Speech

In our house, 100% of the four year olds have needed speech therapy.  They have fabulous vocabularies but their articulation is sorely lacking.  Today Alice went for her first speech assessment, just a short visit with the speech therapist where they confirm that there is, indeed, an issue that needs to be addressed.  She looked so tiny on the front steps of the school and it's hard for me to believe that most kids her age are actually dropped off at school each day.  This year we'll start preschool and a much more consistent school routine, but there will still be lots of time for play.  (Have you seen this article that's been making the rounds on Facebook?  Good stuff.)

 

It doesn't seem like that long ago that she was the little sister waiting in the hall while Jack was in speech and now she's the one who gets to go inside.  She wanted to wear one of her favorite dresses and wanted her hair in three pony tails.  (We compromised on two.)  She passed her assessment (or failed, I guess) so she will be starting speech soon.  I am dreading the multiple trips to school each week that tend to wreak havoc on our routine, and I am so glad that she's just going for a little while!  Next Monday is our big day!

Winding Down

 Today was our last pool day of the summer!  It was only 80 degrees when we got to the pool and the water felt so cold.  I'm not sure I've ever felt chilly when swimming in Oklahoma in August!

 We went swimming yesterday and we were supposed to go Monday, too, but it rained, so we went to see Turbo instead.

 And speaking of snails, we opened the curtains and found this little guy this morning!

Actually, he's pretty big compared to the snails we usually see around here--and he's still hanging on the same window this evening.

We just have one more week of summer break, so it's time to get ready!

Pool Time!

 Our pool is only open on the weekdays for one more week, so we're trying to go as much as we can.  It's nice because by now most people are getting ready to go back to school so it's not very crowded.

 Alice actually swam a tiny bit!

 She spent a lot of the time relaxing.

 We had been there for almost five hours so I told Jack we would go when they called the next adult swim time.  When they blew the whistle for the kids to get out, he had gone down the slides 98 times, so of course we had to wait so he could get to 100!  He waited on the stairs the entire adult swim time so he could finish quickly.

 99...

100!

River Country Water Park

 Today we took the kids to the River Country Water Park--commonly referred to as the Muskogee Water Park, but I thought I'd let you know its official name.

 This is really close to Jay's old office and I have been meaning to take the kids for a while, but we have never gotten around to it.  Now they want to go back as soon as possible!

 We spent a lot of time on the Lazy River.

 All the kids liked the smaller play area.

 There's also a bigger pool with big slides, but I didn't take my camera over there.  You can see pictures on their website, though.

 They spent quite a while in the sand area.

 Toward the end of the afternoon they got the idea that they should cover the entire lobster (which was probably about seven feet long) with sand.

Amazingly enough, they did it!

If you live in the area and haven't been here, you should definitely try it out.  The drive isn't too far and it was less than $20 for the three of us.  You can't bring food in, but you can get your hand stamped so you can leave and come back and there are picnic tables right outside the fence.  We will be going back early next summer!

Road Trip, Round Two

 Friday morning we headed out for our second day of road tripping.

 Our first stop was Prairie Song, which is west of Dewey, OK.  This is a recreation of an 1880s town.  It's kind of hard to explain it, but you really need to go see it!

 This man, Mr. Tate, has built all of the buildings himself without even drawing them out on paper!  His wife has furnished all the buildings with antiques.  This is a 15,000 pound safe that used to be in one of the banks in town.

 The kids in jail!  (Thanks to my friend Rachel and her girls for being our traveling partners all day!)

 We were supposed to go the Friday before, but it was storming so we postponed it.  Just as we drove up, it started raining and rained almost the whole time we were there--but at least it kept us cool!

 After lunch we headed to the Tom Mix Museum, which is in downtown Dewey.

 I knew almost nothing about Tom Mix before we went, but he was a pretty interesting guy.  If you see Alice, you should ask her how he died.

 Alice was able to add to her cowgirl outfit thanks to the museum gift shop!

 After dinner we stopped by the Price Tower Arts Center, the only skyscraper Frank Lloyd Wright ever built.

 It was after hours so we didn't see much of the building, but we did go up to the balconies on the 16th floor.

 Bartlesville from waaay up high!  We drove through Bartlesville and Dewey on the way to and from Omaha many times over the three years we lived there but this is the first time I've done much in the area.  We had a great time!

 We spent the evening at the Kiddie Park again.

 Alice has been so excited about this.

 Remember how the rain kept us cool in the morning?  By evening it was so hot and humid that I wasn't sure the kids would want to stay the whole time.  We went through a lot of bottles of water!

 The Fantastic Four!

 Our friends had to leave a little earlier since they had early soccer in the morning, but the kids kept going.

 Yeah, he's totally about to tickle her armpit.

We stayed until closing time and made it home about 11:30!

Road Trip. Round 1

 I usually try to space out our trips a bit, but thanks to last week's rain, we have two rounds of road trips this week!  This morning we left for Enid bright and early.

 We met my friend Angela and her girls at Leonardo's.

 Alice was really looking forward to playing shopping.

 They have a big magnetic wall in the new tinkering area--you can even stick your child on it!

 Alice worked hard on building a tower.

 The kids and Angela racing their cars.

 Jack played on this reaction time thing all day and on his last try of the day he made the best score!

On the way home we took a detour through Stillwater and had dinner at Eskimo Joe's.  We got home at 9:00 and have one day to rest up before the second round of travels!

Ice Cream!

 July is National Ice Cream Month, so we've been having some fun with it!  Today we read Ice Cream: The Full Scoop.

 We made ice cream in a bag one day.

 Alice liked it!

 Jack's was more like soup, but it was still yummy.

 We also made ice cream playdoh.

 Checking the menu for the ice cream shop

Alice made me a sundae!

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