July 10-12

Welcome back Nana and Baba! They got home late on the 9th after everyone had gone to bed, WITH the cousins in tow! So the kids woke up to grandparents AND Gabriella and Zachary. Talk about pandemonium…. But even more importantly for yours truly – I had PLANS!!! Fun plans… that included babies, Korean food (a first for me!) and shopping! Bree is originally from Korea (born there) but adopted and raised here, so it was so exciting to go to a restaurant her parents took her to to better understand a portion of her previous culture. The food was AMAZING! And FILLING!

So filling, amazing food!

After eating it was time to go to Mall of America and shop around… which ended in myself buying some rather ADORABLE and decadent (for me) retro shoes… I could not resist and spent more on one pair than I have in ages (not hard to do as I usually limit myself to as far under 20.00 as I can!).

Walking the mall with Bree and Lily was great fun… we shopped and then headed over to their place to relax until we could avoid the rush hour traffic.

Walking in the sling

And now some cute pics… cuz I can!

Mommy has a nice selection of pretty cloth diapers

Definitely a day well spent… Thursday had us down to one cousin. Gabriella had a friend contact her the day before and had left to join them so we just had Zachary here. So the kids played the morning away.

In the afternoon we had time outside in the sun. That playset is a definite boon to our peace keeping.

We ended our week off with a lovely walk… just us 6 enjoying the sunshine and flowers. It was hot and we did not come across any garage sales (just one misleading sign) but I think we did good.

She looks so grown up at times

The twins worked with pastels to fill the time. I love when they try harder mediums! And together no less!

Using the Art for Kids site (link on right)

The littles had a blast watching Dora. It is fun to see Echo trying to answer the questions and follow along!

At the hottest point of the day I sat down to work on our advance stuff. Each of the 4 kids has a summer folder now with pages that they can mostly do on their own with a 5th folder of some games. I really need more cardstock and laminating sheets! Can you ever really have enough?

Ken took a shorter day of work so that the kids could have a full on water fight with him!

Getting ready for Daddy

And then he and Baba FINISHED the swingset! Two swings and a teeter totter type one that the twins are too heavy for. The kids are over the moon with the completion.

What else is there to do with a free Daddy but to end with a boardgame??

Oh and Emanuel graced us with some dinosaur themed sidewalk art.

I don’t think we had any complaints about our day really!!!

July 8-9

After so much fun and Nana and Baba returning in mere days I decided to call it and give the kids one whole week off! Well, once we planted our seeds of course. Two different kinds of green beans with cups and papertowels… we followed the basic instructions from Instructables HERE. The twins are jointly weekly recording and Trinity and Emanuel are putting their observations in the nature journals.

Out came the Play Doh…

Gavin

And then with the now firmly installed slide, a rash of screaming, laughing and fast sliding!

No fear!

We had the perfect weather to take out our alternative to the traditional water balloons. We used the instructions by the website How Does She? HERE. We did have to attempt regular sponge sponges when we couldn’t get to Dollar Tree before Aidan’s birthday party but I am  telling you now, not cool! The best is what they list on the site – plastic sponges from Dollar Tree. We bought 6 packages and I ended up with 29 due to sacrificing two for the paper making. They leave no plastic pieces on the lawn to collect, and all you need is a bucket with water. Echo didn’t even mind getting hit in moderation! Sponges were 1.00 for 10 and the elastics 1.00 or so as well and I have well over 3/4 of a bag of those left!!!

Add water…

Our sponges

What is better after a good waterfight in the sunshine than big glasses of lemonade???

We gave the potty and some juice in front of the tv a try… still no real results sadly. BUT we talk about our potty usage constantly. My goal is to give it a real push in September when we are once again living solo.

Of course it is the perfect time to have a tea party.

Picnic…

AND tea party

And end the evening with a lovely LATE dinner with the newest season of Futurama and some lovely Chinese food… just the two of us!!

Not a bad end to our two weeks without Nana and Baba!