I told the kids that I'm not running this week - that I need to catch up on paperwork and other things about the house, so they had to fend for themselves as far as summer fun.
They filled water balloons, had a backyard picnic and made a day of it.
Perfect.
Today will be more of the same.
Mark, Mark, Mark.....
To know Mark is to know that he had the teachers sign his yearbook this year - not the kids, and the common theme throughout the signatures was - Mark, you give the best hugs ever. We saw two of the teachers while at soccer yesterday and he instantly ran across both fields and tackled each of them separately with big squeezes.
Mark is our snugglebug, and Mark loves deeply. He struggled the last week or so of school because he didn't want to say good-bye. He hugged his teachers more than usual. He still talks about and wants to visit both of his preschool teachers regularly. He's already planning to visit his kindergarten teacher frequently when he's a first grader.
On the flip side, if you try to tell Mark that he did something perhaps a little bit incorrectly - he hurts deeply. He's a tender one, this one. And he's going to be a big one. It's funny for me to watch him and Brian (22 months older) because they've been the same size for awhile now, except that Mark has a good 6 - 10 pounds on Brian at any given moment. He's just solid and tall.
He's gotten a lot better at dealing with his hurts and frustrations this last year, but - thankfully - he's still very open about his heart. Case in point.....Mark on the swings at the fair:
At the top of his lungs, each time they went around: I LOVE YOU, MOM!!!!!!!!!!
I LOVE YOU, MOM!!!!! Including the heart sign with his hands.
I LOVE YOU, MOM!!!!!!! while blowing kisses.
I love you too, Mark.
He's also aways the first one up in the morning (after me) and always enjoys a good morning snuggle. He's waiting for me.....
Happy Sunday
Happy Father's Day.
eta: another Mark quirk: If you ask him if he had fun at the fair (or the field trip, or the day at the park, or on the new swings, or at the beach) he's prone to say, with a sigh....Not very.
click any of the photos for a close up
Wednesday evening I got an email from the local newspaper letting me know that I was one of the two lucky winners of four wristbands for the Hamburg Family Fun Fest. A quick glance at the schedule shared that yesterday (Friday) morning would be the only day it would work out with all of our conflicting schedules.
So we went. The weather was perfect, and the timing was right. We got there at 1 - an hour before the rides opened, allowing us time to check out the animals, get the lay of the park, and find a ticket booth at the back corner to claim our wrist bands and avoid the long line in the front.
We stayed until 4:30, and there were no lines the whole time we were there. It was starting to get a bit busier as we were leaving. The kids did the bumper cars multiple times. Except for Mark - he rode passenger to Wendy the first time and was a bit more jostled about then he would have liked.
The slide was another one they did many many times. They slept well last night.
The kids wanted to do the ferris wheel, and there as no way I could let them go without me - so I bought tickets for that. Trickery. They sell tickets in lots of four - but it takes five to ride the ferris wheel. I have NO problem riding in a hot air balloon, but my stomach does a little flip on the wheel, especially with four kids wanting to gawk over the side.
We almost missed the alligator show. I had planned our afternoon so carefully and it ended up that I had accidentally looked at Saturday's schedule instead of Friday's. I might have even thought it was Saturday for a bit. Who knows - but we caught the show five minutes in - in time to see him wrestle this guy out of the water.
Had a little happy moment when looking through photos and saw that pure luck had all four kids in this photo. I have a hard time seeing the screen on my camera in bright daylight with transition lenses, so I never really know what I'm capturing or what I got until I get back home.
Wendy is front middle - between two strangers. Again, pure luck - but I did take about 30 pictures of this hoping to help that luck along.
Happy Saturday!
Today we have....
Time to get busy.....
be good
I love lists.
I decided a list of 15 would be good. I numbered it up, and then filled in the spaces.
I used to read a book a week back in the day - and now probably haven't read one in several years. I'm looking forward to that one.
Happy Friday!
stamped with Days of the Week by Ali Edwards
Yesterday I sat down and put together chore charts for the summer. I've tried many different systems - still searching for the perfect fit. Fingers crossed that this one works.
