Water Day At School

So, I've always known that I take a lot of pictures and I post an obnoxious amount of those on my blog, just because this is the only thing I do as far as memory's sake. I realize that I'm posting the exact same picture of Evan doing puzzles 30 times, but basically just in different outfits or in a different chair at the same table or 3 pictures that are the exact same thing, except that one has Evan looking at the camera smiling, one has Carter looking at the camera smiling and one will have both of them just sort of looking in the same direction. Or when we do something fun, like the zoo, I'll post 50 pictures and we're only there for like, 3-4 hours. Well, I think Water Day at school takes the cake. I was there for less than 2.5 hours and I took 120 pictures!! I swear I did not have my phone out the whole time, I was talking with the kids, watching them all play, making sure nobody was running, etc but somehow I managed to take a lot of pictures. Maybe I'm just not very self aware and I am that annoying mom who has her phone out the entire time. (hopefully not) Anyways, this was a big day, it was the first time the boys ever had anything like this at school and my first time every chaperoning, so I want to remember it.

So, this was the first thing their school had where they let the parents volunteer, so as soon as his teacher asked me, I said yes. The school they are going to next year encourages parents to be involved as far as volunteering in the school with various things, so I'm actually really looking forward to that. I dropped the boys off at their regular time (9:00) and came back at 10:00 for water day. I was the first parent there and the kids were just finishing going over the weather, date, days of the week, etc. Then, they got to have free reading time until the other parents showed up and we walked over to the parking lot that it was being held at. I sat down with Evan and Carter on the floor and grabbed a book to give them and all of a sudden the whole class is around me and ready for me to read them a story, haha. Luckily, it was a Llama Llama book I almost know by heart so I was able to read it and show the pictures and also get to look at the kids while I read it--they were so precious sitting there all quietly and listening to the story. Then, the parents that were there each got two kids that they were to hold hands with crossing the street and were to watch for the day.

They had the water play set up in the parking lot of another building that the church owns across the street. It was sectioned off by cars that the kids were not to go past. They had the parents spread out so that we had the whole place pretty much covered before they let the kids get up and play. Carter had told me all week that he did not want to go to water day. I have no idea why, he wouldn't really say why. When I got there, he was still against water day and participating at all. He just walked around with me and wouldn't play at first, but thankfully, he warmed up about 20-30 minutes (I'm guessing) into it and ended up having a great time.

Evan had been excited about this for a week and did not hesitate to jump right it. The set up was great, they had several large pools, some bubbles, hula hoops, side walk chalk, a few small pools with fishing or rubber ducks set up, a few squirt guns, a sprinkler thing, just tons to do.

Carter looks like such a grumpy gus in this picture, it really broke my heart that he wasn't playing at first. I am so glad that he warmed up! But, Evan was just having so much fun. It was so fun to see him playing with his classmates.

You can tell that they're all just starting out, they were being a little shy with the splashing, they have dry hair and the 4 and 5 year olds hadn't arrived yet.

They had all kinds of different bubbles for the kids to use, Evan loved this large bubble wand that you could just swing your arms and bubbles would come out. He came back to this several times and got the same wand each time.

This is the view from the bubble/chalk/hula hoop section which was at the end of the parking lot, so this is what all the water play part looked like.

I won't describe every single picture since there's so many, especially some of the same types of things.

This sprinkler hose.

Rubber ducks in a baby pool. The kids liked to pick these up and drop them or toss them back in to make it splash.

The school had the Kona man come and give everybody free kona ice. I don't know if Kona is the brand or type (like Italian or shaved) but everybody else knew exactly what it was and apparently it's very popular. He took a huge handful of the plain ice and made it snow all over the kids (which they just loved) and then they got in line and all of them even got to pick which flavor they wanted. It was such a treat for the kids and they were so excited. I thought that was a really nice thing for them to do.

Evan picked blue, he didn't know what the flavors were and before they went up I told them to just tell him what color they wanted. I'm pretty sure they would have loved any of them.

