Friday, September 23, 2011

Distraction

Parker really makes a speed-crawl for the cat food when he sees it on the floor. I have to pick it up and put it on the counter several times a day! I may have found a good distraction. I gave him Cheerios in a bowl on the floor and he really liked it and it occupied him for a few minutes! Of course he picked up the bowl and they all spilled out. I may have to start mopping the floor more often :-)

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Isabelle's Gymnastics Class


Isabelle started a new gymnastics class through the Grove City Parks and Rec. We just discovered that our parks and rec department has a ton of classes for kids - both sports and crafts! This class is on Tuesdays at 7:30 PM for 40 minutes in a building at Gantz Park. Her two teachers (Lisa and LaDonna) are really energetic and fun. Isabelle loves them - of course! There are 4 girls in the class and it's structured really well so that they don't have to wait for their turn most of the time. They do different activities in a circuit, rotating around the room. They always start class with a lot of warm up exercises like pushups, jumping jacks, sit ups, splits, butterflies, bridges and the pike and tuck positions. This week they practiced roundoffs, handstands, back walkovers, a drop on the bar (video below) and on the balance beam they practiced walking, turning, front rolls and cartwheels. So far, Isabelle is the most excited about the bars and can also do a front flip over the low bar.


Pushups during warm up


Ready to do a front roll

Mid roll

Balance!

Pausing for a photo
The drop on the bars.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Fun with Photos

Shane, Seth and Isabelle had a fun time taking these photos. Notice anything out of place here??





Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Dirt Hill

A new house is being built down the street from us. Yay for another new neighbor! With all the digging of the new house comes the kids' favorite part - a new dirt hill! Seth, Isabelle and other neighbor kids have spent hours playing there. They come home very dirty!


The Dirt Hill from our house. It doesn't look too high here, but it is!

Isabelle, Emery and Gracie from our neighborhood

Monday, September 19, 2011

Schiller Park

Schiller Park is in the German Village area of Columbus. German Village is really neat area with old but beautifully restored big houses and most of them have very nice landscaping. The area is actually listed on the National Register of Historical places. Schiller Park is a great, peaceful place with a paved walking trail, huge trees, a pond, a garden area, an outdoor stage and a playground.
This was the first time we have been to this park. I'd like to say we all had a great time there, but Isabelle wasn't all that excited about it. She was in a heck of a lousy mood the entire time. Isabelle's friend Emma went with us, and she had a great time. Seth and Parker also had a lot of fun.






Parker makes this face a lot



We tried to get a picture with all 4 kids. One wouldn't cooperate.

(Someone was counting and saying "whee" in this video. It was not me, it was just good timing of someone else saying that)




Friday, September 16, 2011

Henceroth Park

On 9/11 we went to Henceroth Park in Grove City. They were having a traveling exhibit of flags honoring fallen Ohio soldiers, called Ohio Flags of Honor Memorial. There were 248 flags representing soldiers, and some flags representing the sponsors of the exhibit.






The kids played on a nice "green" play area there. The playground equipment is made from entirely recycled materials. The "mulch" is actually broken up rubber pieces. Parker laughed a lot going down the slide with Daddy's help!




The same day, Seth and Isabelle helped me make banana bread while Parker napped. I think their favorite part was mashing up the bananas. They were great helpers and the bread was delicious!


Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Franklin Park Conservatory

Miss Scarlet did it, with the rope, in the Conservatory. We've been playing a lot of Clue lately, which was good timing because we visited a conservatory this past weekend. You probably know, a Conservatory is one of the rooms in Clue, so of course Seth and Isabelle asked what a conservatory is. They got to visit one to see for themselves! We went to the Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus with Grandpa Steve and Grandma Barb. It's a neat place with all kinds of plants and many rooms to walk around and explore.

In addition to the plants, we got to see caterpillars in the process of making cocoons, completed cocoons, butterflies emerging from cocoons and then butterflies flying all around one of the rooms. As you leave the room with butterflies, there are full-length mirrors with a sign that says to check yourself for hitchhiking butterlies!

The Tropical Rainforest room has 2 parrots, Mick and Mack. They squawked a few times and startled us!

They have a great glass art collection throughout the entire place.

A giant sized "lite brite" outlining the conservatory building.

Even the water fountain was entertaining. Parker kept trying to climb up into it!







I knew we had been to the Conservatory once before, but I ended up finding photos from two previous visits there. The first three photos seem to be from summer 2007 (Seth 1 1/2 and Isabelle 4) and the rest are dated January 2008 (Seth 2 and Isabelle almost 5 years old).






We've all changed quite a bit since then!

Friday, September 9, 2011

Labor Day

We took a trip to Nelsonville to visit Grandma Diane and Grandpa Clyde on Labor Day. The rainy weather didn't stop us from having fun! The kids played on the front porch with Play Doh for quite a while and swang on their favorite tree swing. They also walked down to Uncle Lance's pond (next door) with Grandma and cousin Kade to feed the fish.


Inside they watched a Rudolph Christmas movie, one of their favorites, and had an indoor picnic. In their basement is a very popular toy, the riding horse. Isabelle and Seth both loved this horse when they were younger (actually, Seth still loves it!), and this was the first time that Parker got to ride it. He really liked it! He seemed to go into a trance with all the bouncing. I'm sure as he gets older, he will look forward to going to Nelsonville to ride the horse!