I knew I wanted to do something more structured with Elina at least once a week. I'm not really into structuring things like this, but if I don't actually schedule it in, it will get lost in the shuffle. If you don't schedule it in, you'll always find an excuse to postpone it. It happens to me all the time. "I can just fit it in tomorrow..." "I'll have more time to do it this weekend..." And it never ever happens.
I also decided to invite one other friend to participate in this "summer school" with Elina because I figured she'd have more fun if she had a little buddy. We decided to ask L if she wanted to do this with us. I really don't mind teaching 2 well-behaved (for the most part) girls for 2 hours once a week. If I had to teach more kids, then I would feel a bit more pressure and stress. With 2, it's easy.
The last few weeks we've done Where the Wild Things Are, The Frog in the Bog, and Little Blue
and Little Yellow. The last book we did was so much fun. The story is so cute...2 colors, blue and yellow, are best friends and one day they hug each other so hard they become green. So it led into a big discussion about colors and mixing primary colors. The girls loved it. First I made rainbow milk, which they thought was the coolest thing ever. They were so amazed that just a few drops of food coloring could make different colors. Then we played with paint and made colors. They couldn't believe it when they mixed blue and yellow and made green. They were so excited to make purple out of red and blue. I love the excitement and surprise in kids' faces when they see things that we take for granted...mixing paint colors to make green, adding food coloring to make rainbow colors. The facial expressions are some of the best things about being a parent.Even though it takes some effort on my part, I love love preparing these little lessons for Elina and L because they always takes away so much. It's amazing how much these preschoolers can remember and recall. Can't wait to see what other books we can explore...
Then one day we let Elina play with the camera in the backseat while we drove around running errands. So basically, she played with the camera all morning and we had no idea what she was taking pictures of. When we got home, we looked through the camera and we couldn't stop laughing! First she took silly long-arm pictures of her own face. She really made some silly faces...although most of them look sad or mad.
Pretty impressive, right? Now whenever Elina takes pictures with her camera, I can't wait to see the pictures! We always have a good laugh because we ask Elina to explain the pictures to us. Like I said before, this was an awesome gift!! Thanks, J!
A few days ago we made chocolate chip cookies together and, I must say, it was a really enjoyable experience. There was only one tiny mishap when Elina spilled half of the chopped walnuts on the floor when she was pouring it into the mixer. Other than that, it was a lot of fun. I had Michael Jackson songs playing on the iPod while we were baking so we were jammin' out the whole time. We were dancing and shakin' our booties while we rolled the dough into balls. It was the most fun we've had baking so far.
After the craft, the girls ate lunch. We poured them pink tea (pink lemonade) and served them peanut butter sandwiches, fruit, and cheese. We served them all in cute shapes or pretty patterns. Each time we brought out a platter, the girls would all gasp and look at each other in disbelief. During lunch, the girls just sat there, chatted, and laughed. We couldn't believe how well-behaved they were. They each took turns saying funny words and then all the other girls would laugh loudly. Elina would just toss her head all the way back while she laughed. They were all so cute. They would've spent the entire party sitting there and chatting if we had let them. Then at the end of the meal, all the girls brought their plates to us to help clean up. What polite girls! 
Then we played our second game, Hot Teapot (just like Hot Potato, but with a teapot). This was the funniest part of the party. We played it in reverse, so that if you were caught with the teapot, you were out of the game, but you won a prize (Tinkerbell fruit snacks). We played Tinkerbell music and started the game. G was the first out and ate her fruit snacks on the sofa, while she watched the girls play. All the girls saw how yummy the fruit snacks looked, so all of a sudden they wanted to be caught with the teapot. At one point, E just held onto the teapot and didn't pass it on, in hopes that the music would stop. The girls started passing the teapot slower and slower...and they would all eye J (she was in charge of the music) to see when she would press the button to stop the music. In the end, L and Elina both had their hands on the teapot (in the process of handing it from/to one another) when the music stopped, so it ended well because they both got out at the same time. In this video, it's only L and Elina left. I just love the way they pass it to each other. Since it's only the 2 of them, the teapot gets passed quickly...but every time they take the teapot, they bring it close to their body for a quick second. It's so cute!
