Indianapolis Children's Museum!

We were fortunate enough to be able to go to the Indianapolis Children's Museum this past Tuesday with the Public Library. They rented charter buses for the 2 hour trip and showed us movies and paid for our admission all with a government summer reading grant. It was so fun! At first I was wondering how I was going to keep the children happy and not cranky for 7 hours on my own, but it turned out not to be a problem. There was plenty to do and they didn't seem to be tired at all!

This was the Etch-A-Sketch room.

This picture was probably taken 4 hours into our museum time and he's still smiling!

The Dinosaur Exhibit was a favorite with my children. They thought these eggs were really cool!

This seemed to be a popular exhibit with all my children-the Barbie Exhibit complete with dress up clothes and a runway with photographers! James was Kaylee's dressing coach. You can see him in the back checking out his work. I think here she just has on a headband, but it got more extravagant!

James and Jonah here turned into photographers. They loved the flash!
What a twirly dress!

This exhibit is of Egyptian music. Also a favorite for some reason.

Summertime

What good would summertime be without going to the pool? We go often to get out of our cramped house!


There is a family in our branch who live on a farm. Their dog had puppies so we had to go check them out.
Jared LOVED this puppy and it loved him, too. It kept following him around!

Kaylee just loves dogs and puppies. She was in heaven.

The little girl in the back is their daughter. She's a year older than Kaylee and the closest Kaylee has to a playmate here. Of course, James and Jonah requested we bring a puppy home. I let them know that was certainly NOT happening!! This was before I realized their hair was getting way too long. The pool pictures above were taken a few days after I cut their hair.

The Fair came to town! We rode the rides and the boys had fun. They went on every ride there and wanted more. Maybe next year we'll take them to Six Flags.
You can see James and Jonah here in the yellow and green shirts.
Kaylee is in this one with Jonah and James is in the front.

We also went camping with the Cub Scouts in June. That was pretty fun. And of course who can forget about the unbeatable baseball team James and Jonah were on? Unfortunately the last 2 games were canceled and I never got pictures. I'll have them put on their uniforms and make them practice so I can get a shot of them... :-)

Happy 2nd Birthday!

Jared celebrated his 2nd birthday on June 9th (I know I'm behind!) Since Jared had 3 large wallpaper shaped frog cutouts in his old bedroom in Kansas I figured I'd make him a frog birthday cake since he seems to like frogs. I looked online for an idea and I found this:
I think it turned out cute! It took awhile to pipe all those stars on it, though, and Matt thought I shouldn't have put the tongue on. Oh, well.
And since Jared always seems to be stealing and fighting over Kaylee's baby dolls, I thought I'd get him his own except since he is a boy I couldn't exactly get him a doll that looked too "girly". So I got him this:
As you can see from his expression I'm not sure he liked it that much. He kept trying to take the chicken suit off of it, which doesn't come off. The hood lowers but that is pretty much it. He still takes Kaylee's more girly dolls and Kaylee told me she will take Jared's baby and she will give him one of hers. I guess that solved that problem!

Jared fell asleep with Kaylee. They share a bedroom. We found Kaylee's toddler bed a few days ago so that is why she's just on her mattress. I can't remember why Jared wasn't in his crib?

This is our living room before I found the boxes and boxes of toys in the garage from the move. It doesn't look so uncluttered anymore. I'm working on a solution. I hate clutter!!!

Thanks for the comments!

Yes, you guys have come to the same conclusion I had about moving so that is why I was looking at this other little town 35 miles away. It is also in the middle of nowhere and smaller than the town we currently live in. The only test score that was significantly higher in that other town was reading.

After much thought and talking to Matt, and driving around the town this weekend we came to the conclusion that the phrase "The grass is always greener on the other side" applied to our consideration of moving. We could drive literally an hour in any direction and the schools would be no better. I've learned that by talking to other mothers at baseball games over the week who have looked into it, and talking to people in our branch who work in the school districts over the areas as aides or secretaries.

So we will not rule out this other town yet, but we can't see that it will be much better.

4th of July Fun and School Questions for you

We went to Indiana for the 4th of July and went to Lake Michigan on Saturday and watched the fireworks in Elkhart. Then on the 4th we went to Caleb's house (Matt's brother) and ate and hung out. No pictures, sorry. I brought the battery charger but never charged the batteries. Too many things going on. I think I need to buy a new charger for one of our older cameras because the one I'm using now isn't acting that great.

So my question about schools are...
1.) Would you stay in a town to be closer to work and to stay in a very nice branch, or would you move to a town 30 minutes away to have your children attend a better school but be farther from work and have to switch to a ward which would be 15-20 minutes away from the new town you are moving to? This other town is more a suburb town of a larger city and their test scores are better than the town we are in. I've heard from someone who lives there they really like it. I'll have to ask, but I think it might not have the rural feel of ignorance that this school district has. (I'm really being serious!)

The schools here are terrible. They are below the state average in their test scores and children (not just mine) are not treated very kindly by other students or by the aides who work in the schools. I was told last night at a ballgame that my boys would have to beat someone up in order not to get picked on. Is that normal?!?

-OR-

2.) Would you homeschool your children so you could still live in the town to be close to work and we wouldn't have to pick up everything and move again. Since this is such a small town there won't be a large network or support group for us to be a part of. The closest one is an hour away. So my kids wouldn't get to be around other kids hardly at all.

I don't like the private school after touring it very much, and we can't really pay for it right now.

So those are my options. We won't make a final decision for at least this next school year since we signed a rental lease for this house in April for a year. What would you do?