Friday, October 11th

Friday was such a fun day - we met up with friends at Catch Air and the kids played hard from about 10:15 - 1:45 p.m.  Three of the four kids fell asleep on the way home, but once there they were revived and dragged Grammie out front to play :-)  Before long, it was time for Jim and I to head out for our date night - we are really very blessed that we often (usually 1x/week, but definitely 1x/two-weeks) are able to get out for a movie or a dinner without the crew... however, every once in a while Grammie and Nana go above and beyond and we have an entire evening out and they put all of the kids to bed.  Thanks, guys, for our awesome full-date-night!

Waverly is such an easy, good baby - always ready to giggle and smile, and always-always ready to chew on her fingers ;-)  Amanda took some turns snuggling her up.  Much like usual, she gets so serious as soon as I point the camera (phone) her way :-p

All of the kids played really well together - at first, they broke off and played in pairs: Victoria + Olivia, Lincoln + Judd, and Scarlett + Julia.

They played more together towards lunchtime, but all sat in their Buddy Groups (lol) when it was time to eat.

Lincoln was befriended by a little girl soon thereafter and I saw him only sporadically until it was time to leave.  He and Judd did spend some time trying to stuff a huge plastic ball into this spinning ride, because...boys.

Kids were playing outside back at home, and I was relishing a quiet spell with the baby.  She fell asleep and was smiling so sweetly in her dreams - just looked so genuinely happy and peaceful.

My love and me :-)

We drove down to Serenbe and had dinner at The Farmhouse - they had switched up their menu (it's all seasonally based and very limited, with usually two or three entree options at most) and were offering some delicious vegetable soup, flat iron steak and it was all amazing, of course.  As a little treat, I had a pumpkin martini which tasted exactly like pumpkin pie - yum!

Jim and I always joke that Serenbe is just too much - too charming, too peaceful, smells too good (they pump that in, right? lol).  Well as we drove from dinner to the stables where the play would be, there was an entire family of deer casually munching grass on the side of the lane.  The sun was setting and when we paused in the road to take a picture of them,  I swear they posed for us.  It's all just too much ;-)

We arrived at the stables just as the sun was fully setting and the stars were appearing on the horizon.  Jim took a wonderful shot of one corner of the stable where we were waiting outside for the doors to open.

The play was titled, "The Sleepy Hollow Experience," and it was an experience!  Very interactive and we moved throughout the stables, following the characters.  I loved it!  We started off in the loft (pictured above).

Towards the end, we wound up outdoors - the play was really great and I'll be excited to check out their next production!

Sunday, August 25th

Sunday was definitely an around-the-house day, doing a bit of leftover cleanup from our party and overall lazing about until the mid-afternoon.  Around 3:00 or so, our good friends the Cooks came over to swim, hang out and eat dinner with us.  What a lovely, restful day!

Jim and I always take turns sleeping in on the weekends - my day to sleep in is Saturday, and his is Sunday!  This is a beautiful thing :-)  I was trying to find things for the kids to do to keep relatively quiet and Victoria entertained herself for quite a while by talking/singing/making sounds at Waverly (who was also quite amused).

Meanwhile, Scarlett and Lincoln (later Victoria joined them, too!) were busily creating "booby-traps" and other exotic items out of a mix of play dough + ribbon + leftover party supplies.

Goofy Girls!  Scarlett and Sydney :-) 

Wavelry smiling away with Mrs. Cook~

Then the girls showed off their amazing hula-hoop skills, lol.  They are pretty decent with them, but more than anything I just giggle at the faces they make while concentrating so hard!

At first, Scarlett couldn't get it going around her waist - no problem, since she decided to use her neck instead :-p  I'm sure that's totally great for her spine.

Okay, now she was totally ready to dominate with it around her waist...

Going, going!

Gone!

It had been a really muggy morning and early afternoon, but then the clouds came and suddenly the kids said they were "freezing!"

Cute, random shot of Daddy & Waverly :-)  She is going to be a candy crush expert by the time she can work a phone from all of the many hours she's vicariously played along with Jim ;-)

Waverly's first bath in the actual bathtub!  At first she got a huge frown and I thought it was going to be major tears... that quickly moved to this face of "hmmm, how do I feel about this?"

