Friday, June 10, 2011

Cookout at the farm

David did a little photo session the other weekend at the farm....


It was a weekend before it got so stinking hot outside


and we decided last minute to have a cookout.



Grace hamming it up for dad....


Everyone loves a good weiner roast when we take time to have one.






Grant and John like playing with the fire. 








Lots of hot dogs, marshmallows, s'mores, cinnamon twists and sodas later everyone was finally full.



Not a bad ending to a day.








Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Car Fun

a few more totally random pictures here....


I have been a total slacker this past week at blogging.
I'll blame it on the transition from kids in school to kids at home.
We've been busy getting chores figured out and figuring out what to do with ourselves together all day now.


John finishes up baseball tomorrow night.  They are doing a round robin tournament since there were so few teams in his age bracket in this particular league. 

I'm guessing we'll be looking for a new league to play in next year if he still chooses to play baseball.
There was not much to brag about in the league this year.


Tonight John had a birthday party at a local fun park.  He got to ride go-karts and do laser tag.  The party ended at 9:30!  (Who schedules a party that late?)

Anyway, I took the other three kids swimming during the time he was at the party.  Grace and Grant both decided tonight was the night to start swimming on their own.

Grace made it by herself clear across the pool.  That was a first for her.
Grant is trying his hardest, but he's not quite that good yet.


Grace also decided she wanted to jump off the diving board tonight.
It took her two trips to the end of the board, but she finally got the nerve to jump!
She loved it!

Grant was not about to be outdone by his sister.  He decided right then that he was going off the dive too. 

Unfortunately, he hasn't quite got the swimming thing figured out as well as she does.
He came up and swam two strokes then turned and grabbed hold of me.  He decided it was easier to hitch a ride to the side of the pool than swim by himself.

If you know me, you know I can swim, but I am NOT a proficient swimmer.  I like to swim, but I do NOT like to swim while lugging a 54 pound lump of terrified boy around with me.

By the time I huffed my way to the side of the pool dragging him, I made the executive decision that there would be no more jumping into the pool to mom this evening.

My decision was met with much booing and groaning by the newest swimmers in the family.


Too bad.

They'll just have to wait on their

former-lifeguard-really-good-swimmer-fun-loving-dad

to jump in to next time.


This girl in the picture below is the one with the glasses in case there was any confusion regarding the newest wearer of glasses in the family.
I'm still not officially revealing who it is.  Maybe she won't get mad at me for telling on her if I leave you guessing a little.



She only wears them for long distance viewing.  She doesn't have to wear them all of the time.

What's up with that???

When I got glasses as a kid, the doctor told me to put them on and that was where they stayed from the time I got out of bed until I went back to bed that night!

I now have two kids with glasses who do not have to wear them all of the time!





Just a little attitude for you this evening......

These pictures were all taken in the car while waiting for John after one of his baseball games.  Obviously we'd all gotten a little silly by this point in the day.



I promise I'll get pictures downloaded one of these days.

Right now I'm off to iron some clothes before going to bed!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Lots of not much

School is officially over.  Friday was the first day of summer vacation for the kids.
How did we start our summer?



We loaded them up for a work day at the farm.
John mowed and trimmed the yard.  Emily helped me weed the garden.
There were more thistles that needed cut in the pasture.
Fun times.

Yes indeed.  Fun times.



Speaking of mowing yards, John is now mowing yards in our neighborhood.  Well, truthfully, he's mowing ONE yard in our neighborhood.  The lady who hired him is married, but her husband is out of town a lot.  John is doing a good job and likes it so far.  We'll see how fun he thinks it is once it gets really hot this summer.

Isn't that awful?  We don't even let him mow our own yard.  We've always said the hill in back is too steep for him to mow yet.  The irony of that is the yard he is mowing now has a hill that David says is worse than our own!!  (I think that will get us a nomination for some sort of parenting award this year.)


I'm not supposed to tell you all this little detail, but I can't wait any longer.
Someone in our family just got glasses last month.

Want to guess who??

Nope.  She already has glasses.




SOMEONE in this picture now owns glasses.
The SOMEONE I'm talking about does not have a tail or floppy ears either.
If you've not guessed yet, then well, you're just a really poor guesser!



Our pediatrician says hard hats are not a good substitute for bike helmets.
But what does he really know??


Grant seems to think hard hats work just fine!



The umbrella thing isn't quite as protective in a fall,



but it sure makes a great fashion statement!!


LOOK!  No hands!!
(Just an entire roll of masking tape to hold the umbrella in place)

This guy is doing great on a bike.
He's even tried to ride without using his hands just like his big brother and sister do.
That little trick wound up costing him a few band-aids.  I hope you took my advice and bought stock in those things.




Seeing as how summer vacation started in earnest today, I handed the kids their chore lists for the summer.  The big kids get about three hours of chores/studying to do a day.  Grace and Grant are doing a few chores and some school work too, but not nearly as much as John and Emily. 

It was sort of enjoyable today.  I sat down with all four at the kitchen table to work on their school review books/preschool workbooks.  I don't think I'm cut out for homeschooling, but I can see where there would be great satisfaction in doing their schooling full-time.

I even found a really neat introduction to Latin that we're going to jump in and try.  The kids have the opportunity to study Latin at their middle and high schools.  I have heard though that the classes are extremely challenging.  I thought this might give them an early lead if they choose to take that as their foreign language someday.  Plus I know it is supposed to help with many other areas of study as well.  We'll see how it goes.  It might fall flat right at the start, but you never know until you try, right?



We've been to the pool five or six times already this year.  Grace and Grant aren't swimming as well as they were last fall, but they'll get there soon enough.

I'm thinking about having one of our lifeguards do private lessons with them for a couple weeks here at the start of summer.  That is a small price to pay so I don't have to get in that cold pool so much!  Brrrrr!

I know this is extremely random.


Lots more to tell.

Tons of pictures I've not downloaded.

I'm just busy doing other things right now.  I hope to get back to them later this week.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Just another ordinary day

Just now.......


Grace:  Hey, mom.  Grant just found a new way to wash his hands.


Mom: (fearing the answer I would hear) Really!  How?


Grace:  He put them in the toilet water!


Mom:  GRANT!  Go wash your hands....in the SINK this time!!!




Oh gross!





@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@




Grace put swim caps on all of her animals the other day.


What did she make the swim caps out of?

Her silly putty!



The animals were going swimming with a boat load of pirates that happened to stop by.





They invited a few ducks over to join the party too! 


The ducks seem rather unhappy, don't you think?


&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

While the party was going on in the other room, Grace and Grant dug into some shaving cream to play with for a while.




Grant took Mr. Dinosaur for a walk through the prehistoric foam.....




Kind of looks like 'dinosaur meets ice age'.....





Grace took her baby seal for a swim in the foamy ocean...







The worm picture has no relevance here.....


Grant just wanted me to take a picture of him with his friend one day....

so I did.


Worms may be on the endangered species list if my kid keeps catching them and tearing them into pieces.  I'm sure this guy met an unfortunate ending soon after these pictures were taken.

Boys with worms.....yuck!
Maybe he should go wash his hands in the toilet water when he's done with the worm!