Tag: summer fun

Soaking Up the Last of Summer

by disneywonderlandgazette, posted in family, family fun, Family Vacation, Home, Pittsburgh, preschoolers, Toddler, Toddler Travel, Uncategorized

FunInTheSun

It is hard to believe that summer is almost over. It seems like it was just Fourth of July and now kids are going back to school and Halloween candy is making its appearance on store shelves.

We try our best to do everything on our “Summer Bucket List” but inevitability we realize that we can’t get everything done.

This year was especially difficult because our weather was more rainy and cooler on Saturdays, the days that we usually go and do our adventures.

After trying for about a month, we finally made it to the Soak Zone at Idlewild park last weekend.

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Included with a ticket to Idlewild park is Soak Zone, a small water park.

While we had been to the rest of the park through this year, we hadn’t been to the water park portion.

When I say it is a smallish water park, it is by no means tiny. There are about five different areas in the water park.

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Map courtesy of Idlewild

Soak Zone includes an awesome wave pool (which is where we spent most of our time), I think four water slides (it could be more), a lazy river type attraction, a little kids play area and a bigger kids play area that features a dump bucket with a bunch of kid sized water slides, plus a stand alone dump bucket.

When we first arrived last Saturday it seemed like it was going to be a little cool and very cloudy.

However, luck was on our side and it became pretty sunny and warm and we made it out before a storm hit.

Personally, my favorite place to spend time was at the Wowabunga Wavepool.

Lily could swim around and splash between wave sessions, and when the waves began, we sat on the “beach” and let the waves rush up on us.

Lily seemed to really enjoy the little kids splash area.

The pool is only about one foot deep and features tubes that spray water up and down. Kids even have the option of turning a valve that controls how much water sprays out.

We had such a wonderful day full of lots of family fun and memories.

We sure tired out Lily by spending almost four hours splashing around.

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We finished the day off by taking a ride on the carousel and grabbing a quick lunch before leaving. Lily was asleep before we hit the main road to home.

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Did you get to do a lot on your “Summer Bucket List?” Leave a comment below.

June Book Bag

by disneywonderlandgazette, posted in Books for Toddlers, family, Home, Toddler Travel, Uncategorized

JuneBooks

Even though it might be time for kiddeos to be putting away their school books and learning might be far from one’s mind, it still doesn’t mean that you remove reading from your routine.

Here are a few of our selections for the first month of summer reading.

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This really funny book is about two chopsticks who are inserparable until one day the one has a break. This results in the one needing to rest so it can get better and be useable again.

While the one chopstick is resting the other one goes on adventures and learns that sometimes it is OK to be on your own.

Full of wonderful puns and kitchen humor, this book is a fun read for both kids and adults.

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Because our little Mousekatot is going to be taking some dance classes this summer, I wanted to introduce her to the art of dance through a fun book.

The Angelina series has been around for awhile, and has even spawned a series that is currently available on Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant video.

The series involves a sweet little mouse named Angelina that takes ballet lessons and the different mice that dance with her and the various life lessons they learn.

I high recommend this book as well as any others in the series.

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This is our second round for “Oh No, Little Dragon.” Lily absolutely loves the story about this little dragon whose spark goes out when he swallows water during a bath. While he tries everything to get it back it comes from a very sweet source.

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Mo Willems is one of our favorite authors. (We are obsessed with the “Elephant and Piggie” series.) When I saw this at the library I had to pick it up.

This rhyming tale is about little Nanette who gets a very important job of bringing home a baguette for her mom. When the temptation of the tasty baguette gets to be too much what will Nanette do?

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Peppa Pig and her family go camping in this book.

Not only do they have the most magical camper that also turns into a boat, but they also spend time sleeping under the stars and doing all sorts of other fun camping activates.

Since we just went camping a few weeks ago, Lily has been very interested in the subject.

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I am all about books that help little girls learn about their full potential.

This is one of those books. It talks about a young Ada that is different because she wants to learn more about why things are the way they are, which can sometimes be a challenge to her parents.

In the end everyone figures out how to embrace their own true self.

Recently, we had checked out “Carnival of the Animals” from our local library.

It came with a CD that Lily loved to listen to while figuring out which animals were represented by which instrument.

Because she liked it we bought her a copy of that book as well as two other ones that have CDs with them.

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I like to pretend that I am going to read a book. So this time I really wanted to read “And Then There Were None.” So far, so good.

Do you have any books that you like to read during the summer months. Leave a comment below.

Finding Fun in the Simple Things

by disneywonderlandgazette, posted in camping, family, family fun, Home, preschoolers, Toddler, Uncategorized

Lily Smore 2

Having access to the Internet is both a blessing and a curse at the same time.

While you are able to find plenty of suggestions on how to make the perfect birthday party for your one year old, it can also hurt because you don’t think that you can ever measure up to what you see on the screen.

Being a parent is hard enough you don’t need this added pressure of unrealistic expectations to add to it.

It was a year ago that I read an article about how this mother wanted to have a “1970s Summer.”

This meant more time outside and allowing kids to just be kids.

Like letting children get all sticky sweet from sugar loaded Popsicles minus the organic and no sugar added variety.

Letting them stay up too late to go outside and catch lightening bugs and camp in the backyard.

We started to do this last year by enjoying smores by the fire pit and doing indoor camping and letting her eat too much ice cream.

We plan on doing this again this year.

So when I was on Pinterest, ironic, isn’t it, I found a lot of places that had lists of things to do over the summer with your children.

Here is a list that I really like from Natural Beach Living.

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What ideas do you have for spending the summer with your little Mousekatots? Leave your comments below.