Which was answered by a major smile and lots and lots of splashing! :-)

Thursday, August 15th

We had an outing scheduled with a large chunk of our SASCH group to head to Acworth Beach... however, Wednesday evening was chilly, wet and dreary and the forecast showed Thursday morning to look similar.  It never ended up raining, but the high was only 72 degrees!!  Crazy weather!  So we headed to Catch Air with our friends, the Lawsons, and had a wonderful time :-)  I'm always so happy when public/private schools start back up insofar as going to places like this is concerned - it wasn't crowded at all, and those there were fairly low key.  The kids had a blast and played for almost four hours!  Back home we had a short rest time, then the kids played both inside and outside for about three MORE hours with their sweet neighbor friend before nearly collapsing :-)  

While they were busily running 80 mph around the front yard (thanks Gram for supervising!), Waverly and I were tackling a major toy purge and clutter dump in the playroom.  When Jim was finished with work, Nana played with Waverly for a bit while he and I tackled the kids room. Then after dinner, we held our first monthly Toy Draft (more on that below).

Arriving at Catch Air, the girls humored me with a picture before they were off and running. Interesting side note: Victoria had a specific style in mind for how she wanted me to fix her hair for the day.  Other than "down" or "ponytail" she has never expressed any opinion on how her hair is styled and will let me do what I want.  This day, however, she gave me very clear instructions: "Some down around my face, part back up top and the rest back on the bottom."  And truthfully, once I'd finally gotten it *just* how she wanted it... it looked really cute! :-) Side-side note: In this picture, Waverly's eyes are somewhat closed.  That is her response to situations where the kids get either too close for her comfort (usually only Lincoln - the girls can get in her face and she doesn't flinch), or they are bouncing around her... she just sort of closes her eyes and, in my opinion, hopes for the best! lol

Lincoln!  This place is MADE for him :-)

Ready for lunch! Victoria, Julia, Scarlett, and Lincoln~

Shortly after this picture, the workers took pity on us and allowed us to eat in their currently unoccupied party room... ah! It was blissfully quiet in there and the kids were able to spread out. 

First monthly toy draft!  Jim and I had decided to convert the play room into a Family Room.  Our kids are blessed with an abundance of toys, however they often end up playing with one of three things: empty boxes, weapon-style toys (of which there are a limited quantity and have a designated bin), or craft items.  That's not to say they don't ever play with the rest of their items, but we have noticed that they play better and with more purpose when less toys are available.  So after our major toy purge - bags of items to donate where taken to Goodwill - this was the (still large!) pile of toys that were left.  Books and puzzles were not included, nor were building blocks.

Jim set them all down and explained that they would take turns and on each turn, one kiddo could select a toy to keep out to play with this month.  When the two bins were loosely (not stuffed) full, all remaining toys would go into a large bin to be stored in the attic. Next month we will pull those bins out and they can cycle out a few different toys.  We'll plan to do this once a month.  The kids could also choose, on their turn, an item to donate if they felt there was a toy they just weren't interested in anymore.  They did great!  No complaints :-)

Lincoln's turn.

Victoria's turn - looking through the pile...

...then taking a winner to the bin of Items to Play with This Month.

Wednesday, August 14th

With a playdate planned for the late morning, we had a shorter school time on Wednesday.  Our friends arrived and the kids got busy swimming... however, it was an unseasonably cool day for the middle of August in Georgia!  The high was only around 80 degrees, and when we started swimming a bit before noon it wasn't even that warm.  My kids were claiming they were "freezing" after about 40 minutes :-p  Despite that, all of the kids had a fun time and I sure enjoyed chatting with my friend as well :-)

Naptime followed, then a snack, karate and back home for dinner and playing.  A good day!

Waverly wanted to be held (a surprise to no one) and was being extra smiley; I wanted to capture her cute grin, but as soon as I whipped out my camera (phone) the smiles disappeared.  I took one "selfie" of us and showed it to her...

Gave her a big smooch...

And voila! The grin reappeared :-) 

Scarlett did her reading and math, Victoria did a partial reading lesson and we reviewed the "friend blend" (what I call two sounds that together make a new, separate sound) -er as it has been causing some hiccups for her when reading. Then the kids were all begging to work on the timeline cards, so I obliged.

