VBS

This week is Vacation Bible School. I am the Bible story teacher, which means I get to see all the kids as I am one of the stations they rotate through. We've been getting there quite early every morning partially for me to setup and prepare for the day, partially due to my kids being super excited and waking up early, eating as fast as they can and wanting to leave as soon as possible. One of the advantages they have found to me helping out and happening to be the only person in our gym building, is they can use the bouncy house. And they get it all to themselves!

Wearing them out before the day begins? Not really, they still made it through the day fine and then spent 3 hours in a pool this afternoon!

Slide train!

Getting ready of the opening rally!

Singing, jumping and having fun!

Hannah was even jumping and doing the motions! Which is truly amazing for her, I was so proud of her :-)

Weekend craziness

This past weekend Nathan worked until 10 pm on Friday and midnight on Saturday. He had some testing he had to over see, so it was crazy hours. On Saturday morning we headed out as a family to the towns "Village Fair Days" which we didn't stay at long. It's a bunch of vendor booths in general, and they have free bouncy houses, but they weren't up, the kids were disappointed about that, but they played some of the games at the vendor booths. Hannah was the big winner twice, winning a toy from one booth and a free ice cream from another.
After Nathan left for work the girls asked if we could head for the beach. Sure, why not? We had nothing better to do, so off we went!

 Evie, Kaleb and Damen being "alligators"

Kaleb practicing his back floating

Hannah and Evie relaxing in the water!

Angry alligators

Building on the beach

Kaleb had a blast driving his truck around

Hannah, drawing in the sand

More building

Damen and Kaleb got into filling a hole with water using the truck and a bucket

Damen taking a turn with the truck

Evie's sand tower

Hannah out in the sparking water!

Pets for a day

My kids have started a frog club. They have a theme song, which I totally need to get on video, but haven't. They have been going out pretty much every morning to catch frogs/toads and some times in the afternoon as well. They have been catching wood frogs, toads and tree frogs. It's been quite exciting and they can always find at least one. Last year we did not do well keeping frogs or toads overnight, so the house rule is you always let them go at the end of the day. The kids are okay with this and it is working well. Tonight Hannah had a tree frog she wanted to show me before letting him go. His name is Fire. She called me from the door and said "Mom, you need to come see Fire" I thought this involved going outside, so I walked over towards the door and said "Just a minute" then I saw her and the frog.

Cute aren't they? :-) It stayed there for a good long time too, Hannah finally took it off. 

This is their other pet, Kaleb caught it, he's getting good at catching things, he caught his first frog this week too. This beetle's name is Casey. It's a pretty big beetle. This is the second large (over an inch long) beetle we've found in the past week, the first one we didn't keep. This one has been around for a few days now. It reminds me of the roaches in Texas.

Sleeping Under the Stars

Yesterday as I was getting the boys ready for bed the girls got a sleeping bag and some pillows and went out on the back deck and snuggled up in the sleeping bag. I saw them, came out and said "You want to sleep out here tonight?" delighted at the idea of course they said "YES!" We got them another sleeping bag, got them ready for bed and then they headed back out. Nathan went out a little while after they had and they asked him "what are those blinking lights" they were fireflies! Their normal bed time is 8 pm so they don't often get to see the dark of summer time. They slept the entire night under the stars on the deck and can't wait to do it again.

All ready for bed!

Nappy's Puppets

Today we went to the library for a shadow puppet show by Nappy's Puppets. Nappy is a wonderful entertainer and this is by far one of the kids favorite programs that the library brings in during the summer. If you click that link you can see some videos of his word. I took a few pictures, but since it's shadow puppets and I was at an angle it was hard to get a good picture.

 Everyone waiting for the show to begin. I think Evie couldn't find her "Don't mess with Texas shirt" that's why she isn't matching. The boys where the shirts and say "we aren't going to mess with Texas" it's pretty cute, they have no clue what it's talking about. :-) 

This was four little monkeys jumping on the bed. 

Here's their mother telling them not to jump on the bed :-) 

The main story from the day was Jack and the Bean Stalk. These are the charters from that story. The smallest figure is the "giant" it's a slightly non-traditional version! :-)

My toothless child

Evie lost a tooth at swimming lessons today. She lost the other two in the last couple of weeks.

Swimming Pictures

Here are some pictures from swimming today, to prove that my other children are in fact swimming as well :-)

Damen with a big smile!

Damen "flying" holding on to the wall.

Kaleb found he could hang out on a noddle and get around

Evie chillin' on a float

A Fun Weekend

This past weekend Nathan's sister and her two kids came for a visit on Saturday. The kids enjoyed playing with each other and we even managed to round up bikes for everyone. It was pretty hot, but they had fun outside and inside.
On Sunday we had a family from church over and let the kids have some fun in the kiddy pool. We also celebrated one of their family members birthday. Of all the fun we had this weekend the only picture I took was of the cake.

Ice cream cakes are so yummy! :-) 

dirt

Apparently I have this thing about moving dirt during the summer. I don't know what it is, but the past two summers have found me moving way too much dirt around. This year we're having our gravel driveway paved. Our driveway was built up so it has a pretty steep slope at one point. The company that is doing the paving recommended getting some fill dirt to help prevent the driveway from cracking at the edge where the slope is. Well, we followed their recommendation and got maybe a little too much fill dirt. We had 15 cubic yards of fill dirt delivered this past Wednesday, because of the slopes on the the sides of the driveway the truck could only dump the dirt half off the driveway. The other half went on the driveway. This was around one in the afternoon. I spent about four hours moving dirt to clear the driveway. I didn't get it all, Nathan finished it when he got home from work, but I'd say I moved at least 3 cubic yards of dirt. At least..... A cubic yard of dirt is about 1 ton. Not bad for a days work :-)

Swimming

Here are two videos of Hannah. I didn't do so well on the other kids videos, so I'll redo those. But Hannah decided a week and a half ago she was no longer afraid of the deep end and is even willing to kick a length on her back now, which is amazing! On Friday she jumped off the diving board for the first time and liked it! She then did it several times after that. I am so proud of the progress she has made this year so far!

