet hook-up, and I am sure I am forgetting a few things. I wish I could fast forward about three weeks and see how it all comes together.

Father's Day Recap

Boogs was very excited for Father's Day to finally arrive. He has been working on a couple of projects during the past couple of weeks.

Flame duct tape on photo frame.

My cuties!

Boogs' robot prototype.

Special book for Daddy.

Boogs sweet smile of pride when he gave his daddy his creations was priceless. We went out for a family breakfast, watched an episode of Mythbusters, completed another project on the circuit board, and then dropped Boogs off for a week with his grandparents. It was a good day.

Typhoon/Marlins Swim Meet

Boogs participated in his second swim meet today. He was signed up for the 25 yard freestyle, 25 yard backstroke, and the 25 yard butterfly. Shortly after we checked in, they added him to the freestyle relay. He  loves to swim and was very happy to be added to the "swim race with my friends". I was worried that adding on a 4th swim would be too much for him, but it was no problem at all. The cutest thing at today's meet happened during the 25 yard backstroke for 6 and under boys. One of the other kiddos got turned around in his lane. He kept on swimming and ended up going all the way back to the starting block instead of to the finish. Here are the pics from the meet:

Start of freestyle.

Ready bench, no tears this time.

Last min. coaching before backstroke.

Backstroke.

    

Boogs is ready to go for the butterfly.
His "twin" is in the background.

He forgot what stroke he was doing,
but he made it to the end of the lane.

Almost done with the butterfly.

Dancing with his friend.

Boogs' latest "cool dance move".

Busy Month

I can't believe we are halfway through June! This month is flying by. I can't wait to get into the new house. We are keeping very busy. Everyday is filled to capacity with swimming, playdates, birthday parties, vacation bible school, workouts, swim team practice, pool playdates, bouncy houses, swim meets, lunches with friends, trips to the farmer's market, kindergarten get-togethers at Boogs' new school, new house errands and so many other things. Sometimes we go swimming three times a day. I think I need a vacation from my summer vacation. I think I am scheduling so many activities because I can not stand being cooped up in this little apartment all day long. When we are home, these are the kinds of things we are doing:

Splash ball target practice.

Craft making.

Wearing clothes upside down.                

Boogs' Vocabulary

Boogs' vocabulary this past week has been unbelievable. He has correctly used harvest, dispense, plausible, sweltering, convenient, barricade, erupt, and plump, among others. I have been scribbling down what he has been saying because it is too cute. I think he has a better vocabulary than I do. He is an amazing 5-year-old. Boogs says so many things that I think I will remember at the time, but then later I don't. Here are some that I wrote down. 
"In Abbott and Costello, Costello is the short plump one, right?"
"Momma, come help me. My faucet will only dispense hot water."
"Momma, hurry up and put the air conditioner on. I am sweltering back here."
"I am going to put my army men behind the barricade so you can't see them."
"Will it be convenient to get a slushy from Sonic, now?"
"I would like to harvest more fennel and anise. They are yummy herbs."
"If we throw water down a volcano, thick smoke will erupt with the lava."
"Is it plausible that a bee could fly higher than a kite on a really big string?"

Drawing

When Boogs woke up yesterday, he wanted to play "bat & lion friends". We ran around chasing each other for a while and then I asked if he would like to draw a picture of his bat. He did. He even let me copy his design so we could fly together. Then he used his bat picture like a puppet.

Next, he decided to draw a lion. Boogs told me that he could not figure out how to draw a lion. I am reading "The Wizard of Oz" to Boogs for our bedtime chapter book. We got the book out and looked at the Cowardly Lion for drawing inspiration. That led to drawing a few scenes from our story. It is so much fun to hang out with him!

