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

Christmastime

We decorate for Christmas after Thanksgiving dinner each year, so our season is short, but we tend to be so busy, that it isn't such a bad thing.

I saw a cute little video online of someone wrapping their toilet paper, and I wanted to decorate our toilet paper too!  I didn't have the fancy patterned paper that they used in the video, but I liked our little candy cane toilet paper towers. = )

My mom helped me pull a years' worth of mostly thrifted Christmas presents from Sarah's basement, and it was more than I anticipated. = O

These were most of the squishmallows.  We pulled the ones with tags for the girls to gift to their friends for Christmas. The VOA that I bought them from informed me that they were donated by Claire's at the mall, since they weren't selling very well. I also set aside the Halloween ones that accidentally got mixed in with the Christmas bags. 

Billy was invited to his company's Christmas party at a bowling alley, despite only having worked there for a few weeks.  It was nice to meet some of his coworkers!

The set up was really cool, there were lanes in the party room!  And a private buffet/bar area!

Billy and I bowled with his coworkers Wendy and Sarah, and Sarah's significant other, Don.  I won game one, but our second game was cut short, but as Sarah was in the lead, we declared her the winner.

It was a nice evening.

Emily was helping me cook dinner earlier in the week, and I didn't hear her ask about the tomatoes, and she was already halfway through cutting up one of my Roma tomatoes, before I saw what she was doing. =- (  I feel like I was able to recover it for a salad display for my mom's meeting though!

Usually, the day I get the molasses in my Kroger order, Grace is after me to make the gingerbread houses.  This year though, without that prompting, it was Christmas Eve before I made time to make them!

We had a diminished supply of molasses, since we used it for the St. Lucia cakes at Alice's band concert, but the dough held well, it was just not as sweet. had Alice helped me make the dough the night before, so that we wouldn't have to wait for it to solidify in the morning.  Even so, it still took hours to make, because of the wait time between each round for the mold to cool back down.

One the gingerbread was done, and the icing* whipped up, the fun could begin!

Emily went with her bff Abby to see Santa.  Her mom sent me the pictures, and I love all of them!

I feel like this year has been just the right amount of festive!

later days

*Michigan is switching to requiring all eggs sold in grocery stores to be cage free, so the past two grocery orders, they haven't had eggs. = 0  So, we stretched a single batch of icing for two houses, because my egg stash is running low.

edit 12-30-28: added in the gingerbread houses, since we didn't make them Christmas day.

Sleepovers and Playdates

I've had children gone, children added, back to back sleepovers and quick turn arounds for my dear ones this summer.  Emily was pretty good about sending me pictures from her adventures!  The night we got back from camping, Emily showered, repacked and headed out with Abby's family to visit her mom's parents!  They were gone five nights, and she was busy the whole time!

They did trampoline, tie dye, beach, fireworks, boating, Greenfield Village, movies, glow sticks, and so many other things!  I'm trying to convince Emily it would be worthwhile for her to write about it, but she's unconvinced, so I'm posting a few pictures that either Nicole or Emily sent me, so that she can fondly remember her trip later.

I sure as happy to have her home!  She was pretty tired after almost two weeks of fun!

Earlier in the summer, she spent the night at Ella's house, and they went to the Gizzardfest to celebrate her birthday.  She sent me a couple of pictures from that night too.

Very recently, Grace headed to Renae's for the night, and we got to have Kennedy over at the same time.  So, the house felt happy with 5 children running around. = )  I have no pictures of Grace at Renae's though, because she doesn't have a phone and was borrowing William's.

One of the nights Emily was gone, we'd gone to pick up some cardboard for the murder mystery chimney from Kristy, and came home with Zoey as well as the cardboard. = )

We have a playdate scheduled for William, since, aside from summer camp, he hasn't had time to hang out with any of his friends!  

Melody and Heleena were also able to come visit for playdates during the day, which was fun.  Grace made a gift for Heleena, when she came over.

And Kristy picked up and dropped off EGJ each day for an entire week of swim camp!!!

And, on night one, the twins got to spend the night with Zoey, too!  I was in Oklahoma for the first part of the week, and recovering for the second part, so I sure am thankful that she was willing to take on part of my crew too!

I've tried to say yes as much as I can to social events this summer, but I'm tired!  Next week is band camp, and then we have about one week before the twins start up, so I don't know how much time we'll have to play, but we'll try!

later days