Carter got in line and asked for a red one.

The kids sat so good and ate their Kona ices.

It was right at the beginning, probably 10 minutes after they let the kids loose to play, so they all got hyped up on sugar and burned it off over the next 2 hours. Carter was still not interested in water day. He just held his ice for awhile and poked it with his finger a little bit.

Evan wasted no time eating his. He made quick work of that ice.

The boys got so tickled when they realized that their tongues were the color of the ice that they were eating.

They started comparing tongues and just laughing. I love these pictures.

I'm pretty sure having a blue tongue was one of the highlights for Evan that day. He was just so tickled about it. He wanted me to take some pictures of it so he could see it.

His little blue moustache. Haha, so cute!!

"look at my blue mouth!"

After most of the kids had finished their ice and went back to play, Carter finally started eating his. He had waited awhile, so it was more slush as this point and he was able to eat it pretty fast since he could drink a lot of it. After he was done with his ice, he completely snapped out of his bad mood and was a completely different kid and had a blast the rest of the day and you wouldn't have any idea that he didn't want to participate in Water Day. There wasn't any bad attitude or anything the rest of the time we were there, which made me so happy.

The teachers would pick up the sprinkler hose or a squirt gun and squirt the kids and Evan was always right up there when they would, he just LOVES being squirted with water.

I will probably post every single picture of them holding hands because it's the cutest thing ever, it never gets old to me, and I know that pretty soon they won't do it-so I'm soaking it up now.

Evan was trying to talk Carter into going over there and getting squirted by the teacher.

The fishing turned out to be such a hit that they moved it to a bigger pool so more kids could do it at the same time. There was never a fishing rod not being used, the kids really enjoyed this. I knew Carter would especially because he loves his fishing pole at home and I even got them a set for bath time for Easter.

After Carter discovered this, I don't think he did much else, he kept coming back to this and then he finally just stayed on this until it was time to eat, probably at least half an hour straight of playing on this thing.

All the kids loved the big wand for bubbles. I never figured those would work very well, but they did and the boys were able to just spin and make tons of bubbles.

 So, you could sit on this part that Carter was on and make the rest of the water go higher.  

Evan decided to take a break, he said he was done and I got his towel and he sat down (a few kids had stopped playing and had their towels just relaxing on the sidewalk), but turned out he just needed about a 5 minute break and then he was back out there playing hard until it was time to eat.

Evan and the other kids just dying to get squirt by the teachers squirt gun.

Evan drawing with chalk with one of his classmates.

After the kids were done playing, one of the dads that volunteered grilled up hot dogs and the kids got to sit outside on their towels and have a picnic lunch. I think red, white and blue things look so cute on little kids. I just love seeing any type of 4th of july clothes in the store when I walk by the kids/baby section. I bought these outfits a couple of weeks ago and this is the first time the boys wore them. I could put them in these colors all summer and never get tired of it.

The boys worked up quite an appetite and ate much more than they normally do in one sitting, especially considering they were so distracted by all their friends and kids around them, but Evan ate his entire hot dog on a bun (plus cookies and crackers) and Carter ate most of his.

After the boys ate, we went home, it was about 12:30ish, so they played outside for about 2.5 hours. It was 90 degrees out, which was hot, but perfect for water day. All the kids are so small that they would have froze playing in that water if hadn't been so hot. It rained a ton the next day and then today it was in the low 70s and so chilly when we went out in the morning that we needed coats, so the weather just happened to be perfect for their water day, so I'm glad it worked out that way. I had so much fun being there at their school for this. It's one of those things I imagined doing when I thought of having kids and staying home with them, so it's fun that they're at an age where we're doing stuff like this.

 

I got a video of Evan hula hooping, it's very short, and I hope it works. I have problems getting videos to play right on my blog, but it's so cute/funny, I hope it works.

 

I also got a quick video of them just playing with the sprinkler thing that they liked so much.