For my sister

My sister keeps teling me to update the blog.  (I think because my niece bugs her about it)  I just haven't made the time to do it. I also haven't taken many pictures lately. I have been spending my time getting kids to school and sewing.  Sewing is much more enjoyable, and I have finished LOTS of projects.

A trip to the Botanical Gardens with all their cool mazes.  They had set up all sorts of cool mazes just for the summer.  This is from the Sunflower maze. (it was a great night with blue skies)

 This is Buddy running through the patriotic maze, in the shape of a flag, with the blue field a tree with stars hanging in it.

 This was a maze of sheets, similar to the ones hanging on a clothesline, probably was more like a maze on a calm day, but on a windy day the kids loved running through the sheets.

 The hay bale maze was fun to jump across.

 This little guy hung out in his stroller and enjoyed the weather.

 This is just a shot to show a little girl who learned how to pedal her big Dora bike.  She can almost keep up with the big kids.

Sponge Balls

Some days I find a quick cheap craft project and love it.  Such is the case with this one.  Sponge balls for water play. See here for link, Ok, never mind, I can't seem to find the link, but I know it was on one of my craft blogs... maybe I will find it someday.

 They are basically dollar store sponges cut up and then tied together with zip ties.  so simple and so much fun.  They even attacked Daddy when he got home from work.

OK, we tried hitting them with the bat, don't try it.  The zip ties I have are cheap dollar store zip ties and they fall apart and you have to retie them.

Buddy has pretty good aim.

The day turned into a huge water fight and everyone had to strip on the back porch before coming in the house.  It was fun.

Dress -Up

I love it that my kids like to play dress-up.  It always makes me smile to see them using their imaginations. They never cease to amaze me with their creativity.

I also love to watch this one get distracted by a book.  She loves to read and even will read while dressed as the Tooth Fairy.

Great-Grandma

My grandmother passed away right after the holiday weekend, so the kids went to one set of grandparents house, Daddy worked and I took off with Scout to go to the funeral. It was easy to travel with only one child.  We had a great trip and I enjoyed spending time with my family.  Grandpa W. got to meet Scout for the 1st time. It was fun to have some time with just the baby without a lot of noise around.

This is my grandma in Florida in 1986

 My grandma was pretty cool, she lived in occupied Holland during WWII and moved with 6 kids to the US in 1950.  She was 96 years old and has lived a full life with lots of love.  She had 26 grandchildren, and 46 great-grandchildren with 2 more babies due in the next few months. She started sewing and knitting for all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren in January and by December each person had a Christmas gift from Grandma. I have several knit toy balls around my house from her, and my husband has several pairs of white tube socks.  Even this year she had a good start on the items for Christmas.  
I had the joy of creating 2 posters of pictures for the funeral.  It was fun to talk to my Aunts and Uncles about their families and to learn more about Grandma. 

This is her family fairly soon after coming the the US, probably in 1951.  My dad is the little boy on the bottom left.

This is my favorite picture of my Grandma, one of my uncles had a motorcycle and she got her picture on it.  It just shows her spirit and her smile. 

This is just a cute picture of my nephew with Scout.  He loved talking to Scout and was fascinated by him.

50 Gun Salute

When the paper mentions a 50 gun salute to celebrate the 4th of July of course we have to go.  Fort Monroe has been having this celebration since there was only 26 states and it was a 26 gun salute.  It was pretty cool and very loud.  We loved hearing the echo's for the next 20 minutes after it was all over.

 Did I mention it was loud.

 This is looking out over the water towards Fort Wool (with the flag)   Someday we will have to go visit Fort Wool, it is where Andrew Jackson spent his summers while he was president.  It is an island and would have been beautiful before they built the Bridge-Tunnel that now runs about 50 feet away.

 Fort Monroe is an old fort with a moat, and there is a Casemate museum about the rooms built into the earthen walls.  This is the pedestrian tunnel through the embankment and out over the moat.  This is where Jefferson Davis was imprisoned after the "War of Northern Aggression" (can't you tell I am learning my southern history.)  The museum was not intended for kids, but they still thought it was cool, and my geeky engineering side came out as I checked out how it was built, very cool for me.

