Summer Sleepovers

 Looking back at these pictures, I'm realizing that summer sleepovers at our house might not be the most fun thing ever.

If Daddy goes to work, we do our summer schedule, which means that our friends have to read and do Latin and whatever activity the child is on that day: math? German? geography?  Sorry, we do our best to avoid summer slide in this house.




But, of course, they do get to play a little bit!


I don't think their friends complained much, and chores are always more fun with friends!  

The summer was so fast, I don't think we fit in nearly as many playdates and sleepovers as I thought we would!  We'll try to keep it going into the school year.

later days

A Summer of Fun!

A few pictures that show all the little things that don't fit anywhere else!

In Poznan, I found these cute little bee hair ties, so I bought Juliet all the colors.  Her favorite is the blue!

Grace was really into tic tac before we left, so when I saw interesting tic tac sizes, I bought them for her.  She was quite excited and put them all in order.



I read that if you lay white towels out on the lawn, the peroxide released by the plants will help to whiten them.  While I was skeptical, and did not research the science behind it, I did take a before and after picture.  I attempted to take it at the same time of day as well, but didn't notice much in the way of improvement.  It actually kind of looked dirtier, which is not much of a surprise, since it had been outside for several days.  My personal conclusion: lawn bleaching is ineffective.



I've been to Leslie more in the past month than I have been since Billy and I were house hunting!  Emily's new friend Emma lives there, so I foresee many more trips!  I saw this cool historical flag in their downtown, and sent a picture to Billy because it reminded me of Fallout.


Grace cleaned her bed, and I thought this was a cool shot!

Have I already shared the single Haribo in the bag? Well, here it is again.  Billy found it on our camping trip.  He found it remarkable, because most of the packs had 4+ in them.  But not this one!

Grace and I went to the library to claim our prizes for summer reading, while Emily helped Avia with some cleaning.  She found this huge popper!


We walked down the center a few store fronts and found some egg plants, that actually looked like eggs!!!  We didn't get much, just a little cookie snack.


Scooby Doo day felt so forced this year.  I think I moved it three or four times, and finally had it, just to get it off the calendar, and get the box out of our house!  If next summer feels the same, our Scooby Doo celebrations might be at an end.

Kristy was selling these adorable honey packs at the girl scout yard sale, and the girls and I couldn't get over how adorable they were!  We finished the honey in just a couple of days. = )

We got to celebrate Avia a second time, in St. Louis and on her actual birthday this year!!!


Avia bought Aunt Janet a special shirt to wear on her birthday!  It says "Aunt of the Birthday Girl!" Perfect, right?

Grace loved having Aunt Janet here!  

On the Fourth of July, we were able to see some fireworks from our porch again this year!


Since I had a smore fail on our camping trip, I promised Grace backyard smores once all the camping stuff was cleaned and put away.  She was very patient, and the day did eventually come!


With Emily gone with Abby's family, I think William was the only other one who came to cook with us!

The sunset made the trees look like they were on fire!

Once day, I opened up the back of my car and found the car toy holder back there.  When I asked the kids about it, they casually said that they no longer needed the toys in the car and that I could get rid of it.  ::sniff:: ::sniff:: = (  I remember buying this, new, at a friend's Thirty-one party in Houston, just a couple of years ago.   So sad.  I hope someone new can use it and love it as much as we did!

We went to this ice cream shop so many times this summer, that I could have sworn that I'd already written about this (and maybe I have, I didn't actually go back and look.)  But, Grace won the ice cream creating contest from her school last year.  The ice cream shop will donate $1 for each one that they sell to the PTO of that child's school.  It took 4 trips, but we finally saw her creation in the window, and spent her gift card, all in one foul swoop.  There's no such thing as free ice cream!



The fireflies were extra this summer, for at least a few weeks!  Grace even 'caught' one.

We did our best to keep up on our Latin, but it was a busy summer, so we didn't fit much in.  However, this is one of our Latin days.  It totally makes me miss homeschooling!

Emily's end of Summer trip up North with Emma!

Emily's Fourth of July trip with Abby's family!  I told her that she needs to make some dedicated posts, because I wasn't there, but she's kind of busy to make that happen, I suppose.


I snagged this photo from Jennifer.  The girls class went out for ice cream at the local ice cream shop at the end of the year. I can't imagine what I was doing that day that I didn't go and take my own pictures, but here is a picture of Juliet, Kennedy, and Natalie!


