Family Fridays: 33 Weeks (Pregnancy Update)

I went for another prenatal check up this week and everything is still going along fine. The baby has been head down for at least ten weeks now, so there is no reason to think it might flip into a bad position at this point. Having baby head down at this point is always good news.

We've been getting ready for baby around here.  I've been doing lots of sewing for the new baby. All of our tiny baby clothes are still in America, you're not supposed to ship used clothing here, and all of the newborn and first month size clothes that I've seen here are crotchless, so I decided it would just be easiest to make some new 0-3 stuff for this baby. I may do a separate post later about sewing baby clothes, but I feel better now that I have a first wardrobe ready for this this new little one.

Also during our cooking camp week and throughout this summer break I've been stocking our freezer for after the baby. We don't have a huge amount of freezer space, but I do have a few meals and quick breads ready to go and am almost done with that project as well.

I still need to make small diaper covers and more new cloth diapers and wipes if I get time, but we're getting close to being ready for baby. :)

Linking up to My Joy-Filled Life Pregnancy Journal.

Mandarin Mondays: Silly Stamping Set Instructions (The Chinglish Files)

Click to enlarge photo.
Aaron was quite confused about what we should use to wash the stamps
if we couldn't wash them in water.

Frugal Family Fun: Really Homemade S'mores

I'll write more about this week's cooking camp soon, but one of the favorite things we did was to have a campfire and make s'mores. We made the graham crackers and marshmallows from scratch together as a family. The boys also didn't seem to remember roasting marshmallows at all from before (it has been quite a long time), so they were just generally intrigued and thrilled with the "new" process as well.

We also shared a little with a few neighbor kids who had definitely never eaten s'mores before. The neighbor girl really enjoyed hers.

The homemade s'mores were really, really good. One thing we did notice was that our marshmallows didn't really catch fire for us like store bought marshmallows would have. I think that is a positive attribute of them, but my brother might be disappointed by the fact that he couldn't just quickly light his marshmallows on fire to efficiently make s'mores.

Olympic/Sports Mini Camp

This week partially in honor of the Olympics we have been doing a Olympic/Sports themed mini camp for the boys. The had a lot of fun and got a lot of energy out in the process.

I already mentioned that the first day we did an Olympic ring bean bag toss.

The second day was really nice outside so we went out the boys did some track and field events. They did some short sprint races, discus (mini frisbee) throwing, and tried out this "javelin" throwing activity from I Can Teach My Child. neither boy could really get the hang of throwing the "javelin" though, and Andrew much preferred to simply "shot put" rocks into the puddles the whole time. Then they played a little baseball.

The third day we brought down a playmat that we had put up for a while and let the boys do gymnastics on it. Andrew was so excited when we were getting it out he kept saying, "it's Andrew's birthday!" I love how easily they get excited over things. Nate showed them how to do a few simple gymnastics. Nate took gymnastics and karate as a kid and was really good at both, and quite amazingly he can still do the splits. Somehow the gymnastics turned into a wrestling match at the end. The new baby seemed to be joining in on the fun too as it was quite active inside of be, but I refrained from joining in any gymnastics as baby needs to stay inside for a little while longer yet.

The fourth day we set up an obstacle course in our living room. The boys really got into this and kept going through the course over and over for more than 45 minutes on their own.

The last day was nice again so we went outside and did more track and field. We did long jump, high jump (over straws taped together), running around moguls, and an Olympic torch relay. At the end we gave each boy a gold medal for their excellent participation. Aaron loves that he got a first place medal. Andrew would have probably been more impressed if the medal had been made from a chocolate coin.

Family Fridays: McDonald's and the "Thomas Store"

The boys completed another good week of their Summer Fun School Program and were able to earn another outing. So this week we took them downtown to McDonald's and Toys 'R Us (which they refer to as the Thomas Store). Everyone enjoyed their double cheeseburger and fries immensely. I am still a little amazed that Aaron can easily eat a whole double cheeseburger on his own, but I guess it shouldn't be that surprising because it is such a treat for everyone.

Looking at the fountain

Ice cream nose

Making puppets