July 4th

We were planning on heading out of town for the 4th of July weekend, but then a little girl got a stomach bug.  Soooo, plans were changed and we ended up with a nice weekend at home.  We did get some fun outings with the family though.

We spent a morning at the zoo. The kids love the zoo and now there are a bunch of new animals to enjoy. My favorite is the bear, he was playing in the water on a hot day, and we loved watching him dump water from the tire on his head.

 The kids all lined up watching the tapir, it is a strange animal.

This is one of the few cutouts with 4 faces.... of course I needed to get all the kids in it.  At least some of them are looking the right way.

Teeth

Buddy has his first loose tooth.  He came up to me and said "Take my picture so you have one with all of my baby teeth before this one falls out"    So of course I did.

Botanical Garden Mazes

We finally made it to a bike night at the botanical gardens.  During the summer you are allowed to take your bike 3 nights a week from 4-7 PM.  We packed a picnic dinner and were there around 5 for dinner.  Daddy took Munchkin and Buddy on bikes and I walked with Princess and Scout.  It was a slightly cooler night and we had lots of fun. 

Daddy had some bike troubles with Buddy's bike, so it wasn't quite as much fun as it could have been for them.  Princess and I loved walking around and playing in the mazes.

This maze has artwork from different organizations or schools from throughout the city.  Pretty cool.

 This maze is huge and all hay bales, I think the kids like running on top of the hay bales more than finding a way through the maze.

This is the sunflower maze, it was pretty cool, except that it was within the Childrens garden and that area closes earlier than the rest of the gardens, so we could only look at this one from the outside.

I had to nurse the baby for a while, so I let Princess take pictures of the flowers with my camera.  She did a pretty good job.

Backpacking

Daddy took Princess and Buddy hiking for a weekend.  Princess went with Daddy last year, but now it was Buddy's turn to join them.  They took the camera so I get to post their adventures.  I have no idea what these pictures show, but I am just glad that it looks like everyone enjoyed their adventures.

Apparently the kids also had pet caterpillars on the trail, and of course they had to take pictures.  I don't pretend to understand that one.

Summer time fun

I am starting to enjoy summer. We have worked out a schedule for our days, and it works for us.  We start every morning with breakfast, getting dressed and then doing some summer homework, (journal writing, worksheets etc) then we have violin practice.  We then move to our stuff for the day, swimming lessons or chores, or whatever. Mondays are usually play-dates, Tuesdays is grocery shopping, Wednesdays are the library.  Our schedule is not set in stone, but it is nice to have a plan for our week.

Most days I try to do something new with the kids. It us usually something small, like playing a game, making a craft, having a friend over to play, or going for a walk to check out something specific.  This week I used some of my yard sale purchases to have fun. 

I bought pick-up sticks with a very important "No-arguments ever rule book" (yes that is the title) We played that for over an hour and everyone had fun.  I had forgotten how fun that is, and I learned that my son values the rules highly. He also has eagle eyes for moving sticks.

We also used the tattoo Robot hands. (yes it was 30 cents at yard sale, but I think I got it for 25)

 Munchkin showing me her Robot hands.

 There were 8 in the package so we got them on both hands.

 This was my aligator hand... yes even I had them on my hands for a few days.

Swimming lessons

Swimming lessons are a staple of summer around here and all 3 of the big kids are now taking lessons.  They love them and the 2 oldest are working on their stroke development.  It is fun to see them play in the water and enjoy it. Munchkin loved her class and is learning quickly.  She is picking up instruction very quickly and the instructors love her joy.

 Buddy is learning all his strokes and loves to swim and touch the bottom of the deep end.  The instructors were surprised to learn that he is only 5 and not older.  He does great for his age and was the youngest kid at that swimming level.

 Princess is doing great and is working on breast stroke and butterfly.  She is also having fun playing.  This picture is her with the other girls doing handstands in the pool.  I remember learning how to do that too.  I didn't get a picture of her looking, she was too busy playing.

 Scout spends his time waiting with me and being cute so that I can take pictures of him because I am bored. He is growing fast and likes to be carried everywhere, he hates his car seat and anywhere else he is left when I am busy.