Kaylee’s first official baking lesson, where she got to choose the recipe, make a list and shop for ingredients, and do as much as possible of the actual measuring, mixing, etc. She chose chocolate chip cookies. It took us over an hour to mix the dough. :)
Making sure she got every last chip out of the bag…
Enjoying the fruits of her labor. :)
She had a blast doing the baking, and, of course, eating the cookies! She’s very eager for her next lesson. :)
Mark had another initial phone screen/job interview. On these occasions it falls to me to keep the kids quiet and occupied, since Mark’s “office” is in an open part of the house with no way to shut out their noise. We started out running a couple of quick errands, but the call ran long and they weren’t done when we got home, so I herded the kids back to our bedroom to watch TV – a treat for them, since they had already used their TV time for the day.
Mark dug out the inflatable pool we bought last year and set it up for the kids. I was surprised it had survived the seasons in the shed with no leaks.
At first they didn’t want to be out in the backyard by themselves, even though the yard is fenced, and we can see them from the family room. Apparently, they got over that, since they ended up spending over 3½ hours out there. ;)
We’ve never gone to any of the big fireworks celebrations here (we’re usually up visiting family over the 4th). And a lot of places around here surprisingly did them on the 3rd, so I couldn’t even find any close to us listed online. And since we had a guest magician in from Germany for the evening, rather than subject him (and us) to driving an hour to an unknown situation with crowds and chaos, we just picked up some party poppers and let the kids shoot them off in the backyard.
Notice the look on Kaylee’s face above. She had a hard time getting most of the poppers to go and was scared of the bang. :b
That’s our guest, Axel, chatting with Mark at the grill. I love Matthew’s face in this shot. :)
When it was time to go in, the kids picked up some of the streamers from the yard and had fun waving them around.
Happy Independence Day!!
We were watching a movie when we heard a lot of random booms echoing around outside – early fireworks!
They were setting them off in the next town over. We could just barely see them past the park, between the trees and houses.
That show’s over; time to go back in and finish the show we started with. :)
Since Matthew will be taking a break from ATA classes, Mark decided to keep up his training here at home, and Kaylee asked to join in. They got some cushioned mats to cover the garage floor. The kids are in charge of setting those up before each lesson.
I couldn’t make up my mind, so you get lots of pictures today. :)
Kaylee did take karate together with Matthew that first summer three years ago, but she didn’t get too far, so Mark is working with her on some of her basics, like chambering.
Side-kick!
Matthew shows Mark his form…
Waiting for her turn…
Concentration…
Cooling off. Not sure what’s up with the nose. LOL
Class dismissed! :)
Kaylee working out with some rhythm boxing. The kids have been playing a lot of Wii Fit. It’s the one video game that doesn’t count against their daily allowed screen time. ;)
