New Pool

Thomas took the initiative, gathered the troops and cleaned out the old water trough that has sat unused (and un-cleaned)  the whole 12 years we've lived here plus however many more before that.  It took them two days of cleaning out, with a little help from me and the wet-vac at the end. 

It's still a little grimy in there, it's not exactly water tight and the water is FREEZING cold but they still had fun! 

Adventure Time!

Since we did an official family vacation this year we haven't done as many of our normal day trip adventures.  We decided to go on one last week because Samuel had an orthodontist appointment and who wants to drive 40 minutes to the appointment, which takes maybe ten minutes, and then turn around and go home?

 



So we raided the recycling the night before and made boats

 

And then we floated them at the fun recreational area we discovered last year.

It also has a great play ground made out of mostly natural things.

 

 After a picnic lunch we escaped the heat at a bounce house.

Had some ice cream, got the ortho appointment done and headed home!

And the Disorganized Mother Award Goes to....

Me! 

Today is the day to have all the kindergarten paperwork for Philip in by and of course it's not quite ready.  I (think) I know where everything I need is but haven't gathered it.  So I go to the bank to get Philip's birth certificate to make a copy of it.  But it isn't in the safety deposit box.  Crap.  I didn't panic because there's some places at home I can look.  So at home I start digging through his box of mementos and find a pile of papers from the hospital.  Great, this is looking good.  And then I find it:  An application for a birth certificate.  Yes, that's right.  I never got him a birth certificate.   I definitely deserve an award.

In my defense Philip was the one who shrunk for three weeks and ended up in the hospital for dehydration because he was tongue tied way far back on his tongue so none of us realized he wasn't getting enough milk when he nursed.  I was a little busy figuring all that out, but still.....

Now He Looks Like the Rest of Them

Nicholas

Philip

 

Samuel and Thomas

Not sure that I have a 2 year old picture of Thomas in it.  I didn't find one on the computer but we got a digital camera right around when he was 2 so I'll have to get out the photo albums to check there too.

Water Fun

I must have bought a slip n slide on clearance last year.  We found it in the shed and got it out while it was blazing hot last week!

 

 The pivot hit the yard that day too.

 

Samuel wasn't in on the fun because he and Jeremy had gone to pick up his pads etc for tackle football in the fall.

Two year Old Chore

When you're two at our house it's time to learn to sort the silverware.

He wasn't super excited but too bad for him.  :)

Family Vacation

Last week we took our very first, not staying with relatives, not backed by John Deere, out of the state, whole family vacation!  We went to Sioux Falls.  I know.  Exotic.  But the drive wasn't bad (no one puked either way!  This is a major accomplishment for our family!) and there was lots to do.  It was only four days but we still had plenty of fun and after we got home Friday we continued the family fun closer to home on Saturday and Sunday.

We discovered a new love of Nicholas':  Paw Patrol.  He now requests it daily but he sure was happy watching it in the van.

 

We found a great Ninja Warrior training ground park on the way up.

After the drive up we spent the rest of the day at the Falls. 

 

Thanks to a good tip from my friend Karen, we stayed at Staybridge Suites.  They have the standard continental breakfast plus small dinner buffets Tuesday - Thursday and kitchenettes so we didn't have to eat out very much.  We ate dinner there, swam in the pool and called it a day that evening.

On Wednesday we poked around Sioux Falls various museum's and interesting places.  The Science Museum was a hit.

We left in time to go to noon Mass at their beautiful Cathedral where I didn't think to snap a picture.  We went back to the hotel for lunch and rest and then headed out to a history museum and stopped back by the Cathedral because the kids were too tired and hungry to look around earlier.  We enjoyed a butterfly pavilion/aquarium and the park next door too.

 

There was more great Ninja Warrior training here!  Philip climbed over the whole ginormous jungle gym twice.  I, thankfully, missed the first time so I only had to be nervous for the second trip.  Also that little seat he's sitting on spins and is tipped so that your body weight keeps it going.  He called it the "never ending dizzy maker."

