Family 4th!

This year our 4th of July festivities were a bit more quiet due to several families not being able to make it to my parents house. It was still a wonderful celebration though!

 

 

Ga-Ga & Pa looking quite patriotic! Zeke even helped Pa add a little more red to his shirt when he fell out of the truck sandbox and got a bloody lip!

 

 

Love how the balloon got in the picture! Oh yeah and see the herd in the background...more on that later!

 

 

Even though Uncle Ry, Aunt Stephie, Bill, Christina and kids weren't able to join us we see distant relatives...people I had never met before. This is my 3rd cousin Ryan and his wife Ling. They just moved up here from Colorado.

 

 

This is Kelly and Vernita, Ryan's parents. Vernita is my Dad's cousin. They are also from Colorado. They helped Ryan and Ling move up. It was so fun getting to meet them and chat. It's always fun to meet family!

 

 

And what is a day outdoors at Ga-Ga & Pa's without taking a spin in the big ball. You might notice that it's not a big RED ball though....that one bit the dust! So Pa went out and purchased a brand new big BLUE ball for the kids. The blue ball has got a better design in regards to the chambers that hold the air. Hopefully this one will last longer than 2 summers!

 

 

I'm not sure who has more fun...the boys being pushed my Pa or Pa pushing the boys!

 

 

You might remember that Ella Bean was absolutely terrified of the big red ball...we were hoping that she might have warmed up to the idea of it. She actually asked to go inside! I was totally shocked!

 

 

Of course she changed her mind once we got over to the ball, but I was able to convince her sit in there with me holding onto her. Huge step!

 

 

After Ryan and Ling had been at the house for a while they decided to go check out that big blue ball too. Jack helped Ryan push Ling around in the ball. I don't know if she had fun though....I can't tell!

 

 

What do you think?

 

 

 

Even though it wasn't the nicest day the sun did come out for about 45 minutes and there was no denying these kids some sliding time on the slip and slide!

 

He's the winner!!!

 

Taking a spin in the truck sandbox!

 

 

Perfect size for him!

 

 

Handsome boys in there 4th of July clothes courtesy of Aunt Stephie. Of course I never did get a picture of all 4 of the kids in their 4th clothes. Either Zeke was napping or the boys were in their swim trunks.

 

 

Later on we got the kids in their pj's and then Zeke did his best impersonation of an orangutan. 

 

 

This cute 13 month old is still not walking! He is our latest walker. He's started standing up on his own in the middle of the room so I know it's not far off though.

 

 

And of course what's a family celebration without smores!

 

Once the fireworks started...there legal in Orting...we took the boys (Ella and Zeke were in bed) to the front yard to watch them. The people across the street were freaking Michael out because they were not handling their fireworks very responsibly. Owen is our little pyro maniac so he was in heaven. Jack was so completely exhausted that he kept saying he was bored and then he sat on Pa's lap under a blanket and fell asleep! After a while Michael and I went inside...I'm not much for fireworks either and I wanted to watch Vampire Diaries on Netflix! The kids...even the younger ones that were supposed to be a asleep didn't get to sleep until 10:30! Let's just say that Friday wasn't pretty!  

A Day At The Beach!

Last weeks weather was amazing! It actually felt like summer! I knew I wanted to take the kids to the beach sometime during the heat wave we were having, but I wasn't sure what day. Then Jen texted me and said that Logan was going to spend Monday will her grandparents and I thought...Monday it is. I'm fine with taking 5 kids to the beach, but one less is always nice! ;)  

 

 

Our favorite sandy beach to go to is Coulon Park in Renton. They do a great job maintaining the park.

 

 

Last year I took the kids here, but Zeke was just itty bitty so this sandy beach thing is new to him.

 

 

Owen is totally in his element at the beach. He loves to dig out the sand and make rivers and lakes.

 

 

The water even felt great!!!

 

 

Entertainment provided by nature and imagination not technology!

 

 

I'm pretty sure Zeke thought the goal was to see how much sand he could possibly get on the blanket!

 

 

I figured he needed to get in on the water action! He amazes me that he doesn't get freaked out! He just sat there letting the waves come up on his legs and he loved it!

 

 

Jack showing me his moves!

 

 

Owen swimming "under" the water!

 

 

Ella Bean loved crawling in the water.

 

 

The morning that I decided to go to the beach I put that we were going on FB and so a few of my MOPS friends showed up. This was our set up! When we got there it wasn't busy at all, but by the time we left....it was packed!

 

 

Time for lunch!

 

 

One of the times I took Owen potty we passed the snack shack and I decided it would be fun to splurge and get the kids ice cream. I never usually buy ice cream from places like that because they cost an arm and a leg, but they were playing so nice and it was super hot. They were only $2 a piece so it wasn't so bad!

 

 

Yum!

