almost 4th of July celebration

Last night we met friends at the Y for a 4th of July celebration! The kids went on the bouncy slides, mazes, and in the bounce house. We also went down and played on a playground for a while where we saw a BEAUTIFUL sky! Unfortunately we were only able to stay an hour and a half because the weather turned bad...with lightning and thunder, but the kids still got in plenty of play time:). They weren't too sad about missing out on the fireworks because they know we'll see them on the 4th and they were excited about friends coming over to play. We ended up leaving and friends came over to the house to hang out and play!

kinsey ADORED addison (as she does ALL babies!)

just the boys

Braden was able to meet his friend, Braeden, for dinner at Chick fil A. The boys haven't seen each other in a while...so they were very excited! After eating came the best part...playing!! Even though you can't see them, the girls were there too...and they had fun playing with Braeden also:)!! (And I had fun finally being able to catch up with my friend Marsie:)


It's funny how when I was a kid we NEVER did stuff like this...moms going out to dinner while the kids played? We didn't go to fast food EVER or even out to eat very much either...it was a BIG deal if we did! My kids go so often that they take it for granted. We've cut back a lot and I still hear complaining...lately I find myself saying, "when I was a kid we didn't even go out to eat, etc." Boy I must be getting old...and that line NEVER worked on me, so I don't know why I would try and use it on my kids!

last day celebration:)!!

first and last day of kindergarten

Cailey wanted to celebrate her last day by going to Jumpin' Beans so Brian got off early and they spent 3 hours jumping, climing, sliding, bouncing, and falling! We got in there and jumped with them some too! Cailey was really excited to be able to tell everyone that she's a first grader now...but she does think we're starting 'homeschool' on Monday. I'm not following a year round schedule for homeschooling...I'll do more of the traditional calendar year. She was excited to find out that we won't start school until the week after her birthday:).

getting tickled by his sister:)

enjoying a HUGE cookie

kindergarten 'graduation' day!

Wednesday I took the kids to Cailey's school for an ice cream party/'graduation'. It wasn't really graduation, they just handed out certificates...but I couldn't think of what else to call it. The kids PILED on the ice cream toppings...what else can you expect:)...but they loved it! Cailey's class sang a couple songs, showed us thier work for the year (which was neat because they had identical assignments that were given at the beginning of the year and the end of the year so we could see the progression), and got their certificates. When they went up to get it from the teacher they were asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" As you can imagine lots of kids said teacher, doctor, police officer, etc. I was curious as to what Cailey would say because last I heard was that she wanted to be a doctor and teacher. Well...Cailey went against what everyone said...she said, "When I grow up I want to be a mama and have EIGHT kids!" She's decided that four will be adopted from all over: "Korea, China, Greek, and Africa." Then she said, "Four of them will be girls and four of them will be boys." Oh...and when I asked her if she would homeschool her eight children she said, "I'll homeschool some of them, but eight is too many:)" I love this girl for thinking outside of the box...and I'd LOVE to be a grandma to her eight children!

killin' time

BFF Suzy...when asked, the ONLY thing Cailey says
she will miss about school is Suzy!

this is where she announced her future plans

so sad to leave Suzy but we already have a playdate
planned for next week!

the end:)!
(that was Cailey's idea)

extreme makeover: baby edition

Kinsey is the only one in the family who LOVES to undress all the babies! One day I was tired of seeing all the 'skin' so Kinsey and I sat down to dress them all. She 'helped' and picked out what each one should wear. The babies stayed in their clothes for around fifteen minutes...oh well...at least she enjoys playing with them!

slip n slide

check out those smiles!!

clearly kinsey was confused and thought it was a water fountain!

braden LOVED the tools! (and kinsey ALWAYS
loves bubbles:)

Yesterday we went to help watch some kids from our Sunday School class. Every week the moms take turns watching the kids so the other moms can get stuff done, errands run, clean, shop, or whatever. Jen had a bunch of water and outside toys set up and the kids had a blast! My kids have never been big on asking for toys etc. but when we left Braden asked for a slip n slide...now I'll have to go out and get one so I can see those great smiles again:)!!

can't get over that smile!

lunch surprise

Cailey is almost done with school so I wanted to surprise her with lunch last week. Not only was she surprised that I came, but I brought with the Chick fil A! (She eats lunch at 10:15 so it was a breakfast biscuit and chocolate milk...but she could hardly contain herself!) She was sad when I was leaving but I reminded her that soon we'd be able to eat lunch together everyday!

ice cream date

One VERY HOT day after school last week we were able to meet some friends for ice cream (which was a surprise for the kiddos!) We had a great time relaxing, chatting, and eating yummy ice cream...most of all it was in a fabulous air conditioned building:)!!

pond life

The day before I left for Chicago I went with Cailey's class to Blue Jay Point for a 'learning experience' about habitats. They had been learning about things that live in ponds and were able to explore the creatures that they pulled out of a pond while we were there. (I had Kinsey, Braden, and four other girls to watch as they were holding nets bigger than themselves and digging in a pond!! Not an easy task...at one point I thought Kinsey was a goner for sure!) Afterwards we had a picnic lunch, LOTS of playground time and went on a 'hike'...through the woods....with roots...and 24 kids plus my two extras...it all worked out though and "a great time was had by all." It was a cool 95 degrees that day....gotta love this state!

the highlight for Cailey was riding on the bus!

our group found two salamanders and some other creatures
that I can't remember at this point.

my group waiting for hand sanitizer and Cailey with Suzy:)

Cailey's teacher....all the kids were SO helpful
with Kinsey...sometimes 'too' helpful:)

Cailey going down the slide with her assistant...
check out that smile!

the end of a long, hot day