First Swim Meet

It is not quite 2 pm and it has already been a very long day. Boogs decided he wanted to participate in a swim meet for the Typhoons. So, we had to get up and leave the apartment by 5:40 this morning. I have never had to wake Boogs up for anything before today. He is always such an early riser (5:45 - 6:15) that he usually wakes me up. He was NOT happy and told me that I was making him angry by messing with his sleep. Once we got to the pool, he was fine. He swam three heats today - 25 meter freestyle, 25 meter backstroke, and 25 meter breaststroke. It was so much fun to watch the little kiddos swim. I was a lane timer, so I did not see much of Boogs for the three hours we were at the pool. He swam his freestyle pretty well. He was good on his backstroke. But, the breaststroke was a mess. He complained and cried about the coach assigning him the breaststroke. He said, "The kick on the breaststroke makes me feel like I am doing the splits. I hate it." Poor little guy. He did it anyway. He did not hear the buzzer for the start of the race, so he jumped in at least a quarter length behind everyone else. Boogs finished his 25 meters about 3 minutes after the other 7 competitors were finished. The announcer did not even see him still struggling his way down the lane and almost started the next heat on top of Boogs. His lane timer had to yell and wave his arm to get the announcer to stop the start of the next heat. Everyone had to wait for Boogs to finish. By the time he had a quarter of his swim left, at least 50 people were calling his name and shouting encouragement to him. It was sweet and sad at the same time.

Freestyle

Finishing the freestyle.

Upset on ready bench before breaststroke.

Last minute breaststroke advice.

Swimming slowly to the finish.

Almost there, just need a two-handed touch.

Swimming the backstroke a little sideways .

Boogs and his sweet friend,
who he calls "the girl of my dreams".

After he got out of the pool, his friend came over to him and patted him on the back. Boogs told her he had been really anxious about being able to swim the breaststroke. She said, "It's okay. I know how you feel. I was nervous about swimming the butterfly. We both did it." It was the cutest thing, ever.

Diving Board

Boogs is still enjoying swim team. I thought he would get tired of going to practice every day. He often asked to go swimming during the day before his swim practice. He is a little fish. Yesterday, the kiddos were able to jump off the diving board after practice. I was really surprised that Boogs jumped. He even got back in line to jump a second time. I missed getting a picture of his first jump. He had his cheeks puffed out with air and bicycled his legs before he hit the water.  On his second jump, he tried to do a cannonball.

It is a little after 5 a.m. right now. I need to go get Boogs up so we can leave for his first swim team meet. He will be swimming in three events today - freestyle, backstroke, and breaststroke.

School Preparation

A friend of mine asked for my lesson plans for the past few summers that I have held preschool summer camp at my house. I dug around in some of the boxes in storage and found a few things for her, but could not find the spiral notebook that I wrote out my plans in for the past three summers. While I was digging, I did find a few things for Boogs and I to work on. We brought the calendar and the calendar song back into our routine and have added a write-on/wipe-off frog clock into our calendar routine each morning. I also found a set of picture cards and foam letters that we played with last year. The words are simple c-v-c (consonant-vowel-consonant) words that Boogs can easily sound out and spell. He had fun spelling the words and then later matching up the rhyming words.

I am trying to get him to want to write more. His pencil control is very shaky. We have been doing mazes and connect-the-dot activities to help with this. We have also started making books again. He happily wrote the title to his latest book "My Book About Robots." I helped him with hand control on the word "robot" by tapping his hands to keep the letters smaller. He also wanted to write page numbers on each page. I am trying to find fun writing/fine motor control activities to get him interested and participating in writing.

Boogs' Hair

I asked Boogs last week if he wanted to get a haircut or wait a little longer. His response, "Does my hair look like a mop?" When I answered no, he said, "Oh, then I will wait to get my hair cut until it looks like a mop." We went ahead and got it cut a couple of days later. Boogs' beautiful blonde hair is starting to change. Right now, he has about 6 brown hairs growing out of the hair swirl on the back of his head. I will be so sad when he looses all that blonde hair.  My father still has white-blonde hair. Boogs' dad told me his hair was white-blonde until he was about ten. I wonder what color his hair will eventually be.

You can just barely see a few dark hairs.

First haircut in big boy chair.

Ready for the hot summer.