It's no secret we love the summer months here. After all, Camryn's middle name is Summer for a reason! All our birthdays fall in the summer, this season always feels more care free to me, and I love all the fond memories summer conjures up. We spent the first day of one of my favorite summer months sticking with the whole laid back and care free vibe at the library and hanging out at home. We headed to the library for what we thought would be our normal, fun story time. When we got there, though, we stumbled right into a big library reading summer party! Turns out they don't do story time in August, but we happened upon something even better instead. I was late in the game and didn't realize 1 year-olds could register and be apart of their summer reading program. I felt bad I was unaware of it all but I know now you can't be too young and will be all over that for them next summer at our library. Among other fun things in the program, you get to pick out a free book at the party we were at for simply logging in 8 hours of reading. 8 hours? Seriously? We do that in like a matter of weeks at this house. Piece of cake next year. Anyway, we were going about our business picking out books to check out and having fun with all their party festivities, when one of the nice librarians who does our story time recognized us and registered us right there on the spot--and gave Cole and Camryn completion stamps for our 8+ hours of reading this summer right then and there! In addition to the story times she remembered Cole and Cam from, she was so nice and commented how she's seen us there most every week this summer picking out books--and how she notices Camryn having her own lengthy reading times in the board book section every time we're there. She said she had no doubt we'd done more than the "required" amount of reading this summer! So nice! So off we went into the special room to go pick out our own free books to take home. There were tons of tables of books, 3 long ones in particular had books geared right for Cam and Cole. Camryn was in heaven looking at all the books laid out in front of her. Cole, excited too but ready to get back to the magician, picked out a farm book and grew impatient while Camryn kept picking up book after book trying to decide. She'd even sit down right in the middle of the room and start going through the pages of some--then putting it back to grab another instead. She finally settled on a dinosaur book. Shocker. They got their books officially stamped and then went back into the main library for more fun.
There was a lot going on, so unfortunately my pictures are blurry and didn't turn out the greatest to capture their fun times as well as I hoped. But here we are with our new books...
There was a fun craft table where you could decorate stars that they got into. There was also a face painting table next to this, but I (thankfully) steered them away. Kind of scared of what all we'd get face paint on the rest of the day--Besides getting all over them, I could just picture the inside of our car, or our carpet, or my clothes with smeared paint all over it!
Cole was really into this magician. ?? He was loud and animated so I'm sure that was fun for all the kids. You can see the back of them. Cole was really into, but kind of timid so sticking closer to me. Cam is up more at the front--she had to get right in there to see! Afterwards, the magician gave gold coins to all the kids. Cole was so cute and sweet. He wanted one so bad, you could tell, but you had to go stand in line and go right up to the magician guy to get the coin. He kept looking at me then looking over at the big hat they were in. He was relieved when I held his hand and walked up with him. He had such a smile on his face waiting and then getting one! Then he said quietly "Sissy" and held his hand out for another one. I told the magician he was getting one for his sister (who suddenly became shy again and was burrowed, "hiding" her head in my shoulder while I held her). I was so impressed with that from Cole!--That he immediately wanted to get one for Camryn right after he got his. Sweet Boy.
After the magician, Camryn found a chair to have a little reading time in with some of her books she picked to check out. She's immersed in her own little reading world while Cole is okay just waiting next to her. He's holding his gold coin here, so he's all set too...
Back at home this is how I let them eat lunch that day. Lunch took forever because we were clearly too distracted with the TV to ever turn around and actually eat for longer than 3 seconds. I'm all about establishing *good* habits with them at home during the day. ?????!!!
Here's a regular, daily sight: Story Time led by Camryn. She now sits down with a book then pats the ground next to her calling out to Cole, "Coley, Sit! Coley, Sit!" She now likes him to sit next to her and she "reads out loud" to him. Only about half the time does he actually obey--and when he does, he only lasts for about 1-2 pages before he's off doing something else. Sometimes when she's reading us her stories, if she notices we're not paying attention the way she wants us to, she'll call out our names kind of sternly until we look at her and listen. Matt gets a stern "Daddy! Daddy!" called out to him often!
Also yesterday the kids were super tired come nap time. I'm thinking it's because they had so much fun with their cousins the day before and an unexpected crazy, fun time that morning! For some reason though, Cole would
not stay napping in bed no matter what. He cried and cried. I'd hold him and think he was good and asleep, put him back down and the crying would start again even worse. I wasn't in the mood to fight it yesterday so he took a long nap sitting on my lap in the chair downstairs. Stuck in the chair all afternoon with nothing but Coley, the TV remote and my phone, I surrendered to it all and just soaked in the snuggles. Gotta enjoy them while they last, right?!
No comments:
Post a Comment