Moision Madness

We had a fun play date at Kyan and Alex’s house on Monday morning — I got to catch up with my old Cottage friend and Ezra and Finn got to play with Kyan and his plethora of toys. One highlight was when Kyan took the boys upstairs to try their hand at Wii sword-fighting. My boys are unfamiliar with this thing called Wii, but after a few rounds of watching Kyan play masterfully, it didn’t take Finn long to put on his fiercest expression and start pushing competitors off the platform.

His celebration was low key.

As a bonus to the fun, we were lucky enough to inherit some of the toys and costumes that Kyan no longer plays with — four bags full. Ezra tried on every costume, but was particularly enamored with the firefighter.

The fun only stopped for bed time. But rest assured it started right up again in the morning when these two characters showed up in the kitchen.

Officer Ezra had to do a lot of questioning to find out who the mystery man was.

Later, Finn got a ticket.

Luckily he wasn’t too upset.

I didn’t post much last week so here are a few items as a make-up. Bruce finished the peg board for Aveson and Finn got to try it out. Here he is explaining one of the early runs.

Ezra did three days of morning camp at Kidspace. There was a little too much togetherness going on at our house, and he was happy to be elsewhere. As were we all. Here he is on his first day, sitting down to do the art project.

On the second day we ran into the Google street view car while taking Ezra to Kidspace. That was kinda cool.

On Friday Ezra and I got to spend some time together, just the two of us because Bruce was home and had Finn. When I picked up Ezra from camp, we went to Whole Foods for lunch and then checked out the installation of the Cottage door there. Here’s the view from the escalator.

It’s very fun to have our little preschool’s art represented at the store.

On Saturday we had a lovely visit from Bruce’s friend Peter. After a tour of the house, we went to the Huntington Gardens. I didn’t end up taking many pictures, but here’s one of Ezra just before he got yelled at for being on the rocks. They are so persnickety there.

And lastly, here’s one of Ezra via my iPhone’s Instagram app. Kinda sweet.

On the way to pick up Bruce from work, I was explaining to the boys that we were going to a party for JPL. Ezra asked if it was at JPL. I said, “No, it’s at the house of man Papa works with. His name is Fabrizio.” Ezra thought about that for a minute and then said, “That name is … a little bit crazy.”

Later, as we were walking to our car after the party, Finn spotted an American flag. “Look,” he said, “That’s an American flag … this must be America!!!”

Ah, the power of deduction.

We had one of those Sundays where we never left the house. Well, that’s not entirely true. The boys and I drove five minutes up the road to do a little hike with the Heffernans. Bruce stayed behind to work on the pegboard activity thingamabob for Ezra’s Kindergarten class. Wait a minute, you might be thinking, isn’t Ezra going into first grade? Why yes, yes he is. We’re a little behind on that project.

Anyway, post-hike we had some restless little boys running around, so I decided to get some water on the almost-dead lawn in the backyard and let the boys do their running through the sprinkler. Finn was in heaven.

He even did this little wiggly happy dance at one point.

Seriously, they were out there for hours. Ezra had his own technique.

They even … gasp … worked together sometimes instead of fighting.

They picked the pumpkins that had come up as volunteers from the compost and made sure to wash them off before bringing them in the house.

And Ezra watered some of the other plants, too.

Meanwhile, Bruce sawed, glued and drilled.

We’re getting there …

We just may finish this project yet.

Much to the delight of the kids, Aveson has chickens in their kindergarden yard. They asked for volunteers to care for the chickens during summer vacation and we signed up for a week. Ezra was thrilled; he has fallen in love with birds of all types lately. He couldn’t wait to get to the chickens; here they are in the coop.

Ezra really wanted to pick one up.

Look at how happy he is!

Finn, on the other hand, alternated between excited and terrified by the chickens. Here he is after he finally worked up the nerve to pet one.

Unfortunately they didn’t produce any eggs for us this week, but we all had a good experience and we definitely see a chicken coop in our backyard in the near future. We’ll get Bruce right on that.

A couple of goofballs want to say hello.

We’ve had lots of water play in the last few days. First was our new little pool — a snake this year.

Finn’s very serious about pools, apparently. Here are some other shots.

Even better, Bruce finished the water table he’s been working on for Cottage and he asked the boys to be his testers to make sure everything was working properly before taking it to the school.

Here it is still in the garage.

Then Bruce put on the finishing touches.

And the boys got to fill it up.

Of course, nothing’s complete without food coloring.

And then they were off — discovering how the hoses work, how the colors mix, how the different valves work, etc. Perfect for Cottage.

And here’s a video of the fun.

Ezra and Finn started Cottage’s last two-week summer camp session yesterday and I was the snack parent. Ezra was thrilled to get to go back and play at Cottage. It was an interesting morning. We had spiders on the play structure, namely this big guy.

Teacher Art masterfully caught him and put him in one of the bug catching containers so the kids could have a look (and so he could later be released back into nature). Teacher Art was triumphant. And the kids were squealing with delight and a little fear.

Later at group time, there was show and tell and Finn told everyone about Belize. “… you have to take a boat everywhere and … THERE’S A POOL!”

Later they got into swimsuits and went in the pool. Not quite the same as the Belize pool but fun nonetheless.

My guys were the last two hold-outs in the little pool.

At lunch bunch, Finn chatted up friends old and new.

We’ve been hankering for a new barbecue for a while now — something easier to use than our old school charcoal version. We finally picked one out and got lucky that a local store was having a 25% off sale this weekend. So Bruce picked it up Sunday afternoon and we embarked on the task of putting it together.

First we had to clean off the patio where there was a pile of wood and a gazillion oak leaves. Finn helped.

It took a couple of hours to put it together (and we had a lovely break for dinner with Mike, Carla, Emily and Kendra who were on their way to Disneyland for the week) but here it is!

We took our guys and the Heff kids to the Huntington on Sunday. First up: the bamboo.

While the other kids played in the fountains at the children’s garden, Finn made a beeline to the big magnet to make a bridge.

Pretty soon the other kids came to help.

It was pretty hot and not at all shady, so we took refuge in the areas with misters. We tried the fog room, but at first it wasn’t working. Bruce enlisted the kids’ help in a fog dance.

Finally that worked. We cooled off and then headed for lunch at the cafe. Then we worked our way out, playing the statue game and visiting the science exhibits. And then home.