Picnic and Friends

We had a houseful of kids yesterday as two of my childhood friends came for a visit with all of their children . We had a total of 10 kids under 6 in our house all day and they played amazingly well together. I don't think there was one argument the entire time. Here we all are in the best shot I had - you can imagine this was no easy feat. Julie and her three boys are on the left, Sarah and her four girls are in the middle and we are on the right. We had a great time. Today was Nae's work picnic at the YMCA's camp. They always rent it out for the day and although we got rained out this afternoon, we still got in a couple hours of fun.

Gabe and Nae rode in the kayak first thing.

Alena is finally walking at least as much as she is crawling which makes being outside much easier.

Mya waiting on Brother and Daddy and playing in the sand.

I was very shocked when Gabe climbed up and went down this slide as soon as he got in the pool. He tends to be very hesitant to try things like this, but he loved playing in the pool and got braver and braver as the day went on.
Mya doesn't really even like the bath tub so I didn't expect her to enjoy the pool, but she did get in and walk around some. She and Alena both enjoyed the little splash park a lot more, though.

Alena just couldn't figure out where the water went.

More VA pictures

We are all back home now - Nae from his business trip and me and the kids from visiting my parents in VA. We had a great time, and did a lot of fun things including going to the Hands on Museum, visiting the Crab Orchard Museum, and meeting Carrie and her kids at the park. This is the first time we had been in a long time that Alena was well and although it took a while for her to warm up to everyone she eventually did. We also got to stay for two days of Bible school which Gabriel especially enjoyed - he and Mya are both still singing some of the songs.

I hardly ever have good pictures of Grandmama with any of the kids, but this time I have a couple. Here she is with Alena; and here she is with Will (who is going to out-grow Alena any day now.)

Gabriel was very hesitant to get on the lawn mower but after we talked him into it, he didn't want to get off. RuthAnne, Mya, and Gabriel being very silly and all sitting in the same chair.

At the Crab Orchard museum playing in the little stream. Mya was actually the first one to venture into the water and after she did, it was all over. We carried home very wet children.

Carrie, RuthAnne, and Will relaxing at the museum.

We miss you Daddy!!!!

Daddy, we miss you and hope that you've had a wonderful Father's Day and birthday. Here's some pictures to make you smile - we're having fun too!

Love you lots.

p.s. Mommy says these pictures were taken with Emma's new camera. Aren't they nice? (hint, hint, hint)

Alena walking

Since I posted yesterday about how much I was able to get done while my children were sleeping and happily occupied outside, let me tell you what I've done so far this morning (it's 9:30 right now). First, I get Alena out of bed only to feel something wet all over her feet. Great! her diaper had fallen off (since she had on a one piece outfit I really do think it fell off even though I wouldn't put it past her to take it off herself) and she was walking in a dirty mess. She had a large amount of baked sweet potato last night for supper so I'll let you just imagine what that was like. It was everywhere including all over the bumper pad which had to be taken apart and washed. After that is cleaned up, I am feeding Alena her breakfast and somehow get distracted (I know that's hard to imagine around here) and dump the entire container of applesauce I was feeding her all over me, the floor, highchair, etc. I clean up that mess and not even 20 minutes later, Gabriel knocks off his container of Mandarin oranges. The oranges along with all that wet sticky juice manage to get the rest of the floor disgustingly dirty. I can only hope the day improves from this point on as I already done a load of poopy laundry and now I have a load of wet rags to do.

Here is the promised video of Alena taking a few steps. It's not that great because after she gets choked on some water, she decides to walk to Nae instead of to me so all you can really see is her back. It's enough to get the point, though.

Fun on a hot day

I love to read other people's ideas of fun things to do with kids whether it be crafts, outside projects, or cooking ideas I always try to file these things away to do one day. About 90% of these ideas come from the internet - I just bookmark the page and then when I need a good idea I consult the "summer fun" folder and there is a whole list of ideas. With that in mind, I thought I would share two things my kids like to do outside on a hot summer day just in case someone else needs some ideas.

First let me say that Mya does have a swimsuit on underneath this shirt. I've tried lately sending them out in old swimsuits since it has been so hot they almost always are playing with water in one form or another and it just makes clean-up easier if I can strip them down outside and put their clean clothes on when they come in the door. I try to do white tee-shirts on top because (1) they can be bleached which is often needed (2) they're cooler in the sun. Tee -shirts on top makes it easier not having to worry about sunburns. The first thing they love to play with outside is this little squirt bottle. They spray it on everything, and it doesn't run out as quickly as a water gun; it's also easier to fill up. I fill a sand bucket up with water for them to add more water.
The second thing that keeps them occupied for a while is a simple paintbrush and water. They'll paint the deck, side of the house, picnic table and anything else in sight. The sun takes care of the drying and they can simply start over.

They played outside this morning for almost three hours while Alena was napping no less which means that I actually got some stuff done - yeah!
In case anyone gets the wrong impression, let me say that they don't always play outside for such a long time. Very often, playtime ends in tears and lots of arguing. Just last week when they were outside, more time was being spent whining about the heat and arguing than playing so I brought them in to do a little baseboard scrubbing with a vinegar/water solution and toothbrushes - they decided playing outside was the better option.

Laughed 'till I cried

Kids are funny. Mine do silly things everyday that make us laugh, but this was exceptionally funny and definitely something I want to remember to tell a future spouse.

A little background...Mya had an appointment at the eye doctor yesterday. She'd been complaining for some time that her eyes hurt so I took her in to be sure it was nothing serious. Thankfully, they said everything looked good but during the visit she did have to have her eyes dilated. When we left, they gave her a pair of paper sunglasses to wear which of course she didn't want to. Gabe quickly claimed the sunglasses for his own and I never thought about them again.

So, imagine my surprise when I went in to check on him last night before I went to bed and saw this:
The pictures don't do the scene justice because I had to have the flash on so it looks like it's daytime, but let me assure you that his room was very dark and here he lay sound asleep with these sunglasses on holding all his treasured stuffed animals. I, of course, had to go get Nae and we both stood by his bed just laughing until tears ran down our faces.
What in the world makes someone think right before they're going to sleep, "Oh, I think I'll put my sunglasses on." He told me this morning that he put them on, "So no one could see if I was asleep or not." I guess that makes sense. It at least provided us with a good laugh.

Splish, Splash

It seems the only pictures we've taken over the last week are of the kids playing in the wade pool. It got hot pretty quickly after so much rain and cool weather, so they've spent several evenings splashing around and carting water all over the yard to make mud pies and "dirt cake."

A guy Nae works with gave us this little slide that his kids had outgrown. It was perfect timing since it fit right in the pool.

I didn't really get a good shot of Mya - she was too busy playing.

And here's the many faces of Alena.