On the morning of the party, J and I were busy cutting cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into cute shapes--butterflies, stars, hearts, flowers. We made pink lemonade for our "pink tea." B was in charge of picking up a few things at the store, where he was also supposed to pick up Elina's balloons. B arrived home with the groceries, but no balloons! So he drove back to get the balloons. Then he left the house to have lunch with Eli when the party started. Of course, he left the house with the balloons in the trunk! B came back for the second half of the party, so the balloons eventually made it.
Soooooo....all of this was just the prep work for the party. I'm chuckling as I write this post because I had wanted to keep the party simple this year. It doesn't sound simple though, does it?? But seriously, after you read the party post, you'll see that it was worth it. Well, at least that's my hope.
Another mom was nice enough to bring 3-D glasses for each of the kids so that they could see a rainbow of colors everywhere. The glasses were a real hit with Elina. She made me and B wear them just so she could take pics of us.
After the fireworks started, we could hear Elina telling L, "Tell me a story about fireworks." Then they took turns telling silly stories beginning with "Once upon a time..." Then Elina even went up in front of everyone (while everyone was watching the fireworks) to tell her story because she thought it was so funny. So she was cracking up and trying to tell a story at the same time and all I could hear was, "...and then there were fireworks and they followed him and then he got burned! Hahahahaha!" It was a weird story, but everyone was laughing because she was so excited to tell this silly tale. She had so much fun with all the kids. I was so proud of her because she was being social and making new friends and being silly.
Then we made a red, white, and "blue" ice cream cake for the next day. We used strawberry sorbet, vanilla ice cream, and Acai berry sorbet. I've never made an ice cream cake, so this was lots of fun, albeit time-consuming. We had to wait for each tub of ice cream to soften before we could spread it out and mold it and wait for each layer to harden enough to put more ice cream on top. My "blue" layer didn't turn out quite as blue as I had wanted because I didn't follow the original recipe. The recipe called for making a blueberry syrup and adding it to vanilla ice cream. I saw this new flavor, Acai berry sorbet (that I've also been wanting to try out), that had a blue-violet tint, so I went with that to save time. So in the end our ice cream layer cake looked more like red, white, and purple....but no one really cared because it was still pretty and delicious. The vanilla layer gave the cake just enough creaminess and the 2 sorbet layers made it nice and fruity. (FYI, the Acai layer tasted like a grape sorbet...very yummy!) 
That evening, we braved the crowds and headed to Sea World to check out the Summer Nights program and possibly, the fireworks at night. Boy, was it hot! No matter what you did, you were just coated in this layer of sweat on every part of your body. (My friend S, who is also known as Sweat Girl, would've hated every single minute of it.) I wouldn't say that the shows were awesome, but they were ok. I think the heat just made it slightly less enjoyable. Seriously, when we were sitting in the packed auditorium waiting for the Shamu show to start I really felt like I wanted to leave and just go home. Eli just had a miserable face on the entire time. Toward the end of the show, Elina asked me, "When are we going to leave?" Even though Elina was miserable during the shows, she loved walking around and hanging out with L. Luckily, the babies were all losing it, so we decided to just head home and not stay for the fireworks. We figured we'd be ok since we planned to watch fireworks on base the next day (with KT and her fam, of course!). 
Since it's been so hot we decided to meet at an indoor playground. Despite all the wonderful outdoorsy things to do in Austin, we had to escape the heat! This playground was so much fun for the kids. There were bouncers of every size in every corner. Elina was so brave and went on a lot of the bouncers and went down tons of slides....even the steeper slides. We were so proud of her. She was willing to try anything. But if it got too crowded in a certain bouncer, she'd come right out and say, "I came out because there are too many people that aren't my friends." I guess that's her way of saying "strangers."
Eli, on the other hand, was a bit more reserved....which really boggled my mind since he's always climbing on everything at home and getting into trouble. When we're out in noisier, more crowded places, he tends to be less adventurous. He didn't have any interest in the steep slides, even when B or I went down with him. He didn't like to go into the bouncers if they were too bouncy. He also didn't like to go too far into bouncers either. So here's a video clip of Eli being "wild and crazy" at the indoor playground.
