Early Fourth of July

Well, I'm still a week behind on our exciting events around here.  So I'll make this short on words and long on photos.  Last Friday Aunt Miranda decided we needed some 4th of July celebration.  She brought back a bag of goodies from the fireworks shop and let the kids have at it.   They had a marvelous time with the bottle rockets and smoke bombs and snap caps.

Sadly, it was our last hurrah before Kera and Miranda left with their progeny and left me alone with mine.

Hike Part 2

We came prepared with snacks and water.

Callie was everyone's favorite because she gave piggy-back rides and made cranky children happy.

Rylee and Charlotte, giving me silly faces.  Aren't they adorable?!

These are their happy faces.

Marian, hanging out at the park.

Callie and Rylee.  I love it when they are sweet to each other.

Once again, Marian is Queen of the Tree.

I'm sorry, she was so funny, drinking, I had to get a picture.

 And Delaney's distressed look cracks me up.

 Somebody broke his glasses.  He says he can see just fine, but he's a fibber.  He squints, just like this without his glasses.

Oh, look!  It is all my favorite children!  I kind of love them.  A lot.

5 silly children and one goofy dog.

Everyone else moseyed down to the water, but my kids were hot and tired and only made it to the car. 

Fun family hike Part 1

Silly blogger isn't letting me upload more than one photo at a time, so it has taken me 3 days to get this far!  And I'm done.  So, here are pictures from our hike!

We drove out to a lovely spot by the lake and took the kids for a hike.  It was a very short hike for grown ups, but fairly arduous for the 4 year old crowd.  Or maybe just for MY four year old!  All the other kids had a marvelous time running and climbing and hiking.  We hiked them through a trail to a park and then back. 

I think the highlight of the hike was when Marian hopped up on a tree and realized there was a baby fawn right next to her.  The branch she was on broke and the poor fawn bolted.  Levi wanted to go in hot persuit, but his leash holder managed to keep him where he was.

It was a good day and a good time.

A view of the lake before the hike.

Matthew, Callie, Aaron and Marian on a log. 

The whole gaggle of kid, with my son, making me so proud there in the front.

Whew!  Joshua looks normal.  

FYI, all these kids, plus 5 adults were sharing a 5 bedroom home with 2 bathrooms for a week.  Crazy!

Speaking of crazy......!!

Having fun hiking.

Alex is just so doggone cute!

I said I wanted more photos with my mom in them.

So i made them pose for pictures.  Rylee is kinda photobombing.

Someone had a LOT of fun!

Merry-Go-Round = Good times

 One of the parks here has an actual, real, live, merry go round!  Do you know how rare those are these days?!  The kids love that park and spend the whole time spinning around and around. We went to that park on Tuesday morning.  I was surprised how much fun it was for all the big kids.  Joshua is almost 13 and he had a blast.  There were some random small children at the park, and a couple kids around Joshua and Marian's age.  They joined the whirling good times with our kids. Some older kid (or young man, 18-20s) showed up and thought it would be fun to play with the kids.  He spun and spun them so fast the boys were flying off the merry go round, and not entirely on purpose. We were there around 2 hours and not once did any of the 13 children utter the words, "I'm bored."     Yay!

Relaxing as they spin.

Callie spinning the merry go round with family and new friends.

Rylee preferred climbing the caterpillar.

finding new ways to ride the merry go round.  And look at Charlotte's face. (She's the adorable little blondie in pink.)  I love it!

Even Delaney had a really good time at the park.

Camden and Ethan were adorable and I couldn't resist this picture. 

Playing at the Lake

With 13 children (age 13 and under) in the house, it can get a little..... mmmm.... rowdy.  So we have tried to schedule activities each day to get everyone out of the house and doing something fun.  On Monday, we took the kids to the lake.  They had an enormous amount of fun.  Apparently I really AM getting older.  I thought the water was too cold and I was not as thrilled as the kids to be there.  It was also a little problematic to have SO many kids and only 3 moms.  We were totally out numbered.  The big kids were fine.  But there were 3 medium sized children who needed to have an eye kept on them, and 5 who needed to be close by, since they could not swim, and occasionally overestimated their abilities.

When you are the mom, the only fun, really, in going to the lake is if you can play with your kids, or chat with your friends.  Neither of those was really happening with all the energy spent on making sure no one disappeared in the murky depths.  The kids were blissfully unaware of all the angst going on in the adults and had a fabulous time!

The kids loved the floaties.  They splashed and played.  They swam.  They played in the sand.  They shouted and giggled.  They truly had a marvelous time.

Rylee did step on something exceedingly sharp and sliced her foot open.  After much crying and tears, I managed to get a bandaid on it, and all was well again.

It was a very successful outing.

 Emma and Rylee

The big kids in Callie's pretzel float. They sure did enjoy that floatie!

The bandaid-ed foot, all better!

Alex may be the cutest kid ever!

Marian is getting pretty good in the deeper water.

Joshua and cousin Camden.

 Delaney, with Callie and the amazing float in the back.  Love the matching pink theme here!

Joshua, Marian and Aaron built some awesome stuff in the sand.

 Josh, Katie, Marian and Callie.  Did I mention how much fun the pretzel float was?!

Rylee did not go back in the water, but was happy to play on the sand with her ouchie foot.

 Delaney is becoming a pretty confident swimmer.  She's a hoot!

The sand was almost as much fun as the water.