 

 

Jack devoured his strawberry crunch bar and then ate half of Owen's ice cream sandwich that he didn't want. Poor Ella's ice cream sandwich melted so fast and then it broke off and fell in the sand. :(

 

 

All in all we spent 4 hours at the beach. I actually kept putting off leaving because I knew the meltdowns that were going to ensure once we got to the car. See my kids can keep it together until they are in a private place like home or the car then the lose it. Thankfully Ella was the only one that had a little meltdown, but she ended up pulling herself together. The one lesson I did learn from this outing was that sunscreen really needs to be applied more than once if you are going to spend 4 hours at the beach!

RCC Soccer Camp!

Later in the day after we danced in the rain we took the kids down to an elementary school in Kent where our church was hosting a free 2 day soccer camp. Last year Owen was old enough to go, but we decided to wait one more year so both the boys could go together.

 

 

After getting their shirts....that were the smallest size they came in...hilarious! They headed across the field to get their soccer balls.

 

 

Mr. Richie stopped by to get some Zeke snuggles. Mr. Richie is wonderful with the kids and he always and I do mean always has Skittles for the kids. Some of the kids actually call him the Skittle Man!

 

 

Look at how big these handsome boys are getting!

 

 

Since we arrived early the boys were able to just kick their balls around and play for a bit before the structured activities started.

 

 

They were expecting about 140 kids, but since it had been pouring that week I think a bunch of people decided to stay home. While we were there we just got drizzled on for about 5 minutes.

 

 

After a while we got out the blanket and settled down. Ella and Zeke had fun together!

 

 

She loves to maul her baby brother...thankfully he doesn't mind too much!

 

 

Maybe a little!

 

 

Then it was time to begin. First all the kids had to gather in the middle of the field and then they split the kids up according to gender. The boys lined up to do some warm up/stretching exercises.

 

 

Running across the field and then coming back bringing their legs up really high.

 

 

After stretches they split the kids up according to age and then they played some games.

 

 

Beautiful spectator!

 

 

This is Jack's friend Hansie...I hope I spelled that right. Jack talks about him all the time. They are in the same class at church. Jack is very much attached to Owen so it's been wonderful to see him branch out and make his own friends. I hope the friendship that these boys have started turns into a lifelong one!

 

 

Entertaining the little munchkin!

 

 

The final huddle of the night!

 

On our way we decided to treat the kids to caramel sundaes from MCD's.

 

 

Owen kept saying he didn't like caramel...blah blah blah...then he tried it! Surprise, surprise he liked it! Such a silly boy!

 

 

YUMMY!

 

 

Caramel lips!

 

 

This was probably a bad idea...

 

 

As you can imagine he and everything he could possibly touch or spill on was a sticky mess! It was fun though!

 

The next night Michael took the 3 older ones by himself so I could stay home and take care of some garage sale business. At the end of the camp each of the kids got to keep their soccer balls and their shirts. It was great fun and we can't wait for the boys to participate next year.

Dancing In The Rain!

A couple weeks ago we had a week of rain. I don't mean sprinkles...it was torrential downpours! One afternoon while Logan and Zeke were sleeping I thought it might be fun to go outside and dance in the rain with the kids.  

 

 

Ella Bean was the first to venture out.

 

 

Then Owen ran through.

 

 

Here comes Jack!

 

 

Then I got out there with them and jumped and danced around.

 

 

It was so fun seeing them enjoy themselves!

 

 

Doing some funky moves!

 

 

Then Jack wanted to dance with Ella.

 

 

Then Owen danced with Ella. One thing I didn't get a picture of...because I was a participant...was Owen dancing with me. It was so precious. He asked me and then he wanted to slow dance and twirl me. Melt my heart!

 

 

Drenched!

 

 

Then Ella decided to take a load off and sit on this box on our deck not knowing it wasn't stable. Oops! We were all laughing....it was a fun reprieve from the normal everyday stresses!

 

 

Love my life....love these kiddos!

The Last Of The Disney Shirts!

 On Tuesday the 25th my friend Angie came over to spend the day with me. While she was here I got so much stuff done...it's crazy what you can accomplish when you have a friend to keep you company and talk with. One of the things I had been putting off was finishing up the Disney shirts for Zeke. I had pretty much burned myself out making the ones for the older kids. Anyways it was time to finish them up!

 

 

 

Zeke's pirate shirt had to be a little different than Owen and Jack's since his shirt was a darker red than theirs. I had to use yellow for the bandana since red just blended in with the shirt.

 

For his second shirt I was going to make a shirt that looked like he was wearing a Mickey tie, but then Jack asked me to make a shirt with Pluto on it. I went to Joann's and got the Pluto decal at 50% off. so it was less than $2! The shirts both cost me $3.88 at Wal-Mart.

 

 

I was going to cut out letters to spell DOG, but I didn't really want the word dog on my sons shirt. Then it dawned on me that Mickey always calls Pluto his PAL and I thought that was cute! I love the way I was able to make Pluto peek out around the 'L'.

 

Each kid has 2 appliqued shirts for the trip. Now the next project is to make the trip timeline that will hang in the car so the kids will have a visual of where we are going and how close we are. Only more months until our trip!