It's All Good: summer

Is it even possible to 'catch up' when you are this far behind? I often think of posting. It is a way for me to vent and journal, but most days (and nights) there just is not the time to do so. But, tonight, the kids are mostly sleeping, the dishes are mostly done, and the laundry is going strong. So, instead of doing more of the 'jobs' I need to be doing, I'm going to play catch up for a moment, with pictures.

This spring we:

went to visit my sister. While she was at work, we took Huz to see the Red Rock Park that we love. We ran the kids hard and they slept good that night:)

One

They climbed everything.

Three, Huz, BoyTwo, Two, Four, BoyOne, One

My shadow. That's all I have to prove that I was there.

hahahaha. Not the best picture of everyone! My awesome sister took the kids swimming so I could watch Huz play in a tennis tournament without having to worry about potty breaks and keeping them quiet.

My sister introduced us to pickle ball.

It was super fun. We froze.

With my sis. Minus BoyTwo.

This is what the kids do in their free time:

Four giving herself a pedicure

Painting their nails and each others. Great team work.

After they have painted all their nails and the neighbors, they move on to the dog's nails.

Let's not forget about Easter:

We do something special every day for a week before Easter. This is us acting out Jesus' Triumphal Entry. Please notice the little colored pieces of paper hanging on the wall to the left of the door. We hang one for each day of that Easter week and on the specific day add a picture and scripture and description of what happened on that day according to the Bible. Yeah. I just took those down a few weeks ago (as in during the month of June). That is how awesome I am.

We added a new element to decorating eggs this year. Not only did we dye them, we painted them, too. I think a new tradition was born.

Our Easter Bunny comes on Saturday and this year, he really hooked the kids up. Usually he leaves some candy in their basket and maybe a basketball for them to share or something along those lines. This year he went all out and sent them on a scavenger hunt that ended on the back deck where kayaks and a pickle ball set were waiting. The above picture is of them finding and reading a new clue.

There were six clues so that each child had a turn to 'lead' the others to find the next clue. Bunny is smart. This eliminated a lot of potential problems (big kids figuring everything out before littles, one person dominating the whole hunt, '(s)he read it last time now it's my turn', etc.)

Kayak number one

Kayak number two. The pickle ball set is in the background.

Later that morning we hosted a neighborhood egg hunt and 'light' breakfast. It was fun.

More of the kayak

More of the other kayak

I figured out the 'perfect' paska recipe for the boys. BoyOne got to help me prepare it so that he can carry on this tradition for his own family someday.

Oooh. Aaaah.

More of what we do in our free time:

(notice the kids are all in their pajamas as this was a school night and this is Huz's idea of getting them ready for bed)

Dodge ball on the tramp. Huz shows no mercy. It's one of their favorite things to do with their dad.

'Rolling Pin' This is probably their number one favorite thing to do with Huz. He rolls around on the trampoline and they try to jump over him and not get smashed. It really is a miracle that there have not been any serious injuries to Huz or the kids.

In May:

My nephew found out where he would be serving his mission. This was a super cool night that we got to be a part of. Young men and young women in our church can choose to serve a 2 year (boys) or 18 month (girls) mission where they teach people about Jesus Christ and give a lot of service when they graduate from high school. They apply to be a missionary through our church and then get a letter in the mail telling them where they get to go. We all were invited to watch him open his letter and to hear him announce where he would be serving. It's pretty exciting! My sister-in-law had a big world map set out and we each got to guess where he would be going. It was a fun night.

Pinewood derby. He lost. Bigtime. That's what happens when you paint your wheels (at least he did it himself!) and duct tape weights on at the very last minute because the weight requirement is actually a requirement and not a suggestion as Huz thought. BoyTwo led the Pledge of Allegiance that night and did a fantastic job.

There was a kindergarten end of year program,

(Four is on the middle row, on your right)

last home baseball game,

last dance competition,

(Sorry, bad pic. She's not dancing next year. She plans to go back the following year, but who knows. It may really be the last comp. Sad.)

Four's kindergarten field trip to the fire station, park and library,

(when BoyTwo did this he turned the hose on everyone. Shocking, I know)

Two's Third Grade patriotic program,

she did a great job, by the way,

a dance recital for the three younger girls,

(look at that heel stretch!)

