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

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.

One Last Zoo-rrah!

Since all five of my dear ones started school on the same day this year, we were all feeling the end of summer blues.  I thought one more trip to the zoo might be a fun way to spend a Monday.  

The weather was beautiful, and since everyone got to wake up naturally, no one felt sleepy or angry!  And, because of when we went, we got a really good parking spot, in the shade, since the early birds were done for the day!

A Michigan shaped leaf!

I don't have much to say about many of these pictures, just enjoyed being there with all of my babies!

Alice was our official Chipmunk counter at the zoo, and we saw 15 during our visit!  We also heard some, but Alice determined that those didn't count.

I had no idea that the Lion's Club sponsored this fountain!

Kookaburra looking regal as always!

They still had lettuce for sale at the Giraffe overlook, so everyone got to feed these magnificent creatures!  It was the first thing that everyone told Billy about when he got home, suffice to say, I think it was everyone's favorite activity.

"Do you have food?"

I was trying to see if the giraffe posters were a likeness for this giraffe, and I decided that they were not.

They must have recently fed the animals near the giraffe stand, because we saw many more of the animals from the book than we did the last two times!

"What did you find William?"

The app on my phone says it's a Milkweed Tussock Moth caterpillar!

Al has a bandage on his leg because of a recurring skin infection, but he came over to say hi anyhow!

The red river hog apparently thought it was too hot out.  But his ears were fabulous!

Emily and William (play) fighting over who gets to see the Red River Hog.  It's a shame that they couldn't look at the same time.  Strange children.

It looked like they were in the process of reopening this mine shaft path, but it was inaccessible this trip.

I sure am glad this was a staged snake and not a real one, because I didn't even see it when I walked into the restroom!

They were only running one tram, so we were the first in line for the next round, and a had a long wait! The twins found that they really enjoyed the frayed rope end.

I intentionally brought quarters to that everyone could feed the goats!  The bigger goats were definitely bullies though!

We didn't realize that you weren't supposed to feed the goats inside the enclosure, for good reason, those big goats were aggressive!  So, Emily is in there doing illegal things!

Can anyone look at a ring-tailed lemur and not start singing "I like to move it move it" in their head, or out loud? 

Alice's one request was to see the wolves, since she didn't come with us the second time to remedy that oversight.  It looked like they had posed for our visit!  So majestic.

The way that the python was posed, it reminded me of the animated movie Robin Hood, when Sir Hiss pouted by laying his head on his 'arms' made from his body.

As is tradition, we stopped at our favorite Chinese place, in Battle Creek, to pick up dinner.  When we sat down to dinner, I found that my piece of sweet and sour chicken was chicken shaped!

We made it home in time to eat and to hustle over to the twins' open house.  I'm thankful for one last summer adventure.  Now we are ready for school!

later days

edit 8-23-25: backdated for continuity.