 

We had dinner at the hotel and watched a movie in the room to finish out the day.

Thursday we headed another hour north to Brookings where there is a great Children's Museum.  The kids had a blast.

Here you harvest your crop, attach it to the conveyor belt, watch it drop down, sort it and then plant your next crop or take your produce to the grocery store.

 

They had a really fun outdoor area too.  The kids "fished" for a long time and it was hot enough that they dried off before it was time to go in.

There was more fun farm things, a cool climber, a building area, a water area and lots more fun stuff too.

After lunch we headed back to Sioux Falls and went to their big water park.  We timed it to go after their prices went down for the evening plus Thurday is buy one ticket get one free so we got in for about the daytime price of an adult and a half.  We were happy because they go by height so both Samuel and Thomas counted as adults.  We had a ton of fun but I didn't take any pictures.  There were water slides, a wave pool, lily pads, a lazy river and a zero depth entry pool.  The kids and I felt bad for Jeremy; even though his back is feeling pretty good-all things considered- he didn't want to try the slides and the wave pool was hard for him to stand in with the waves pushing against him so he wasn't able to enjoy everything as much as he would have with a totally healed back.  He still managed to have fun though and there was a bar so not all was lost. :)  Nicholas had fun but he was kind of too small for most of it.  The kid area had one of those huge buckets that dumps every so often so he couldn't enjoy playing because he never knew when the bucket would dump!  He liked the zero depth pool though. They allowed two people to go down the huge slide together so Philip and I went three times and I finally convinced Julia to try it once and she loved it.  Samuel went a bunch of times and tried out the inner tube slide a couple times too.  He got me to do the inner tube one once, and it was fun, but I liked the other one better.  Everyone enjoyed the lazy river and it was only 2 1/2 feet deep so Julia could go on an inner tube by herself and Thomas wasn't nervous to float around either.  We went around that quite a few times!  We also liked the wave pool.  Normally Jeremy doesn't like life jackets in the pool, he'd rather the kids learn to swim, but for the wave pool we let Julia, Philip and Nicholas put them on.  Julia and Philip loved being able to float around, Nicholas, not so much.  He and Jeremy sat on the "beach" and let the waves hit their feet.  Overall it was exhausting fun!  :)

Friday morning we  packed up the van and hit the Zoo before heading home.  Being spoiled as we are by the wonderful big zoo close to home, it was hard to be impressed.  It seemed to have a lot of long walks to see one animal and then you had to turn around and walk back because you weren't on a circular trail.  It was fine but the kids were tired and Jeremy and I were sick of being on constant kid watch.  Yep, that's the cue to go home.

 

Saturday we biked at the cabooses all morning, which was warm but pretty fun and Sunday we went to see the new Minion movie, because really, other than sit in an air conditioned movie theatre, what kind of fun do you have in 96 degree weather?!

 

Overall, I'd say it was a wonderful inaugural family vacation!

Red Striped Shirt

This is a keeper shirt.  I have pictures of all the boys in it at ages 6 months and 2 years.

Samuel and Thomas started the tradition by wearing matching shirts in 2006 (maybe?)

 Here are the 6 month pictures
And here are the 2 year ones I don't seem to have published them when Philip was 2.

And now I see why I didn't post them, it turns out I can't find a picture of Thomas in it, I'll have to do some more looking.  I don't have one of Samuel alone either

Philip

Nicholas

Looks like I should do Nicholas again now that his hair is cut, he'll look more like the rest of them.

 

 

Summer Blonds

I thought I was going to be lamenting the loss of the blondies after haircuts last night

 

 but they mostly stayed pretty blond.  Woot!  :)

 

Nicholas enjoyed his first daddy haircut and did really well.

 

When They Grow Up

We did this two years ago and I thought it was time for an update. 

 

Happy 4th of July!