Back to School Celebration!

Jack starts his Pre-K school year tomorrow, and to celebrate and give a final nod to summer, we enjoyed lots of fun activities these past few days. Scroll thru below to see what fun we had!

Wednesday-

 

 We spent Wednesday morning playing at our local bounce house gym, with obstacle courses and slides too. We were the first kids there, so Jack took a little convincing to do the obstacle course alone, but after seeing me do it unscathed, he gladly did it.

 

Jason took even more convincing to play. He mainly ran around the gym's mats for the first 45 minutes, and then braved the ramp that led up to the slide. He used the ramp as his own mini-slide, and was just happy with that.

 Finally! I captured a good shot of this boy! He never sits still long enough for a decent picture!

When Jon came home from work, he asked Jack what he had done that day. Jack answered, "jump the house." Jon repeated, confused, "you jumped the house?" So funny. I explained to Jon that he didn't mis-hear Jack, and that we really did jump [in] the bounce house.

Thursday-

On Thursday, we took a field trip to the Japanese Garden. It was an inspiring place.

 

 The entrance-

It felt like we had stepped into another world. It was gorgeous, with a sprawling koi pond, winding pathways and steps leading to new vantage points, docks, bridges, and pagoda styled architecture.

 I dressed the boys up, in the vain hopes of getting an updated photo of them for our family wall. Jason, suffice it to say, was not cooperative and wouldn't sit still!

 Jon with the boys on one of the bridges over the koi pond

Me and the boys. I love this bridge!

The ducks & koi, we fed the fish and created a feeding frenzy, tehe

Jon and Jack on the stepping stones, crossing over the pond-

Jack- looking a little concerned at that fish swimming by him-

View from a gazebo

Jon & Jason

Jack examining the monkey "see no evil," "speak no...," "hear no..." statues. Jon and I asked him if he wanted to see the monkeys, and I think he thought we were talking about real monkeys. When he walked up to the statues, he stared at them for a good 10 seconds or so, and then poked it. Haha, he tried to poke the monkey to see if it'd move!

Jon & Jack, hand in hand

Love, love, love this shot. So precious, walking after his daddy and brother.

After the Japanese Garden, we treated the boys (and ourselves) to Red Robin's, yum! Jack and Jason both indulged in chocolate milkshakes and Jack nearly devoured his pizza. Can I just say that Jason is a milkshake-aholic? The second his eyes made contact with that milkshake he just reached and screamed for that thing; I think he had more than I did.

And then, we drove across the street to Toys-R-Us, and browsed thru all the toys. Jack got a back-to-school present: a doctor kit! He was thrilled, and started playing with it the minute we got home. He kept telling me and Jon to cough and be sick so he could treat us. So cute. He is fiercely protective of his doctor kit right now, and runs to protect it from Jason if Jason steps anywhere near it.

Last, but not least, Jack and I had a date and went to see the 4th Ice Age movie. I bought him a ridiculously expensive bag of Skittles at the theater, and he sat in my lap for the duration of the movie. I think we both enjoyed it, but didn't love it. Still, it was nice to be out, just the two of us.

And that about sums up our day Thursday. We tried to make it a memorable and fun day for Jack, and us. I think we succeeded!

Friday-

On Friday, we visited a newly opened splash-pad, with oh-so-fun water features. Jack loved it and never hesitated drenching himself.

Jason had a slightly different view of things, literally. He had the view from higher up, while Mommy held him, because if I put him down....

....this happened-

So we stayed like this for awhile. I got more wet that Jason did I believe.

Adjacent to the splash pad is a playground, where Jason felt more at ease.

He finally felt comfortable enough to explore away from the safety of my arms-

Sure, climbing an 8 ft ladder, he'll do. But run thru sprinklers? Heck, no!

Video of Jason climbing- he did this route of climbing the ladder, sliding down the tunnel to a lower platform, and then walking down the steps, and then repeat, about 6 or so times.

Jack blocking the tunnel. I say "blocking" because he just wanted to lay in there and get in all the other kids' ways, silly child.

Jack in some sort of merry-go-round swing. It was pretty cool, and he loved it. His friend Adam is swinging him around. Love the look on Jack's face here.

Seriously y'all, if you watch nothing else, watch this video! I don't want to build it up too much, but it's pretty darn cute and hilarious. Jason is getting quite adept at shaking his head "no" and nodding his head "yes" to answer questions.