This is Hannah doing a length freestyle.

And here she is kicking a length on her back.

Living Dragons!

The second library show we saw was reptiles. :-)

They got to touch all but two of the animals they showed. 

Most of what was seen were lizards. This one has suction cups so it can do things like climb walls :-)

Kaleb was all into touching everything. Damen was a little tentative at first, but then was all into it. It was hard to get pictures of them because Kaleb was sitting on my lap. 

Lunch time. What is that small out of focus spec you ask? A cockroach :-)

Yum!

Did you know boas have claws? Cool huh? 

This is a legless lizard. Did you know there are legless lizards? They're different from snakes because they have ears, eye lids and can detach their tail like most lizards can as a defense mechanism

And a big one to end the day!

Science Teller

The first special library program we did this year was seeing a Science Teller. Someone who tells a story, while doing experiments relating to the story. The kids LOVED it. They laughed, they jumped, they ooowed and aaahed. Okay, they didn't really fly, but Evie got to attempt to fly.

My kids (and their friends) got front row seats (ie everyone in the picture)

Seeing how a screen creates enough tension to hold the water into the jar. 

Shooting a cap off a film canister with baking soda and vinegar. 

Trying to make Evie fly with a leaf blower :-) It didn't work. 

But you could make the toilet paper fly!

Like I said, it was a great show and everyone enjoyed it! He made eggs fall into cups without breaking, he used the absorbent material in diapers to play a trick on the librarian, making her think she was going to end up with a cup full of water on her head and he created fire in one of those multi gallon water jugs.

The Invisible Man

This is what my children do when I'm not looking! Maybe I should what more of the random videos they make....this one is pretty amusing :-)

A video by Hannah and Evie for your enjoyment!

Summer

Our first several weeks of summer have been filled with lots of fun and family. In between the family visits we've started swimming lessons three days a week, the girls are doing two different weekly morning library programs and we've been doing the special Tuesday afternoon library programs. That along with lots of friends over has been a crazy, but fun start to summer. The girls are doing great with their swimming. Hannah finally decided on Wednesday she is no longer afraid of the deep end and likes swimming in it! They were both doing the length of the pool today during lessons instead of the widths we had been doing. Hannah even did a couple lengths on her back which is huge! The boys are getting more comfortable as well. This past weekend we had our neighborhood block party and Kaleb got completely comfortable walking around in the shallow end of the pool. He swallowed after the pool while doing it, but did much better not swallowing all the water today at lessons. He was even doing bobs on his own! Damen is still a little hesitant exploring the water due to falling in earlier this summer (our first lesson he went in the deep end after a toy), but he is doing lessons with me and progressing in a positive direction. I even let him go for a second on his back and he floated today :-) I got some video from swimming today, so hopefully I'll upload that and pictures from the library programs soon!

4th of July weekend

My parents took the kids up to Boston July 2nd and Nathan and I headed up the 4th to join them. We headed to my Uncle's for a 4th of July family get together. The kids were happy to see us after two days away, and I think the other adults were as well :-) Nathan spent a majority of the time kayaking across the pond with various kids, he took all four of our kids out and one other kid. While he was taking one kid at a time Uncle Lucas was pushing the others to shore in a kayak and the rest who weren't in it would push it back out again.

 Damen enjoying his turn with Daddy on the boat. 

Evie, having been pushed ashore, waiting for her push back in the water by Damen and Kaleb. 

Kaleb hanging out on the dock. I totally forgot to take more pictures of everyone else in the kayak. 

And here are some of the other smiling faces we got to see. 

On Sunday we went to church with Becca and Lucas and were able to witness Lily's baptism. After church we headed to a park that was on a pond. The kids enjoyed the park and we all went wading in the pond. Evie managed to catch a fish bare handed! And we all enjoyed watching the swans. After the park we headed back to Becca and Lucas' house for a birthday/baptism party for Lily. The kids were excited because we told them they could eat whatever they wanted after they had their sandwiches. We allowed them to take two items at a time and the first time around Kaleb took veggies as one of his items. I don't know how many rice krispy treats, brownies, cake and other goodies the kids actually ate, but when Evie told me she was full I knew it was time to head home. :-)

Pie Making

When my parents visit every night they make my kids into pie. This is a super secret processes known only by grandparents! But, when they were here last week we got to see the results of the pie making. :-)

Nathan took this picture so you could see Kaleb's foot hanging out of the rail on the top bunk. 

Here's one that shows Damen better, he's flipped and on the edge. 

Okay, so that position probably was more likely the result of talking with his brother than pie making, but we thought it was funny. We took Damen's rail off his bed awhile ago now and he's still falling out.....a LOT. I can't imagine why, can you?

The Frog

When we came back from our 4th of July fun in Boston the tadpole had four legs and very little tail left! The next day he had climbed out on the rock in his habitat. On Tuesday we took Tom back to where the girls found him. I took pictures, so here they are!

He's so tiny!

Evie took this picture of the frog on Hannah's hand

We took the car down to the creek because it was raining

Returning to where the tadpole was found.

And Hannah put him back, well Tom jumped from this point on to the ground :-)