(Four for her Miss Hannigan/Annie/It's a Hard Knock-or NOT as all the little girls thought-Life dance)

(Three for her 'Trouble' by Tay.lor Swift dance where they acted out Red Riding Hood. Three was grandmother. It was darling)

(Two with her best friend for their dance Carousel-I think that was what it was called. They're clowns)

BoyTwo had a birthday,

Four had a birthday and a birthday party,

One graduated from 6th grade, and then there was the most wonderful

last day of school (holy freaking FINALLY!!!). The teachers all lined up to wave good-bye to the students. One teacher did cartwheels all the way down the side walk. It's a long side walk. I think she may have been as happy as I was:)

Whoever said that Christmas was the most wonderful time of the year clearly did not have six kids in school, five at the local elementary, four with learning disabilities, one a budding pyromaniac. I am here to tell you that SUMMER is the most wonderful time of the year, hands down. Bless you warm weather and sunshine for saving my life. So far this summer, we have:

been boating with friends,

kayaked a lot,

(don't panic, I make them wear life jackets. In this pic they are headed back to shore to get them after taking off w/o)

danced on the beach,

went to Boise for my brother's wedding and visited with my best childhood friend and her kids,

(this is my big little bro and his super awesome wife and all of us, including BoyOne with what he believes is his 'cool' look, until he sees it and is upset but we cannot talk him into not looking constipated in the moment. sigh.)

and of course, hiked a lot.

(this is the waterfall hike with my friend Jodi and her kids)

This only takes us to the middle of June. I hope that you're all enjoying summer. More to come as soon as I upload my camera.

Cheekwood

We spent the day with my dad at Cheekwood Estate in Franklin that was having a Treehouse exhibition. Each treehouse was based on a book. Cheekwood is a really cool place to go, even if they aren't doing anything extra. They have art exhibits and lots of gardens to walk through and explore. We've gone before over Easter for a giant egg hunt when the girls were little.

I can't remember what this one was, but it looked cool.

Two

Stairs to climb up, slide to get down.

This next one was our favorite. Something happened as I uploaded these pictures and they didn't upload all the way, so I had to do it again and now there are some at the end of the post, out of order. This was a Robinson Crusoe treehouse.

I almost didn't include this one, but I thought it was funny so I did. I was taking a picture of my kids and this little boy (green shirt) came busting through them to be in the picture. Afterwards, my kids were like, 'that was weird.' Maybe you had to be there, but at the time it was funny:)

Four on the outside of the treehouse (obviously)

This one was the conch from Lord of the Flies

sign on the approach to the conch treehouse

From a distance the kids weren't really interested in this one, but I insisted that we visit each and every treehouse. It's a good thing we did because they had a great time at this one, swinging from the poles and climbing up the boards. There were even masks outside the conch that they could hold up to their faces.

Two

Hanging inside the conch

A picture from this next one is down at the bottom also. This was the pirate ship from PeterPan. This was a big hit, too.

One climbing up, Three climbing down, BoyOne at the top

The approach to the next treehouse. Can't remember the book for this one either.

View of the front is pretty plain, but then you go to the back and it's pretty awesome, but you'll have to scroll down to the bottom to see because the next picture didn't upload!!

One

This is the slide to exit the above treehouse.

Bet you can guess this one! Rainbow Fish! This was a really fun one to look at. Pretty boring for the kids as there was not anything to climb on or hang from:)

They used CDs for the outside of it. Clever, don't you think!!

Tried to get a good picture of all six of them and this was as good as it got. Oh well!

The beginning of the out of order ones:

Three, Four, One, BoyOne

Two and BoyTwo were in a timeout for taking off without the rest of us:(

The outside of the Robinson Crusoe treehouse. The kids loved the swing underneath and all of the poles to climb on, which I'm sure wasn't the intention when it was built, but nonetheless, they enjoyed them.

The PeterPan pirate ship

This is the backside of the one made of crates that looked really plain from the front. Right next to this is the long slide that One is coming down (above)

Can't remember the book for this one either. But I loved looking at it.

With Papa John, the man that made this all possible:)

The Cheekwood mansion. It's pretty big.

One of the ponds. If I remember right (which really isn't any more than 50% likely, let's be honest, my brain is mush), this is the same pond that the string treehouse was in.