July 2012

We celebrated July 4th by going down to Fair Park this year. First we visited the Dallas Science Museum, then had a picnic dinner on the grass as we watched a water show, listened to music, took a sky ride, then seated ourselves in the Cotton Bowl and waited for the fireworks. The fireworks were beautiful! It took awhile to get out of Fair Park, but it was worth it!! So much fun!! (And the boys fell asleep pretty quickly once we were in the car).

Our July adventure was to Austin. We went with our friends Mary Frances and Will Baker. We left around 7 am and drove to Zilker Metropolitan State Park, paid $5 for parking and enjoyed a full day of FUN! We first rode on the Zilker Train around the park. Then played on the big play area, which included an old fire truck. The main swimming area, which is a limestone lined naturally fed spring, was closed due to a flood that occurred earlier that week. But they were allowing people to swim in the area of the spring that is for dog swimming. So we went swimming! We saw tons of dogs and people catching craw fish. Needless to say it made for interesting people watching! Following our swimming adventure we followed the paths in the Botanical Gardens. It was so much fun to follow the boys along secret paths and pretending to be pirates or on a scavenger hunt or being dinosaurs. We ate at the Magnolia Cafe, then visited the bats under the Congress Boulevard Bridge. We listened to them for awhile hoping that one or two would decide to fly early. But we were about 45 minutes away from the sun setting and the bats taking flight, which would have been around 8:45 - 9pm. Zayne was extremely tired and we decided that we should probably start our 3 hour drive home at about 8pm before we had a completely breakdown. The boys enjoyed a movie on our way home and eventually fell asleep.

I have received all of Zachery's school curriculum, so we will start sometime next month (probably after our trip to Chelan, WA). I know it sounds early, but that way we can take some time off when my parents are here in November and December. I think Zayne is excited about school this year too. He say "Me school?", so this will be interesting ... but I am so thankful that both of them enjoy listening to me read to them and that sometimes I catch them just sitting in their room with books all around them and they are just "reading". Zach even brought home a book from the library about fractions. Not that he knew it was about fractions, but it was such a cute book to introduce him to thinking about half, quarter, ect. Yes, we frequent the library! Zayne's favorite (and Zach's too) is Curious George. Oh we love George. You will have to ask Zayne when you see him about Curious George. We also thoroughly enjoy Spiderman and of course Star Wars! Right now we are reading Treasure Island. They keep bringing it to me to read another chapter and one night after we just read a chapter about conspiracy at sea I asked Zachery "Do you understand what is going on?" he said "No". But I think they just enjoy listening to the story and looking at the pictures. Zachery's pictures (which are many!!!!) are starting to be a little more detailed with handles on the swords, the canons are shooting then exploding, and because we have enjoyed watching a movie entitled "The Prince of Egypt" I have even seen the curved swords. Zayne loves to color too. We are still working on making sure it is on paper and not on the rug or hardwood floors, but he actually is very detailed he is already trying to stay in the lines. Very cute "Mom, look" is what he says. The video below is of Zachery learning how to Hula Hoop. I am thankful he is willing to try so many things!! Enjoy and I hope I am able to update the website a little sooner next time!!

June 2012

June I think marked the official month of summer here in the Wieland household! We started swimming lessons! Zach started at the beginning of June in Dolphins, it took him two sessions to pass Dolphins, but he did it! I am not sure what it is about this year, but things are just clicking with him. Every time I start thinking about how much he has improved and how proud I am of him for overcoming his fear of getting his head wet (particularly his ears) I start getting tears in my eyes!! My heart is just overflowing with delight for him, to see the smile on his face is so fun!! So anyways, I told him that if he can swim across the pool without stopping while getting his arms out of the water and breathing then I will purchase him a snorkel. He swam across the pool the other day without stopping but he didn't get his arms out of the water. But I have to say, I was still standing there in complete shock, of course filled with pride because he has just come so far over the past year!

Zayne's swimming lessons are with me, unfortunately they don't have swimming lessons with an instructor until they are three. So he has to wait until next year. But he has NO FEAR!! Charlie just told me today that he jumped into the portion of the pool that was four feet deep and didn't realize that it was that deep. He will say "Me Jump" or "Watch Me" or "Me do it, me do it all myself". So Zayne and I have worked on front floats and back floats. We try and attempt torpedo arms and kicking.

The boys received a remote control truck from one of their uncles and I have to say it was a big hit! The photograph is of Zachery, Zayne, and Zach's best friend Will playing with it in the backyard. Our big adventure this month was to a fun park called Kids Quest. I haven't seen a park like this one and it was a blast! It was all wood, lots of hiding places, and places to climb and run. I have to say it does make me nervous a little because I would loose them so easily because they were going through a tunnel or something. But as long as I could hear them it was all good! We enjoyed a nice picnic lunch before it got to hot and we needed to head home to put little pants down for a nap. But it will be a park that we will go back to in the fall and next time we will bring our bikes! Yes, Zachery is really improving on his bicycle too. We even rode our bikes up to the new QuickTrip up the street and got a Slurpee. I need to test out how long he is will to ride, so he can ride while I run. Zachery continues to enjoy playing Lego's and his imagination is fun! One the photographs below is a war between the bad guys and the good guys. Zayne enjoys playing Lego's to, actually he likes to do anything that Zach does. But he is so good about doing stuff on his own too. Zayne really like all balls! He still loves music and is still VERY BUSY!! He is talking more and more, it is hard to keep up sometimes.

We thoroughly enjoy taking an afternoon and evening and spending it at one of the pools here that has a playground in the kiddie pool area! So after one of these evening pool adventures, we played on the adjacent playground. Zachery actually did the monkey bars all by himself, it was VERY exciting. Zayne had to show off his balancing skills too. So those are some of the videos that you will see below.

Zachery's last baseball game was in June. His coach forgot to put him in the line-up so he was able to bat last this game. Let's just say he hit 3 grand slams!! (At this age the most you are able to run is two bases, but if you are the last batter and after you hit the ball, everyone runs home) Yes, he hit 3 balls all out in the outfield that day. As you can tell I was a little excited!! Watch his little bottom wiggle as he gets ready to hit the ball. So cute!!