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At the end of each Little Gym semester, they have a little “show” where the kids get to show off everything that they’ve learned in the last few months. At least that’s the theory! It probably works better with the older kids. For Miles’s age group, they just have a regular class and add a little medal presentation at the end. I forgot my camera, so I took some photos with my phone. Here he shows off his great form getting set up for a somersault!

One of his favorite activities is swinging from the bar:

Ta Da! Miles got his medal:

And here’s his class photo – at least it’s a photo of the members of the class who would sit still for the picture!

Here’s the official photo from the Little Gym. The boy in the blue shirt sitting next to Miles is also named Miles!

Since we’ve had a long and rainy June, I’ve been looking for other ways to keep the boys entertained! I remembered seeing a marshmallow and toothpick activity on no time for flashcards, and since I had an open bag of mini marshmallows in the pantry, I thought we’d try it out. Both of them had fun with it – Miles had a great time putting a marshmallow on each end of every toothpick he could get his hands on. Quinn decided to try to copy a design that Curious George created on the pbs show – a bridge. Here they are hard at work!

A couple weeks ago we went to the Roger Williams Park Zoo for Quinn’s preschool field trip. It was postponed once by rain, but fortunately they were able to schedule another date for it (last year it was cancelled outright and Quinn was very disappointed!) Quinn had a great time visiting the zoo with his school friends, though it was hard to keep a large group of preschoolers together! Fortunately Quinn was very good about staying with his teacher when Miles lagged behind. He took his own photos with his camera, so once I get those downloaded onto his computer we can see if there are any good ones! But for now, here are some of mine. Here’s Quinn and Miles at the crane exhibit – apparently Miles found the docent there very amusing!

Quinn posed in front of the penguin sign for me:

Here’s Quinn with his friends Ryan and Hayden. When we first arrived at the zoo, Quinn asked me if Hayden was going to be there, and I told him I thought she would be. He was very pleased and told me that he and Hayden were “best friends forever!”

After the zoo we visited the carousel, which we hadn’t been to before, and the boys loved it. It was at this point that I realized that I had broken my camera (I dropped in on the floor in the bathroom!) and I couldn’t view the top left corner of the screen. I was hoping the photos would be ok and they are, so luckily the camera itself isn’t broken, just the screen. Sigh. Just what we need…something else to spend money on!

Here’s Quinn and his friend Caitlin:

And we ended the trip with ice cream cones! It was a fun day!

There are more photos in the June 2009 album if you want to check them out!

Quinn’s preschool graduation was postponed twice because of rain (have I mentioned that we’re having the gloomiest June EVER!?) but they were finally able to have it last week. Although he was quite insistent beforehand that he would NOT wear a cap and gown, he did wear them, and he did fine. We could tell he was self conscious about the cap – I think it probably felt like it was going to fall off. But he didn’t have to wear it for long. Here are Miles and Daddy waiting (impatiently) for the show to start. (Later Quinn told me that the reason they took so long was that his teachers made everyone go to the bathroom before they went outside – smart teachers!)

Here come the graduates!

They all lined up and put on a show for us – first up was a train song, and I think Quinn had more fun looking at me than paying attention to what he was supposed to be doing, but we could hear him singing!

Following that, the whole class sang and danced the “Locomotion” which was very funny! I think we have some of that on video so I’ll try to put that up here soon. After that, he got his diploma and goodie bag, and then showed off his cool graduate moves:

Then it was time for ice cream sundaes and cake! There was even a cake for Quinn to take home.

We all had a great time!

There are more photos in the June 2009 album if you want to check them out!

Father’s Day was a much better day than Mother’s Day this year, mostly because none of the fathers were sick sick sick on their day! But Father’s Day is extra fun in our family anyway, because we also get to celebrate Becca’s birthday. This year her actual birthday was a few days ahead of time, but who’s counting?

At Quinn’s request, we started the day with special breakfast (Eric chose French toast) and Quinn insisted that Eric open his gift right away. (Well, the part of the gift that he didn’t know about, since last weekend he bought a lovely widescreen monitor, and I said “Happy Father’s Day!”) I’d like to know what Miles was so excited about in Daddy’s card:

Quinn picked out all of the Father’s Day cards this year, and did a super job decorating them. Here’s the one he did for Papa – can you tell what it says?

Ok, did you guess? On the left it says: “Hope to see you soon Love Miles Quinn” After he wrote the “Hope” vertically I asked him to switch colors so that you’d have a chance in heck of figuring out what he wrote!

Later in the day, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Becca, and Uncle Sean came over to play MarioKart, take naps (well the fathers did, anyway!) and generally have a good time. We had a lovely dinner of fruity salad (a la Becca and Sean), shrimp and scallops (a la Grandpa and Grandma), potatoes fontecchio, and cake (a la me). After dinner there were gifts, including lots of bbq sauce for Grandpa, and a new yellow bag for Aunt Becca, for which Miles had a great time opening all of the pockets! But the highlight of the gift opening was when Grandpa opened the card that Quinn had selected for him – and it played the Pink Panther theme! Unfortunately my timing was off and I didn’t get a photo of the surprise and all the big smiles, but I think it got the reaction for which Quinn was hoping!

Then came dessert and it was YUMMY! I made the Pioneer Woman’s Strawberry Shortcake Cake. It was delightful and I’ll definitely make it again. Hmmm…I think there are some strawberries in my refrigerator right now…..