Some Other Fun

When you work at a salon you get to do fun things with your hair for hte summer.  It's a purple-blue color down there on the ends.  She's super happy about it.

Grandma Susan got us an egg cooker.  Nicholas has discovered a love of hard boiled eggs.  I'd better up my egg buying by a dozen a trip now.

Playing with the portrait mode on my phone camera.

 

Summer Fun

We enjoyed the park that's close to the salon Julia cleans one day when we had to go pick her up.

We rode our bikes from the red barn to the library.   It's probably a 4 or 5 mile round trip.  The half hour stop at the air conditioned library is super helpful to making it the whole way without burning out.

Julia and I have walked around the lake a couple times now.  One day we found this little friend.

Philip and Nicholas made an indoor obstacle course.

One of Philip's friends came over for the afternoon after football camp.  They got out the tree climbers and put them on a mulberry tree for better access to the abundant crop of berries this year.

I was treated to a pedicure by Julia.

And we had our first fire of the summer.

 

Other Things Happen in December too

Building

Spider climbing

Snow moving

Even though the snow was deep, it's pretty!

Son bothering hugging

And my least favorite, unhooking the dryer vent in an attempt to see what's wrong.  

It was the heating element so the vent unhooking turned out to be unnecessary.  Boo.  Thankfully  Jeremy replaced it after we got the new part a couple days later.  We only had to take two loads over to Steve and Raleen's to dry.  (One was in the dryer when it broke and the other was already in the washer.)  Turns out that's four loads at their house but Julia got some good Grandma time.
 

Days Off Fun

Nicholas made a mega trailer and hauled things around the house.

We had an extra long weekend because we always get the holy day, Dec. 8th (Immaculate Conception) off but since it was a Tuesday and everyone is extra stressed because of Covid we got Monday off too.  I had to go to school to catch up on work on Monday so the kids watched Home Alone while I was gone.  Philip reenacted this scene for me later.

 

I Think We Might Have Smurfs

 

Snow Day!

So much more fun when you're a salary teacher than an hourly one!  And we knew a big storm was coming so I brought a bunch of work home and got close to caught up on a lot of school things while the kids played.  Then I joined in on the fun.

This and That

They had fun on the mattress before it went to the dump.

 Nicholas told me he wanted to put on his swim trunks and go play in the field after a big rain.  I thought he'd be right back after feeling the cold puddles.  He wasn't.  He had a grand time.

 Julia started mowing.

 The littles did some cooking.

June was busy.  July had a little bit more free time.

Seriously Winter

It's time to stop.  We've had one "snow" day a week since Christmas except one week, maybe two.  (Two of our days were for ice, one for extreme cold and one for real snow.)

But we've been keeping busy.

 Board games

 Klimba hadn't been played in a long time

Thomas went through the closet.  He found lots of interesting things and looked at a lot of old pictures.  Too bad he didn't clean as he went.

And lots more screen time than I care to admit.  In this case, wearing the hat from the magic set they dug up and played with.

And, on the day with actual snow, they got kicked out into the cold and sunshine.  Twenty minutes of mandatory fun turned into at least an hour.  See, Mom knows what she's doing when she mandates a set amount of time.  Believe me, after all the togetherness inside we all needed them to spend some quality time outdoors!

 

Out the Window

I asked them to take the watermelon rind out to the field.

They did.  With a spoon in tow to scrape out the leftover good stuff.

Everyday Fun

The bald eagle came to visit.

 There were robbers in the house!  EEK!

Philip and a pack of boys got tangled up at recess.  His nose got the worst of it.  And this is a week healed.

 The blocks we used when Philip did this bit the dust.  We subbed in Magformers and it's just as fun.

Must keep the tower safe from brothers.

 Vinegar and baking soda fun.

We've had a bunch of days off lately.  We used this one to build Lego battlebots and then battled.  Not surprisingly, mine lost.  Apparently I don't understand the rules.  Or they get made up as we go and never favor Mom.

Late morning breakfast on a day off!