It's day 2 of school for my dear ones, and I'm still not quite ready to let go of summer!  We have some fun plans for this weekend and Labor Day and most of September, so I guess I'll get over it soon.

later days

Garden and Nature

I have not been feeling my garden this year.  I planted, and pulled a few weeds, but it wasn't bringing me nearly the joy it did last year, so my plants are being choked out by weeds.  I even paid Emily and Grace to weed the garden that you can see from the road while we were gone, because it just looked so awful, and Grace and I had already cleared it once this summer!  We do have a pumpkin vine, but no pumpkins, or even female flowers, so probably no pumpkins this year. = (

That said, the girls did go out and collect tomatoes from one of the struggling plants, and they were so tasty! Our first heartvest of tomatoes this year.


A beautiful 'grocery store parking lot sunset' picture.

Our dead apple trees finally fell down, so we hired our lawn guy to take them out as well as the storm damaged tree. It was still alive, but he said it was going to damage the fence further if it fell any more.  So, it's gone now too, and our backyard looks so empty!  I think we might need to buy some baby trees and see if we can get some new ones growing!

The carrot plants went to seed last year, and seem to be growing really well!  I didn't cull them at all though, so they are small little things.


One of our landscaped plants, that we inherited with the house, makes these beautiful blooms every year, and every year I forget and find them beautiful!

I didn't include all of my nature pictures here this time, so there are still some mixed into our travel posts.

It's been a warm summer, which has been lovely for me, but I don't think that all of our plants have enjoyed it quite as much as I have!  Heading into a new season soon, which is sad, but I am looking forward to all the new colors!

later days

Alice Answers Her Birthday Survey: 16 years-old

I am  67*  years old.

My favorite color is: Baby pink
The coolest person on earth is: My sister
The thing I do best is: Sleep
If I could change my name, it would be: Alicex (The x is silent)
My favorite toy is: My phone
When I grow up, I want to be: Awesome
I like to watch: Youtube videos
My favorite song is: Bernadettee
My favorite book is: N/A reading is for betas
3 words to describe me are: The countryhuman ever
When I was little, I used to: Not be able to walk talk, and hardly see 
My favorite season is: Winter
The food I like most is: Pilsbury cookie dough
One food I really don't like is: Anything with too much seasoning
My best friend is: Aubrey
For my birthday I want to: Eat cookie dough
My best memory is: Finding out what countryhumans was

later days

you can find last year's survey here.

For the record, this post is actually being prepped three days before the birthday girl's big day!  We'll see how long it takes to get it filled in though. 

*the 67 is actually pronounced as the separate numbers and is a current trend on social media amongst the children.

editor's note: Alice changed the color to a lovely pink, but I sometimes change the background of my blog and want to be able to read it in the future.

edit 8-21-25: backdated BUT ONLY ONE DAY!!! for continuity.




First Day of School

Yesterday, in addition to being Alice's 16th birthday, it was also the first day of school, for everyone! 

It was early and overcast yesterday morning, so we had to 'stage' Alice, Emily, and William's pictures afterschool.  They came out super cute, so I'm not mad.



It was light enough by the time the twins were ready to go, so their pictures are time appropriate, as well as adorable.




And now for all of the bonus pictures.  Grace and Juliet always twin on day one and picture day, and then as they feel during the rest of the year.


We had a slight panic at the bus stop for the big kids, as a bus passed right by us about 3 minutes before their actual bus, which also came a few minutes early!  Sadly, this will be the case all year, so hopefully we'll be able to gauge our time appropriately each morning!


The twins' bus came a full 10 minutes before the posted time yesterday, and we were standing on the wrong side of the road, so the bus driver had to help us cross.  Their stop is the opposite direction from our house to where the big kids wait, but we're making it work!


And now the flashy, dark, not as aesthetically pleasing, early morning pictures.



By the time I got to Alice's I had already decided that we would be redoing it, but I wanted something, because sometimes something is better than nothing!


It was a pretty good first day.  Emily had band camp afterwards, and there was new paperwork to fill out and sign, plus the great supply swap, so it was kind of a late night too.  Hopefully we'll catch a bit of a break tonight. ; )

later days

edit 8-21-25: backdated for continuity.