 

What an awesome park! I wish they had built it sooner, we would have gone every week this summer!

Saturday-

To finish off our back-to-school celebration, we invited our friends & neighbors, the Knudsons, over for pizza and a movie on Saturday night. My friend Tina made scrumptious brownies filled with Reese's and Twix for dessert. Then we threw down some blankets on the floor and settled in to watch Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

 

John getting comfy

 

You can see all the kiddos in this shot, including Tina's twins in "the cage." Our babies are just over a week apart in age, so it was like having triplets.

 

Lovin' the blurry baby in my lap here-

Jason was so entertaining to watch during the movie. He screamed and cried during some of the action sequences involving the dinosaurs and the saber tooth tiger. And the rest of the movie, he wouldn't stop laughing. Wish I had caught it on video, ah well.

Alpine Slide and the Bungee Jump

While in Colorado, we had the chance to ride an alpine slide. It did not disappoint. You took a chair lift to the top of the slide, and the slide itself snaked down the mountain for 1/2 mile to reach the bottom. It was awesome! You really can't do anything like that in Texas.

Jon is about to race down

Jack and I went down together. He had an absolute blast. We're on the left slide.

And if you squint, you can see me and Jack as we just reached the bottom-

Another fabulous activity was the bungee jump. Jack did it, of course. He's so brave, even though you jump 30 feet or so in the air. I told the guy bouncing Jack to start out slow. For the first good bounce, Jack's eyes got real big with apprehension, and then he'd get used to that height, and then he'd get bounced 10 feet higher and his eyes got all huge again! It was so fun watching him go. We got a pretty good video of Jack flying, see below.

 

And not to be left out of the fun, Jon and I went as well. We went at the same time on adjacent trampolines, so we got to flip together. (Though I was more focused on my extreme height to really pay attention to what he was doing)

 

I think I yelled "it's higher than I thought!" after I got bounced the first time-

   Jon's sister Heather obligingly videoed us-

 

 Jon videoed my second attempt on the bungee tramp. Unfortunately, my harness cut into me a lot the second time around, making flips painful.

What a blast! It was so cool to do all this stuff with Jack. Kids had to be at least 3 (and fairly brave) to do many of these things, so it was great that he was willing to play. The most daunting thing to him wasn't the bungee jump or the alpine slide, but riding the chair lift up to the slide. He had no concept of what a chair lift was, so to jump on it while it moved and then get lifted high up in the air, all without me able to hold him, was a pretty scary experience his first time. His second time around though he had no trouble with it and was relaxed throughout the ride. I hope we get to go back to Colorado again soon, it was awesome!

Pretend Play

With Jack getting older, he's really getting into playing "pretend." It's the cutest thing to watch, and I always enjoy seeing his ideas and imagination come out. Among his favorite themes are: driving a car, playing doctor, going to & from places like school or church, sending his toys to time-out, and bossing his Elmo around.

Here's "Super Jack", or as he calls himself "Super Bunny!"

(the bunny comes from a show he watches) 

Here he is "driving the car" with Jason in the backseat. He loves to line up chairs and have us all sit in the car together. He's so bossy with Jason, telling him "Jason sit here!" Heaven help Jason if he doesn't comply.

I love this shot! Jack insisted that Elmo join him for lunch. So here they are, the best of friends, sharing a meal together. Also, I was told that Elmo was hungry and needed crackers to eat. You can just see the cracker sitting in front of Elmo.

It's hilarious to watch Jack send his toys to time-out and scold them. I guess it's like seeing what I look like to him thru his eyes. He always gets a kick out of it when I play along and send Elmo to time-out, and Jack says "have nice hands Elmo!" while pointing his finger in Elmo's face. Then after a minute, he lets Elmo out and tells him to "okay, go play."

And before I forget, Jack loooves to boss his little brother around. One morning, Jason was playing with the tv and Jack warned him to stop. After the initial warning, he slowly walked towards Jason while counting "1!," a pause, "2!," another pause, "3!." "Okay, Jason go to cage." Cage refers to our baby gate octagon we have set up to hold Jason in when needed; so Jack walked Jason into the cage and stood at the gate staring him down. Jason didn't even put up much of a fight, just accepted his fate. After a minute Jack let him out, and told him "okay, Jason, go play. Don't touch tv!" Priceless.