Five families, twenty kids . . .

Two nights, big tents, little tents, screened-in tents, Capture the Flag, Kickball, Ghost in the Graveyard, dinners together, beach time, brazen raccoons, screech owls, campfires (without much fire), few morning rain drops, late nights, kids playing with and helping each other all weekend long.

=

A successful camping trip with good friends!

"Yipee!!

My first camping trip!

I LOVE that my mom will nurse me every time I wake up here!!!!!"

Orca and the boys ready for the beach.

"It'll be o.k. big brother."

"Thanks for being there for me, Liv."

(-:

He really makes her laugh and laugh . . .

and laugh!

Let's play...what do you think she's thinking??

(-:

Chalkboard Chores/Chalkboard Challenge

Mixing things up this summer with a new idea. This chalkboard has been floating around our house never really getting a lot of use. Also, I've never been great at having a steady/regular set of chores for the kids to do. As they're getting bigger (and bigger!!) and are home all summer (and there are more and more of them (-:), I'm definitely needing their help around the house. So, this is what I came up with:

One day they do whatever chores I write down.

(And they actually do them after reading the chalkboard. They take it much more seriously than if I actually spoke the requests to them!)

And the next day I make up any ol' "challenges" to lighten things up.

Last week they had push ups, sit ups and jumping jacks in a challenge. Today they had to hop through our kid's car wash on one foot and be able to tell me one thing they did at VBS among a few other things. Plus, we're reading a book together (other than "bedtime books") which helps me actually follow through with that if I write it down.

Working so far, here's hoping I can keep it up!

Some Roses for a Sunday . . .

Happy Father's Day all you Dad's!

It appears . . .

that summer vacation is going well so far!

I mean, look at 'em.

This is the kind of rip snorting fun they have just in my bedroom!

On my laptop!

When. I'm. Not. Around!!!

(-:

Spray Paint . . .

It's a good thing!

We got this chair when we first moved back to MI from NYC, um...12 years ago this month. We were in need of furniture and SP's sister came through with a wicker couch and chair for us. The couch has been gone for a while but this chair has hung around as outdoor "watching the kids play in the driveway" seating all these years. It has a cushion too, but my next goal is to figure out how to recover it, it's just a plain cream color. I'd been wanting to spray paint this for ages when I stumbled upon a fellow blogger who spray painted a bunch of resale stuff, that got me motivated (thanks, Lara...the blogger, not the daughter ((-:).

This girl doesn't have a chance . . .

at being a girly girl if this is the result of hanging out with her sister!!

Photo, staging and costuming by Lara!

What were you doing when you were three?

I know one thing I wasn't doing,

mastering a computer keyboard, mouse and Pages program on a Mac!!

This smart boy has been fooling around with typing random letters, changing fonts and colors in "Pages" on the kid's computer (someone "threw away" our Word program!!).

Turns out he also figured out how to spell his name, "return" and "delete"!!!

Rock Garden . . .

Though this may just look like a bunch of weeds what we have here are perfectly happy baby tomato plants (center, spiky leaves), spinach (top right) and morning glories (left side) growing in the rocks between my two raised garden beds. Seeds fallen from last fall. I've decided I'm going to pick the spinach and rip everything else out!

First real success with peas ever!

(I finally got them in early enough)

Lucky boy got the very first one!

Mmmm, mmm!

Blogger is tempting me with a plethora of new designs, layouts and backgrounds for the ol' blog. You never know what you might log on to if I find a little extra time on my hands (oh, ha ha ha...that's funny...think we'll be lookin' at the good old, sturdy blue bar for at least 91.5 more days...who's counting?? (-:)

And just like that . . .

Backpacks are replaced with baseball hats.

And towels have taken the place of coats.

School's Out!

(92.5 days, 13 hours and 42 minutes of fun has just begun...but who's counting! (-:)

"End of the Year" fieldtrip . . .

So, there's been a LOT of excitement at the house as the school year winds down. The big three have had exciting stories to share about sleep away camps, field trips to putt-putt golf, fishing and paddle boating, classroom parties, with treats and movies and field days with lots of game playing. Meanwhile I've had a three year old at home thinking (I think)..."yeah well today we played on the driveway and fed Livia strained peas for the first time." Whoo...hoo! Well, I decided he needed an "end of the year" field trip too so that's what we called our trip to the farm yesterday and capped it off by actually "going in" ("Can we go IN Mom???") McDonald's and getting a meal WITH a toy!!!
Made that boy's day I tell ya.

(-:

(You've got to double click this one and check her expression!!)

Ooblek

Somehow, in eleven years of parenting, I've never come across (or don't remember coming across, and there have been some serious brain cells lost over the last years so this is a possibility), this wonderful, amazing stuff called Ooblek. It has properties of both a solid and a liquid and Ben and Harrison tried it out at this Mini Maker Faire (never been there before HIGHLY recomend!!) over the weekend.

Harrison's second run through didn't go as well. He decided to try to walk and couldn't adjust for his foot getting stuck in the goop. He took a dive on his knees, then got his hands stuck, stood up, took a step and fell backwards on his bottom. Meanwhile, his entire family stood staring, wondering if they should help while mom was flustered with not catching this on video. That is just not right!!

Right before Ben goes you hear the guy say, "now you're not going to make the same mistake as the last kids are ya?" Harrison was a champ about it though, no stress especially after I pointed out all the other kids covered in cornstarch water, and went through (over) a few more times.

How cool is that??
I'm totally going to be filling a wading pool with this stuff (cornstarch & water) for one of the kids birthday parties some day!

Ha!

Clipped this beauty a couple days ago, before last night's torrential downpours annihilated the peony bushes. Evidently there were tornadoes touching down, warning sirens and giant thundering booms that we all slept through last night! It'll take a little more than that to wake the exhausted parents of five I guess!! (-:

Ya gotta just love our little, big brother . . .

Yesterday I decided I had enough in me to finally take William and Livia swimming together at the Y. It ended up a success, Livia loved the water and William was very independent not needing much hands on (nice, that three year gap). Before we left the house William was excited to get his very own swim bag. Thus this pic:

After snapping this shot I commented that if he was so excited about this new swim bag (well, new to him....25 cents, Value World (-:) he might want to smile about it.

This is what that looked like:

I'm trying to convince Ben to write a screenplay for Home Alone 4 (or whatever number they'd be on) and we'd submit William's headshot with it out to Hollywood.

(-:

There's that winning smile again.

He scooty-scoot-scooted quickly into frame when I was attempting to get the two baseball players. He's such a champ at playing both the leader and follower roles that he's been given with his placement in the family.

Sometimes . . .

When William is far, far away . . .

We break out the Johnny Jump Up!

Can you imagine the swinging she would do with "big brother" around??!!

"Oh, hello there. Do I know you from somewhere?"

Babies + Mirrors = Fun