Tuesday, August 27th

We were all excited on Tuesday, because Grammie was coming home sometime in the early afternoon!!  Although we were glad she had a nice time with family, the house is not the same without her :-)  Sure enough, she returned just after lunch with a new Boo for each of the big kids - they were ecstatic!!  With plenty of school and outdoor play time to keep them busy plus the excitement of Gram's return, the kids were wore out and in need of a nap in the afternoon.  Once they woke up it was pool time!

Before getting dressed for the day, the kids always roll out of bed and gather in the living room for a little wake-up-tv-time :-)  We all enjoy our hour of relative leisure before diving into the day! I usually get to eat breakfast, have my morning cup of tea and give the baby sweet snuggles during this time. 

A big chunk of our morning went toward working on the kids' presentations for Passport Club. Scarlett really spent a lot of time and effort putting her board together and learning the material. She has been very fascinated with the Chinese Dragon and so we looked up lots of facts about them - then she picked six facts and we found pictures we liked and printed it all off.  Next she cut out and pasted everything to her board and then read and re-read her facts until she felt comfortable presenting on them.  Victoria and Lincoln both did very well with theirs also, of course Scarlett is older and has more information to relay!

While Scarlett worked diligently on her presentation, Victoria and Lincoln were setting "booby traps" in the backyard.  Victoria is really into making traps right now, so I gave them yarn and crepe streamers, thread, and some ribbon.  Nothing thrilled her more than to report that Salty could not get up the deck stairs for how "booby trapped" it was ;-)  Later she was less enthusiastic about cleaning it all up, but they did it - every scrap made it back indoors into the trash.  I love their creativity!

Lincoln, working on his presentation.  I cut out the pictures for him, but he pasted them to his board and practiced, practiced, practiced on what he was going to say.  It's a tough skill for a 3-year-old, but I think it's great that he tries so hard and by the time he's 5 or 6 he will be super proficient at speaking and giving information in front of an audience.

We were planning to go bowling after lunch, however all three big kids were worn out and Scarlett was complaining of gas pain in her belly, so we opted to stay in, have tea time and read through a stack of story books.

After giving and getting hugs all around, distributing the much loved Boo gifts, and chatting with Nana and me, the baby woke up.  Gram was eager to go in and say hi!  It's hard to see in this picture, but Waverly was pushing up and looking over at her and giving great big smiles! :-)

Pool time!  Victoria was mostly hanging out on the pool steps in the shallow end, but Scarlett and Lincoln were doing simultaneous jump-ins by the deep-end stairs!

Arms up!

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! :-)

Friday, August 23rd

We had several errands to run on Friday, and because I'm not at all above bribing, I had told the kids that if we could accomplish what we needed to with good attitudes then I would treat them to Chick Fil A for lunch.  I was so pleased with their good attitudes!  Although we couldn't get to every place I'd hoped before it was lunchtime, the kids were really fun and well behaved.  Later (during naps) I was able to run out to the grocery story by myself thanks to my mom!  A bit of cleaning in the evening and we were feeling ready for our SASCH Back to School party the following day.

During a stop at Party City, the kids were eager to point out all of the many Halloween decorations that are already on display.  Scarlett was not a fan of the mask kiosks and conveniently thought "they would scare Waverly" and pushed her sister away in the stroller and then half-hid behind it (see her in the background??). lol  Victoria found this mask and thought it was great.

Of course, Lincoln found the creepiest mask ever and insisted on riding around the store with it on.  A little distracting...

A few stops later, it was time for lunch.  The kids were famished and polished off all of their food and ice cream treats, then played and played.  I think they must have played for at least an hour and were still sad to leave!  Victoria is such a good sharer (most of the time!) and when Lincoln asks for a bite...

She happily serves it up.

Waverly is just the best baby - so content to just be in the middle of the action! :-)

Chick Fil A is promoting their new milkshake, "mocha cookies and cream," and passed out little mini samples - the kids were more than eager participants.

