Summer Holidays and Fun!

As seems to be happening more often than not, I am behind again on updates...

Last week was a fairly quiet week around our place.  The girl got to check out the new Reader Feeder bus and check out a book from the mobile library as well as enjoy giant freeze pops for free. They had a great time checking out the big bus, digging through the many books and of course, eating their freeze pops.

 

In a previous week, during a bout of laundry that involved the girls' bedding, Alora's throw pillow got washed and came out with holes.  Ezri tried to repair them, but more just appeared.  Alora was quite upset at the possibility of the pillow not being repairable because she said "It's my Daddy pillow, it has his smell on it" (Daddy lays on the pillow each night as he snuggles with her at bed time.  Knowing how attached she was to this special pillow, Ezri in her own sweet and compassionate manner, sewed a new special pillow for Alora.  It was complete with a Daddy and an Alora on it and then she sat down and worked hard at writing out the words to "You Are My Sunshine" on the pillow as well (Alora's favorite song for Daddy to sing her). Needless to say, Alora was thrilled, Ezri was very proud, and Daddy and Mommy were near tears with pride and adoration of Ezri's gesture and big heart.

 We celebrated Daddy on Father's Day last two Sundays back.  The girls worked on a few projects with me just for Daddy and were very excited to give them to him.

 They each wrote about Daddy...

 (there were some pretty funny and interesting things that came out!)  Each girl was taken aside separately so they would not be influenced by the others' answers, so it was interesting to hear what they came up with.

 All four children gave me a literal hand (two actually) to create canvases that we added Bible verses to for display.

 And we bought Daddy a new coffee mug.

Last Wednesday, we made an impromptu trip to Burnips for a run/car show/carnival.  We didn't quite make it in time for our kids to register for the kid's run, but they were just as happy to run the course on their own anyway!

We got to check out Grandpa's newly completed Model T in the car show.

And the kids played some carnival games

and jumped in a bounce house.

Elam was a happy camper most of the time, taking it all in from his stroller.

Around home, we've had lots of friend time.  There is a joke running that I run a free Kid Kare for all of the neighborhood kids, because our yard is often filled with other children here to play with ours, and we've gained new friends in the past week to add to that number.  But the girls are wonderful friends to the other children and I am grateful that ours is a home other people feel safe sending their children to.  Thankfully, they all play really well together.  

Elam is a draw for the neighbor kids, even the boys!  It's sweet to see how the children all gather around him to talk and play.

Of course, the favorite friends are Travis and Emmett, who have been able to come and play more often now that school is out.  Lately, roller skating has been a big hit with our crowd.  One day, Tierney in her sweet little way, was helping Emmett so he didn't fall down.

Not to be outdone on the cuteness scale, the oldest two were quite fun to watch as they rode the Plasma Car around together as they played their little game.

Quite often, water is mixed into the play.  This past week, someone got the idea to fill the sand box with water and create a pool.  It worked and they had an absolute blast splashing in that muddy water for hours!

Friday was this Mommy's birthday.  The girls were very excited to give me the gift they had purchased with Daddy the day before.

A beautiful necklace declaring "I love you to the moon and back." 

 I also opened up a gift to myself from my childhood - a game called "Early Birds" that I have fond memories of playing with my siblings.

 I got a pretty special gift from 5 of the very special munchkins in my life too.  Each child wrote about me and drew a picture.  I enjoyed reading each of their pages, even Elam's (of course he had a little help...)

Friday evening, we got to celebrate together with a trip to Craig's Cruisers.  The bigger kids got to drive Go Karts and loved it!  It was quite humorous to watch.

Tierney wasn't big enough to drive, but she got to ride with me on a big kart.  She had such a great time, talking and smiling the whole time and telling me to go faster!

Daddy had some fun driving too!

Elam was too little to join in on the Go Kart fun, but he sure enjoyed watching the activity.

We also played a game of laser tag.  We made an attempt to have Elam join in on that fun by riding along in the wrap.  Unfortunately, the vest I had to wear kept riding up into his face and once we got into the arena, he was less than thrilled with all of the noise and goings on and cried.  So I was a giant target for the other team as I stood in the corner trying to keep Elam from screaming.  Oh well...

After our game, everyone went for a ride on the inside Go Karts.  This time the kids all rode along.  Ezri loved that she and Daddy were the fastest!  Alora rode with Kathy and had a great time, as did Tierney with Becci.  Elam and I enjoyed the fun from the sidelines, but we were both just fine with that.

Other excitement our week held for us included a small bird that got caught between the window and plastic covering the window in the living room when is somehow broke through one morning.  The girls were quite upset that it was stuck, though they enjoyed watching it, so Daddy rescued it by cutting another hole for it to get out.

Elam had his second round of shots last Wednesday and has had a bit of a rough week.  It takes him about a week to bounce back, so there were a lot of days where he was fussy, wanting to be held, not sleeping or eating well.  One afternoon, I finally got him to fall asleep for a short time like this...

Many days it looked a lot more like this...

Sunday afternoon, we made a last minute decision to go check out the Kent County Airport Observation area.  It was quite windy and chilly, but what fun!

The kids had a great time running around and playing and we saw quite a few planes arrive and take off in our short time there.

The wind and cold got to us after a while and we finally abandoned it with the thought that it would be fun to go back another time and perhaps picnic on a warmer day

We are hoping to enjoy a much quieter week before we crash head on into the very busy July 4th weekend and all it entails for us.