 Scarlett, putting them in order and "teaching" Lincoln.

Lincoln surprised me - mostly, I let him have a turn because he was adamant that he WAS getting a turn ;-)  But although he can't read, the pictures really do help and he ended up getting them mostly in order (first 8).

We'll be starting Handwriting Without Tears (Kindergarten level) next week for Victoria and Lincoln.  I wanted to allow Lincoln time to get familiar with the "Wet-Dry-Try" method they promote for practicing writing letters.  I let him scribble, use the mini sponges to wet/eras what he'd done, then use a paper towel tidbit to dry... about 1,000 times, or to his heart's content!  He loved it :-)  

Victoria really wanted a long turn with the bin of magnet manipulatives, so I chose to let her explore and play with those in lieu of her usual chapter of math (Life of Fred: Apples).  After a while, she and Lincoln hopped down and switched place and he messed around with the magnets while she used the small slate board, sponges and chalk.

Pool time with friends Maya & Zoe!  Of course Lincoln insisted we needed popsicles almost the moment we stepped food outdoors :-p

Victoria was chilled from the pool pretty early on and hopped out to play with this ladybug she'd found and "adopted."  I think she holed up on the deck for 40 minutes to play, talk with and sing to this bug :-p This caused drama when she wanted to re-enter the game the other three girls were playing in the pool, as she wanted everyone to get out and play with the bug and no one wanted to.  Eventually she got over it and they all went inside after lunch to play together :-)

Wednesday, July 31st

A date with our friends had been scheduled for a couple of weeks - we had plans to set up at Acworth Beach and stay for most of the day!  Alas, we woke up to relatively cold (for July in Georgia) and rainy weather and were forced to scrap those plans.  We didn't want the day to be a bust though, so my friend Amanda P. and I decided we would have a fun, low-key playdate at our house.  The kids played so well together and with tea time, free play, a movie + popcorn, and craft, the kids were all wore out by the time we said our goodbyes.  All four of my kiddos took a nap at the same time afterward - they were truly tired!!  When they got up, it was time for karate and back home to play for a bit before Jim got home from work and decided to take us out for Mexican :-)

Since we had already planned to have a no-school day because we'd be at the beach, I let the kids "off" even with our change in plans.  Victoria spent a long time tending to her lady bug that she keeps as a pet on the screened-in porch (see it in her hand?). It's actual alive-ness can neither be confirmed nor denied...

Scarlett said, "Look, I'm Mrs. C!" (who is expecting twins!) lol

When their friends arrived, the kids all played so well for quite a while.  I decided I wasn't going to announce that it was time for tea until someone started squabbling, and they made it a good forty-five minutes!  Right when we sat down for tea and snack, the sky went totally dark and we had a brief monsoon.  Scarlett said, "Who turned off the lights??" It looked like nighttime outside!

Of course Waverly was anxious to get her snuggles from Ms. Amanda ;-)

It's definitely grocery store time, so I didn't have a lot of fun snack options... however, the kids seemed perfectly happy with the remains of a french loaf of bread sliced up and served with a smear of Nutella (okay, possibly slightly more than a smear).

Judd, who was stylishly rocking a man-pony, enjoyed licking the Nutella off the bread bit-by-bit.

More playing followed, then it was time for movie & popcorn.  This ended up being the kid's lunch - parenting win!

Three little monkeys :-)

Craft time! I had found these little generic, blank people-shaped cutouts at The School Box.  A package of 30 was only $5, and I had picked them up knowing there were all manner of crafty things the kids could do with them.

The boys worked on their people for several minutes (Lincoln pretty much cut his guy in half and called it a day), but the girls spent a good long while making clothes and hair for their guys.

Victoria's guy~

Scarlett's guy.  I was all, "Wow, Scarlett!  Great dancing monkey with his little hat!" and she quickly informed me that it was not, in fact, a monkey.  It's a clown. Okay!

The kids woke up from naptime ravenous, so I made up with my popcorn lunch by making up one of their favorite healthy snacks - vanilla yogurt, organic granola and a drizzle of honey, all mixed together.  They each ate two bowlfuls, while Waverly did some fan-staring :-)

Jim is such a pro - out to dinner, and he can successfully navigate the very tricky eating-queso-while-holding-a-baby scene!

Totally checked out :-)