My super handsome guy - he melts my heart!

Recently I was looking through one of Gram's old boxes of pictures and came across this one of me (left, obviously) from when I was 3 or 4.  As I was looking at this picture of Lincoln I was just really blown away by how much we resemble each other!  I'm used to everyone saying that Lincoln looks just like Jim, and he does in a lot of ways, but I'm seeing that he's much more of a mix.  I can definitely see some more resemblance between little-me and Scarlett, too!

Afternoon pool time with Nana!

Sunday, July 28th

Sunday was a relaxing day - lots of at home time, followed by Jim taking Linc for a haircut, and me taking the girls to Barnes & Noble.  The guys joined us there and then we had lunch together before heading home to nap.  Soon after the kids were up, our good friends next door joined us for a cookout and a bit of swim time - a great end to the weekend!

Three helpers (one pants-less!) watching Daddy clean the pool.

Just before heading out, I needed to get Waverly dressed and then was going to feed her.  She looked SO adorable in this little dress/bloomers combination, so I ran and got my camera, trying to coax a smile out of her.  This was the look she gave me instead - clearly saying, "Are you kidding me? I am starving and you're trying to take my picture??" lol

Uh-oh!  Full angry arms flailing and all - she meant business.  I love how sweet, smiley and calm the baby usually is, but I have to admit I find it a little cute when she gets all mad and opinionated! :-)

Lincoln was so thrilled to go with Jim to a "boy's hair cut place," as he explained to me.  Apparently, he was quite insistent to wait and have Jim go first, with his turn afterward... but then the hair stylist whispered to him, "How about you go now while your daddy is getting his hair cut, and I bet me and you will BEAT him and be done first!"  Well, this was all the motivation he needed - he was ready to get started!

Handsome guy, forehead bruise and all! :-)

After an hour at Barnes & Noble perusing for books and playing at the train table, the kids made their final selections.

A quick lunch at Taco Bell - I introduced the kids to the pintos & cheese bowls.  Lincoln and Scarlett were not fans at all, but Victoria ate all of hers plus the rest of Linc's!  I kept telling her, "There's cheese hanging out of your mouth..."

"That's okay, mommy, I like it there."

The kids actually took an awesome 2.5 hour nap, while Waverly and I played and stared at each other.  Jim took a turn hanging out with her for a few while I took care of a couple things.  She wants to sit up so badly!

She LOVES her daddy - always turns to see where he is if she hears his voice and has the biggest smiles for him.

Our neighbors joined us for a casual dinner and pooltime, but Jim put our kids (and the neighbor's oldest daughter) to work scrubbing his car first - they were seriously stoked to help wash the Z.

She was genuinely more excited to wash the car than to get in the pool after.

The unsuspecting Lincoln goes to rinse his rag, while Jim gets ready with the hose behind him...

...sprays him with the icy water...

...and sends him running away as fast as he can! :-)

Scarlett, getting thrown by daddy.

Pool time fun!  Our dinner was wonderful and it sure was nice to have a chance to catch up with our friends next door!

Friday, July 26th

Our friends, the Lawsons, would be joining us for a fun Friday pool playdate, so we plowed through our schoolwork in order to be ready for them to arrive around 11:00 a.m.  The kids were ecstatic to meet their friend's new puppy and played with the patient pooch for a long time before eating a picnic lunch, swimming and hanging out in the back yard.  Thanks Julia for bringing Smokey over for a visit!

At breakfast, Victoria came over to talk to Waverly - she sang her favorite little song, "You Are My Sunshine," and it's amazing how excited the baby gets when she hears it!

As she listened to the song, she tried getting herself sat up and her little left eyebrow shot up like, "Hey! I know this song!"

