We took advantage of the change to not so humid weather and went bike riding in the not too far distant past.
It’s 5:30 am on Wednesday. Yeah, I’ve been up since 3:30 due to being hot, bathroom run, itching (more on that later), and sinus infection. I have to be up up by 6:15 and ready to get kids up because for some reason I scheduled their dentist appointments for 7:45 in the morning. My brain is totally fried.
So, I thought I’d post, seeing as how I missed yesterday, have read all my facebook statuses, and am now up to date with blogs I don’t follow. Priorities you know.
Liam and Josiah are using a new phonics curriculum. I’ll post more about our homeschool stuff later but I wanted to share this first. The curriculum suggests using different tactile things to encourage writing letters, etc. One of the suggestions was finger paint.
So, I grabbed a box of pudding, mixed it up and sent the kids outside with it, plates, and swimsuits on. They enjoyed it for about ten minutes and then wanted to play in the sprinklers! They barely even ate the pudding (more for me…yippee!). As you can see, Liam got a lot out of the tactile letter writing and made a guy. With a sword.
Josiah made a river and mountains.
I think we’ll just stick with the whiteboard and paper from here on out.
Ceili Rain thought it’d be fun to just smash her hand in it. And lick. I wholeheartedly agreed with her.
And Bryant, well, he still prefers a morning power nap and was down for the count when all the mess occurred.
Now that that is done. Let’s see if I can catch a thirty minute snooze before time to get up and go.
We preformed plays in the hallway…
Of course we didn’t pass up the free food from Chick-fil-a this year! No way would we do that. I’ve just been delayed in getting this up.
Our Carr Friends did it right this year with reuseable shirts! We’re so doing that next year. Our spots wouldn’t stay on this year and our ears were a bit floppy…see???
The Transue Summer Invasion happened at the beginning of July. They got here in time for a quick cook out and rainy fireworks on the 4th and then the week was full of lots of fun activities…
This year we were able to make it to the first of family reunions. We’re hoping to attend at least one more, possibly two if my side does it again. This is a great opportunity for me to meet relatives and hear stories about “the good ole days,” which I love!
So, here’s a photo dump of our day at a reunion we attended in June.
Before the reunion, we were reunited with the oldest two as Grandparent Camp came to an end. I was so excited to have my oldest two “babies” back. They celebrated by calling us Grandmere and Papa the whole weekend…and we still took them back home with us.
The younger kids enjoyed picking veggies from Papa’s garden.
And these next series of pictures I just have to comment on. They are too funny not to!
On Father’s Day weekend, we packed up the two oldest (aka the Helpers) and sent them off with Papa and Grandmere for the first ever Grandparent Camp. They were super excited and Grandmere and Papa made the week extra special. Meanwhile, back at our camp there was a countdown to when we could get the siblings back. They were missed by their brothers, sister, and the parental figures as well.
So, Father’s Day weekend we had planned for Mark’s parents to come up so that Papa could help finish up the deck. That was the plan.
That’s not what happened. Mark, who was not on call. Got a call from work (which never happens) and had to go to work on Saturday. I was committed to volunteer at a home school used book sale so that left his parents to watch the kids.
Fortunately, Mark only had to work in the morning and was able to get home and get to the wood store and back home to get up some railing before it started pouring rain!
 |
| Before the rain, the men were checking the radar on their “smart” phones. |
And Sunday dawned beautiful and bright (and hot) and everyone actually looked at the camera for pictures!
Yes, I know I’m two days early but I didn’t want to forget as we have friends who will be here all week! And I’m one happy camper.
So, for the 4th we will be joyfully busy.
And my daughters will be decked out in the most adorable outfits. At least I think they are:
Yeah, it’s still keeping the pictures turned. I’ll show how I made this skirt in a sec…but first, the youngest from the Bunch…
This was my second attempt at a pillowcase dress and, I must say, it succeeded!
So, here’s how I made Zoe’s skirt. After making the pillowcase dress, I didn’t have enough material to make a twirl skirt for Zoe. So, I brainstormed. And remembered that I was holding on to two blue jean legs that I had cut off last year to make shorts for Zoe. I knew they would make a cute skirt but wasn’t sure how to use them. And then this project came up:
I cut the legs apart and then folded them in half.
I placed the denim on the fabric on the fold and cut out two more panels to match the pants panels. I also made sure they had a bit of a triangle shape to add to some twirl (which is a requirement from Zoe).
Then I just sewed (actually serged…woohoo…I have a serger now) the panels together, made casing for elastic and then sewed the ribbon on the bottom. Tada!
And my wonderful “critic” and “advisor” loved it!
Our pastor’s wife planned a trip to a local blueberry patch and when the owners said the more kids the merrier, we signed up! Some of the local u-pick places do not like having children running through their land (understandably). But these people didn’t mind. And they didn’t seem to mind after we finished picking and eating blueberries and making multiple trips to their toilet and drinking up all their water.
I apologize, in advance for all these sideways photos. I’m not sure what is up with blogger. I have checked, and double checked, and I have rotated the pictures and saved them but some how they flip when I upload them. So, just turn your head.
A beautiful pond, and because they have 16 grandchildren, there is a nice big fence all the way around the pond! Woohoo for grandparents!
She actually did pick more than that…but she was amazed at how well she did at the start!
Yes, I made them wear the yellow shirts…even though our group was the only ones there. I never had trouble spotting them.
All their hard work earned great rewards though. We got one large bucket of blueberries and about half a bucket of blackberries. And they were all yummy too! And still are. I froze most of the blueberries and we take out as needed!