This year I told the kids that this year they are getting the same chores all summer, and that they will be getting more chores than what is on the chart (scrub the kitchen chairs, wash out the garbage cans, help with putting laundry away, dishes is on a whole other chart....) since there are so many jobs that aren't weekly, but this is our launching point.
These are a smaller clipboard - like 5-1/2 x 9. I'm pulling them from the living room - I'm prepping the living room for a redo, but that's a whole other mess.
Wendy walks dogs four days a week, and while in the school year it's just part of the routine (come home from school - toss her backpack in the door and then head out and walk dogs) in the summer it's more of a panic - aaaaah - what day is it, which dog(s) do I walk?? So I included that. When school starts up again I'll redo the charts and include the boys specials (library, music, gym) because they are forever asking me and it's just not something I keep in my head.
J.J and Tess are the dogs she walks. WB stands for workbooks. Three of the kids have summer workbooks this summer which Wendy has informed me, IS NOT COOL. But they are doing well with them. One week in.
Fingers crossed that this works.
One of the things we have on our list to work on this summer, is Mark's scissor control. It's something he struggles with just a bit (perhaps being the youngest and having three siblings to do his cutting might be part of it) We've got it on our weekly chart to do something scissory (should be a word) on Mondays, which coincides well with the Sunday funnies.
There are several comics that have a nice border on them, perfect for cutting lines. I decided that three comic strips is a good number to work on - comes out to about 28 squares, give or take.
What Mark REALLY likes about this exercise is reading the comics before and after he cuts. Before he cuts - we read it in order - and after he cuts, he mixes them all up and we read the comic completely out of order.
And he laughs and laughs...
The best kind of exercise.
----------------
We're only on day six of summer vacation, but we've been doing a good job so far of keeping up on our daily reading and brain exercises. One of our kids really regressed last summer, so I'm hoping to prevent that from happening again because that's not a struggle I want to deal with again this fall. I'm hoping by adding a small brain/reading exercise to our lazy summer mornings, we can come out a little bit ahead in the fall. Seems worth it....right now.
Tomorrow ... or sometime before the weekend .... I'll share my own summer manifesto and the kid's summer charts.
be good.
My husband's brother was in town this week, and stopped by this evening to pick up his daughter (we had to cancel dinner due to a sick Mark). I told them I'd like a brother picture, and then I told my husband to smile.
His response? I am.
My husband is the one on the right.
Pshaw.
This is a picture I took on Sunday - a split second after one of the boys surprised him with a wet willy.
Now THAT'S a smile.
Saturday morning - soccer. My turn to go. I often see kids whose whole families go to all the games and I wonder - how do they do that? We always have so much going on/so much to do, it would be near impossible for everyone to make the games. Or the house would fall down around us.
I thought there was just one more Saturday game - but there are two. Surprise.
On Sunday we took a family day. We have so few of them come summertime. While some guys have an easier schedule in the summer - my man's schedule is busier than ever. When Ford shuts down - he goes to work. His job often takes him to update assembly lines during those shut downs. He spends most of June getting programs ready in preparation for install. We won't see him much in July, and he has another big project in August as well.
We were due for a family day. We headed to Greenfield Village.
Still our favorite membership. We upgraded and added the ride package this year - the kids were THRILLED to be able to finally ride the train and cars and carousel, etc....
While we were on our way to the Village, we got a call saying hey - crow car club barbeque - tonight!
So we stopped and picked up some hotdogs and burgers on the way home and headed out for some grilling fun
While we were AT the village, we got a call from one of my husband's brother's sharing that they were in town (what did we do before cell phones?) and could we get together. BUMMER - had we known, Sunday would have obviously been perfect - but they dropped off Hallie anyway once we got home and we dragged her along with us to the barbeque. We'll have the rest of the family over tonight.
Wendy and Hallie have a lot of the same interests and have a LOT of fun together.
Marshmallows over the campfire and some guitar to sing along to while an 8 year old was falling asleep in my lap - it was a good day.
Got home well after 10, rushed two boys through the shower and was up until near 2 working on deadlines and assignments.
Monday was the last baseball and the first day of volleyball camp.
