Library Day
Because Wednesday was a holiday, we headed to the library a day early and in the afternoon instead of the morning and discovered that they have storytime then too! The upside was that this storytime had far fewer kids and both storytime and the children's section in general was therefore much less of a mad house. The downside--at least for Monkey and Bug--is that this librarian (a different one than usual) expected the kids to all participate in a round of Ring-around-the-Rosies. Goose was all about it, but for Monkey and Bug it was just an annoying interruption to an otherwise lovely story reading session and they bowed out of participating. They all enjoyed the craft though:

L-R: Bug, Monkey, and Goose
(painted popsicle sticks + construction paper squares + star stickers)

This week we came home with these books:
Moving Day
Cat's Colors
Butterflies
The Bugliest Bug
Dot & Jabber and the Big Bug Mystery
Renewed from last week:
Owl Lake
Chopsticks

Happy Fourth of July!
We celebrated the Fourth this year with a potluck cookout at their friend B's house. They had a couple of kiddie pools set up, a small swing set, and each kid brought their own riding toy to share. The kids got to play, the grown ups got to hang out, and everybody ate lots of good food.

This was the first year that the entourage got to stay up for fireworks. Fortunately, we can see the local big show from our street, and we told the girls if they could handle staying up late, they could watch with us. Miraculously enough they all made to 9:30 when the fireworks started! Monkey and Bug were incredibly excited and thought fireworks were just amazing. Goose heard a couple of booms and informed me that she was scared and wanted to be picked up. Goose and Monkey lasted 10 or 15 minutes, and Monkey decided she was just too tired and wanted to go to bed. I took the two of them to bed, and Bug stayed up with Daddy to see the rest of the show. She loved them!

Water Play
Our original plan had been to spend the morning of Daddy's extra day off at the pool, but I decided the entourage probably wasn't going to be up for that much excitement after staying up for all the excitement the night before. Instead we decide to do some water play in our own backyard. We finally tried out a tree-shaped inflatable sprinkler toy that Nana bought us a while back. Sorry, Nana, but it didn't go over well. It was just the right height to consistently spray Monkey and Bug in the face. Next we tried turning on the lawn sprinklers to see if they were low enough to be fun, and discovered that the one Mr. A replaced a month ago was accidently positioned to spray directly into the back door, which of course happened to be open at the moment it turned on. This scared everybody, and we opted to get out our tiny kiddie pool instead. The entourage had lots of fun with balls, buckets, shovels, and other sand toys. Goose also got out the chalks and discovered that coloring in spilled water makes very vibrant colors.

Saturday we tried the neighborhood pool again and had a great time. Monkey and Bug can now climb in and out of the pool (not on the steps). And today we discovered they are almost tall enough to stand in the shallow end. Goose had fun too--she still won't get back in her baby float, but she spent some time in her big sisters' floaties, and she loves jumping in!

Valymanisses
Monkey and Bug have taken the next step in pretend play and started making up their own creatures instead of just using characters from books and TV shows. The other night they went into great detail about Valymanisses, small giants who live in our backyard. Apparently Valymanisses can be defended against if one climbs on top of the climbing dome and roars at them. This causes them to shrink until you can barely see them and turns them into nice fairies. The nice Valymanisses are quite helpful: they make thunderstorms go away by licking the clouds with their very long tongues (that curl up like butterfly tongues when not in use). Pretty fascinating stuff.

Coloring Sheets
The entourage has completed quite a pile of coloring sheets this week. I found several free printable mandalas and other detailed pictures to color online that Monkey and Bug have been using to practice coloring in the the lines. Bug's skills are pretty impressive and Monkey is showing definite improvement. Goose wants to color too of course, and I usually give her plain paper or one with a simpler drawing on it. She cheerfully scribbles for a bit then brings it to me, asking, "Nice? Nice?"

Goose as a cow. She's been really into costumes lately. Too cute!