Summer Library Program

 I love the summer library program here.  They do a good job.  They offer a lot of activities and classes and programs.  Mostly we stick with hanging out in the kid section and entertaining ourselves, and checking off reading hours.  We have also taken advantage of the Saturday morning programs.  They have been pretty good!

This guy is a magician of the old style.  Vaudeville and stories more than straight magic.  He was quite entertaining.  Here he is, doing the "Floating Lady".  We liked him a lot.

Marian enjoyed it.

Heck, I enjoyed it!

 This past Saturday they had Ronald McDonald.  Odd, I know, but the kids thought it was neat.

Callie needed to ask if she could go get a drink, and I snapped this shot.  heh heh heh

Ronald talked about ecology and saving the earth. The usual reduce, reuse and recycle stuff.   Surprisingly, it was really well done and actually entertaining for me.  I felt like the lone supporter, because I clapped for every fun thing he did.  He (and his awesome assistant) did some great stuff, but it was a tough crowd.  So whenever he did something great, I clapped loudly and enjoyed myself immensely.

Because, come on!  It takes a brave and confident man to pull of wearing face make up and a Ronald McDonald costume.  It takes a really great guy to pull it off, and this guy did it.  Kudos to him!

Delaney!

 I love this girl.  She is so dang funny ("Did you know that if you take your clothes off and jump in the air, you aren't touching ANYTHING?!") and sweet and cuddly and adorable.  She's never met a stranger and will tell you anything you want to know.  She makes friends with everyone and and loves to be a helper.  Delaney is endlessly entertaining and full of surprises.  I'm so glad to have her!

Rylee

Tonight, it is just Rylee.  I love this kid.  She is entertaining and funny and sweet and snuggly.  She has so much fun playing with her cousins and her siblings.  She likes to laugh and she likes to make everyone else laugh.  She is still a binky kid and I know it is horrid, but I wasn't going to take away the one thing that will soothe her, until AFTER the 5000 mile traveling across the US summer we had planned.  We'll work on removing the binky after the summer.  And she has a few more months till she's 4.  I tell her she has to potty train when she is 4.  She tells me she is never going to pee on the potty.  We shall see who is right!

Playing at the Lake

We went to the lake on Friday and had a lovely time.  The sun was out; the water was cool; the kids had a blast.

 I make the girls all wear swim shirts to keep the sunburns down.  I finally got this kid to wear a shirt and it was so nice to not have to deal with a lobster back at the end of the day.  Sadly, he forgot to sunscreen his face and it was toasted.

 Delaney had a marvelous time swimming all over.  And she didn't have a single near-drowning experience!

Marian did her own thing most of the time and seemed to enjoy herself.

We brought a lot of floaties and the kids had fun using all of them and rotating through.

Callie was my fish counter.  She came over all morning to tell me how many fish she had spotted.  then she was cross I hadn't let her bring a fishing net.

Rylee refused to leave the safety of the shallowest part for most of the morning. Eventually she got braver.

Marian decided to be buried in the sand.  Very coarse sand, mind you.  Joshua was happy to assist. He recruited his new-found friend and got to work.  The look on Marian's face cracks me up.

Mostly buried and all happy.

Callie was doing a great job of swimming.  Delaney did as well.... as long as she had her float.

That's my cutie!!

Fun packed week

We packed a lot of fun into this past week!

 On little girl had a birthday!  She wanted a lemon cake with lemon frosting.  Yummy.

Callie was thrilled with her birthday loot and felt quite special.

Callie had a good birthday.  but she likes to extend it for as long as possible.

I also had a birthday!  It was awesome being at my folks' house because I got more spoiled then usual.  mom made me yummy Strawberry Pizza Pie.  The best thing?  The kids thought it looked unappealing and didn't want it.  they ate Callie's leftover cake and I gorged myself on the delicious pizza pie!

 You can see parts of all 5 kids in this photo.  They were all playing Monopoly!!  Well, some were playing and some were watching and some were teasing.  It was really sweet to see them all together getting along.

 Grandpa brought home this enormous box and Delaney made herself at home in it.

Grandpa had some chores the kids could earn money doing.  One of the jobs was to shift a huge pile of wood to a new spot.  Joshua tackled that and it took him 2 mornings to finish it.  He put in 4-5 hours, and here he is, moving the last giant chunk of firewood. 

Joshua is showing me how much wood he moved.  He did that row, from where he is standing up to me. It was a lot of wood, and he had some sore muscles from it.

Yep, we went back to Silver Dollar City.  It was a bit harder going by myself with all 5 kids, but we had a good time.

There were some rides that the bigger kids rode while I sat out with the littler ones.

I had to ride in the slow teacup with Rylee and Delaney.  Delaney would not let me touch the wheel, so we just spun a little.  They seemed to think it was fun.

These 3 had a blast in their own teacup  They seemed to be going pretty dang fast and loving it when i saw them zoom by.

This dinosaur moved and the kids thought it very funny to try to put their fingers in its nose or mouth.

This ride is only for kids- no grown ups allowed!  Rylee wasn't sure she was having fun at first.  Check out that face!

Joshua found these and I actually debated getting them, they were so very Mardi Gras!

Callie thought these puppets were pretty neat, and wanted to pose with them.  Perhaps not the pose one would expect, mmmmm?

We tried out this ride for the first time.  You pull yourself up by the rope and then let go and you drop back down.  you can do it multiple times.  Callie and Marian had a good time on it, but said their arms and hands were tired.

I put Callie in charge of photos while I went on the ride.  I guess she found the zoom!!

Here I am with Delaney, and you can see Joshua to the right.  Thank goodness Delaney didn't want to go too high, because I discovered I AM still afraid of heights.

Callie's choice of poses when I asked for a picture.

We rode the train because Joshua really really wanted to.  It was not bad and the kids seemed to enjoy it.

Delaney loved the carousel.

And we found the petting zoo! It was really just goats, but the girls didn't care.

Yep, goats were good enough to make Callie happy.

So that was most of our week.  Other exciting events not documented: Playing in the kiddie pool, My first root canal, and a trip to the library.  Give me some time and I will document the trip to the lake for you!