I Spy Quilts

My mom is a great quilter!  She is truly talented!  She loves to make all the grandchildren an "I Spy" quilt when they turn one.  Celeste got her I Spy quilt in the mail, but my mom wanted to take a picture of her with the quilt.  I hope we can get all the grandkids together with their special quilts and do a picture.  

All the kids' quilts are a little different and unique.  I hope they treasure them forever!

Auntie!

I love being an Aunt!  I wish my brothers and brother-in-laws would have kids!  I loved having these cute kiddos up to visit!  I was so sad to see them go.  I hope they can come again soon!

Crazy Kids!

When we bought our new home some people thought I was crazy for converting my office/front room into a play room.  If I haven't mentioned it before, let me tell you again I LOVE it!  The kids have a fun place to play.  I don't have to pick up their toys every night.  It is glorious!  One day, when my kids have grown out of the toy room I will repaint and convert it back to an office/front room.  For now, I need a toy room!

My neighbor gave me this little slide because her kids are too big for it.  Grant and Celeste love the thing!  Grant was playing jump over the box as it slides down the slide.  

1.  Put the box at the top of the slide.

2.  Push to box down the slide and get ready to jump.

3.  Jump over the box!

Amazing!  I love his creativity!

This art has been hanging up all summer.  I realize some of it is Easter, but I didn't want to take it down until we had new stuff to hang up.  I figured we might as well enjoy all the fun pictures.  

Grant "won" this picture at the end of school.  He didn't actually make it, but some of his friends from his class did.  He was so excited when he "won" it.  

This is one of my favorite pictures.  He wrote on the bottom "I am goe to school to day"

I love it!

His hand writing has improved so much since the beginning of kindergarten.  He still gets some letters and numbers backwards, but overall I am very impressed!

I loved this plant diagram too.  I think it is special!

This leaf was picked for the school wide art show.   He didn't win the art show at the kindergarten level, but he was still very proud that his leaf was picked.

Celeste loves to ride this rocking horse.  She has fallen off of it a hundred times, but she still gets back on it.  She can ride it all by herself!

Splash Park

We went to a local park one night for a picnic and to play!

The kids wanted to go swimming, but I didn't feel comfortable taking so many kids to the pool.  So we went to the splash pad instead.  We got them in their swimming suits and let them splash.  They had so much fun!

Celeste loved the water.  She wanted to crawl around (because she isn't quite walking yet) but I didn't want her knees to get all scratched.  So Kyle was a good sport and helped her get wet!

Kyle took Celeste under one of the the buckets.  She thought it was fun until...

the bucket dumped!

Then she thought is was a little cold.   She was a good sport though.  

Once it got late the kids got cold and didn't want to be wet any more.  They dried off while playing at the park.  

Grant and Evy really liked these purple swings.  I walked over to take their pictures and realized they had convinced some random boy to push them.  I couldn't believe the boy pushed these two lazy bones.  It is a lot of work to push those big swings.

Celeste loved the swings!  Look at those smiles for her Daddy!

Bike Ride

Grant and Evy are so big in so many ways that I sometimes forget that they are still so young.  I had the brilliant idea to go for a bike ride with the kids.  I thought we would park by the trail head and bike to the park.  In my mind the ride wasn't too far, but for a 6 year old it was WAY too far!  We weren't on the trail for more than 3 minutes before both of them were complaining about their legs being tired and wanting to go home.

My mom and I pushed them through and got them to ride for a while promising they would get to play at the park.  We also promised we would stop and throw rocks in the river.  

Our plans quickly became unraveled when Grant stopped quickly in front of me.  I swiveled and missed crashing into him by inches.  Evy was distracted and ran right into the back of my bike trailer.  She wasn't wearing shoes just flip flops and she scratched her toe really good.  

We were in the middle of the trail and no way to get her injury taken care of.  It wasn't a horrible scratch and stopped bleeding pretty quickly.  Luckily, she was brave and pushed through.

We stopped at a park and took a rest.  It is a long story, but we didn't have enough water bottles for the kids and we were all very hot and thirsty.  That didn't make matters better.

Preston and Celeste were cramped and hot in the back of the bike trailer and just wanted to go home. The kids hardly played at the play ground.  We turned around and headed back to the car.  Preston was going to die if he didn't throw rocks and so we had to make one more stop.  We threw a few rocks and took off.  Celeste was extremely grumpy by this point and was the only one with water left.  However, while my mom and I were putting the bikes on the bike rack all the other kids drank Celeste's drink.  She was still thirsty and screamed at the top of her lungs the entire way home. 

Our little outing was a lot of work, a lot of pain, and a little fun.

I have learned to do short bike trips and work up to the big trips.  Riding around the neighborhood is not the same as riding a trail.  Pack lots of water!  You can always bring it home.