After a few rounds of singing the song, Victoria was talking to her and you can tell that Waverly would desperately like to respond! :-)

As Gram, Victoria and I were talking to each other and the baby, I asked Victoria what kind of birthday party she thought Waverly might like next year (birthdays are a hot topic right now!).  She didn't take any time to respond, "Well, she would probably really like a deer party!  She really likes deers."  I didn't want to laugh out loud, but I instantly realized that in the song she had been singing to Waverly, there is a little phrase that goes, "And you'll never know, DEAR, how much I love you..." and Victoria was mentally replacing the "dear" with DEER.  I waited until I thought she wasn't looking to whisper it to Gram and we laughed and laughed! :-)  As we guffawed, Victoria kept saying, "What did the baby do that was so funny??" haha

Lincoln was feeling a bit tired overall and needed his support team hanging out with him during his school time.  Peter lucked out with the bouncy chair, and BearBear ended up in the pink bumbo seat. Linc had two new sounds - "o" and "i," and did pretty well with them!  For his math, I would lay down a number card really fast and he would try to really quickly put the correct number of little helmets on the card. 

He loves these little football helmet counters.

Victoria first worked with her site word/phonics cards - there were two new ones - and for the initial round, I said a word and she found the correct match and put a little frog manipulative on that card.  In the second round, I had her hand me each card and tell me what it said - if there was one she didn't know, we left it on the table to review; this way I could see which words were still a bit of a struggle.  She only had three cards left and we reviewed those a couple more times.

Waverly was sitting with me while Victoria worked on the cards and was super wiggly - kicking and punching the air.  Victoria thought it would be hilarious to put a frog on her head and see if she could get it to stay there.

Sorry, kid, but it's probably not the last time you'll have something odd placed on your head! ;-)

Finally!  School was finished and our friends arrived with their new pup, an adorable little Yorkie named Smokey.  It was all Scarlett could do to finish her reading lesson in the minutes leading up to their arrival!  

Victoria, Julia and Smokey.

Lincoln surprised me by running into the garage and wanting his bike brought out - he hopped on and rode down the driveway like a pro!  His awesome new Spiderman bike that Nana had purchased for him was finally getting broken in - he had tried to ride it before and just couldn't get the mechanics of it at all and now seemingly had no problems...

...until he got out onto the street!  Suddenly, it was as though he just couldn't do it anymore.  I think he initially hopped on and just DID it, then got out onto the street and started thinking about what he was supposed to do and just lost momentum.  We tried for a few minutes but he was immensely frustrated with himself and so we said we'd try again soon.

He was quick to get over the disappointment though, as it was his turn to walk Smokey.

Our cat, Pixie, sat at a safe distance and hate-watched the dog. 

Picnic-ing on the pergola!

Scarlett borrowed Mrs. Lawson's boogie board and spent a long while "surfing" around the pool
 :-)

For her part, Waverly spent quite a while sleeping in her room while our friends were over... then sleeping in Nana's room!  I love watching her sleep when she's all curled up on her side.  Such sweetness!

After our friends departed and the kids had rest time, I ran out for a few minutes to return another little friend's swimsuit that had been left at our house.  The kids stayed home with Nana and Grammie and when I returned, they had made elaborate plans for a dance party and were busy with the set up.

Scarlett made the invitations, complete with personalized drawings - I thought this one for Jim was great, with the beard and all :-)

While Scarlett agonized over setting out snacks and matching cups/plates, Victoria worked exclusively on her amazing dance moves - she called this one (above) her "big ending."

EPIC

All costumed up for the dance party... which promptly fell apart. The day caught up with them and it was suddenly all about bickering and major drama. It was still a fun evening - the kids have a hard time staying truly upset with each other and eventually went back to playing great after dinner.

All tuckered out from watching the dancing festivities for an hour! Scarlett made me put the headband on Waverly as her "costume."

Post-dinner daddy & Waverly time.  He enjoys flipping her upside down and pretending to eat her head :-p

And for her part, she loves her daddy's crazy antics :-)