Goodbye Summer!

Our summer is quickly dwindling down.
We have two days left.
The boys start school on Wednesday.
I have mixed emotions about school starting.
Riley will be starting Kindergarten and will be gone all day long... =(
But then I think:
The boys will be gone all day long!! =)
Next week Lily will go to preschool two mornings a week.
How can she be so old???? =(
But then I think:
I have two whole mornings to myself!!!! =)
I am sure Wednesday morning will be a little tough.
Sending Riley (my baby boy) off to Kindergarten.
And it will be sad watching Zach act all old,
like he does not need mom to walk him to his class.....
big Second grader that he is.....
Second grade??? When did that happen??
And I KNOW sending Lily to preschool will be hard...for me that is.
She's so excited she can hardly stand it!
But for now.....as I listen to the fighting, and the screaming, and the, "Mom, there is nothing to do!" I know I will somehow manage to make it through the first few weeks a school. ;-)

Here is an overview of some of the fun things we did over the summer.
I honestly do not know what else we could have squeezed in.
Hope you all had a great summer too!

Good Daddy

Every good daddy lets their little girl do this to them:

and also let's his wife take pictures of him and put them on her blog. =)

Lily thinks it is super fun to "do Daddy's hair".

She also likes to put lip gloss on him.

And for some reason cover his head with her blankets and put a shark on top of his head......

I don't think I will be visiting her salon anytime soon. =)

She did this to him last week.

The other night I saw her come down the stairs with all of her hair things

and I thought she was going to ask him to let her do it again.

Instead, she asked him to do her hair.

Aww!

That didn't last too long though, she quickly wanted to do his again.....

so much more fun to do Daddy's hair!

On another note......

Lily is VERY fond of her purple lip gloss.

We see her like this a lot lately:

Sometimes with it more on her cheeks than on her actual lips,

but she thinks she looks beautiful, and that's all that matters. ;-)

Ice Cream Sandwiches and a Sleepover

On Monday night we checked off number 14 on our summer list:

Have A Sleepover

It also happens to be the last thing we needed to check off of our list!!

The boys wanted to invite their cousins Tabitha & Alyssa over.

To make the sleepover extra fun, we decided to make ice cream sandwiches.

First we needed cookies.

We had chocolate, chocolate chip, and peanut butter.

The next thing we needed was ice cream!

Then we needed stuff to roll our ice cream cookies in:

They spread ice cream on a cookie, smooshed another cookie down on top, then rolled it in their choice of candy.

This was really messy, but a lot of fun!!

And really yummy!

Here are a few that the kids made:

After they ran around, running off some of that sugar,

We settled down for a movie.

They did stay up pretty late, but they didn't get up until 8:15.

That was just fine with me! ;-)

Thanks Taby & Alyssa for coming over to have a sleepover!

Now all of the things the kids wanted to do are crossed off of our list!

The boys start school next Wednesday and Lily starts on the 24th.

Everyone is super excited!!!

Geocaching

On Saturday, Jeff took the kids and I Geocaching.
What's geocaching??
Well, first you need this:

a GPS.

You also need these:

small "treasures".

I need one of these:

but you can't have him....he's mine. =)

You also need these:

Some excited kids who want to look for treasure.

Geocaching is where people have hidden "treasures" in various places.
You have to find it using coordinates that they give you.
You put those coordinates in a GPS.
We happened to have one of these treasure sites right in the park by our house!
The hunt we went on consisted of three sites that had to be found.
The last site contains a "treasure" that you can take,
but you have to leave a treasure of your own in it's place for the next person to find.
The kids had graciously given up a car, ring, and bear to leave.
We had the coordinates to find the first site.
Lily found the first container!

This is what was inside:

It told us the coordinates for the next site.

We put them in the GPS and were off to find the next clue.

Riley found this one.

Jeff had to lift him up into the tree to get it!!

This container held the last coordinates.

These would lead us to the "treasure"!!

We found where the "treasure" was supposed to be........

but someone had taken it! =(
They hadn't even left the box that the "treasure" was supposed to be in.

The kids had a great attitude though.

They wanted to leave their treasure behind anyway so the next person would have something to find, even though they didn't find anything.

We asked if they had fun anyway.

Their answer was, YES!!

And just to keep it real for all of you.........


this was Lily's face after she had a major meltdown during the hunt.

Yeah for 3 year olds.........

=)


If you would like to go on your own geocahing hunt, you can find the website here .

Two more down...One more to go

We checked off number 19 on our list of summer things; going to the zoo
We went with my mom.
The kids were excited that Grammy was going with us!

In the Chimpanzee house, we got to see a baby!

So cute!

The kids were not as interested in him as my mom & I were though.

They preferred the coin thing where it makes your coins swirl around and around......

They also really liked the misters!

They were soaking wet after this one. =)
The kids had fun, but hopefully the next time we go to the zoo it will be a little bit cooler.

Jeff and the kids checked off number 7 last weekend.

Sleeping in a tent!

Jeff set the tent up on the deck this year.

Even Lily slept in it.

ALL night too!

Mommy still did not sleep in the tent.

Even though I was asked to LOTS of times.....
I am sure someday I will want (be forced) to sleep in a tent with them.

But for now, I am perfectly OK with sleeping in my nice, comfy bed in my nice, air conditioned, bug-free house. ;-)

So now we only have one more thing to check off of our list and we are doing that this week!!

We have all of the boys' school supplies and uniforms, and Lily picked out a new backpack.

Just a few more care-free weeks left.

On a funny note, we took an impromptu trip to Oklahoma this past week for a day and a half.

Jeff had to go out to one of the crews for his work and we decided to tag along with him.

We made the decision on the spur of the moment and I had 15 minutes to pack.

When we only had about a half an hour until we reached our destination I discovered I am NOT a good spontaneous packer.

I NEED lists!!

As we were nearing our hotel, I remembered that I did not pack my deodorant, toothbrush, shampoo, conditioner, or hairspray!!!

I don't know why I forgot those essential things!

So next time we decide to just up and leave with Jeff, I will have to take a little bit more time to think about what I am packing. =0

Picking Peaches

Number 13 on our summer list was picking fresh fruit.
While we could have counted picking the watermelon from our own garden,
we decided to go to a peach orchard and pick peaches.
We went to Sergeant's Berry Farm in Haysville.
The kids' favorite part (I think) was getting to eat the first peach they picked.

We tried to help them pick ripe ones, but Lily liked to just pull them off of the tree.

It was really hot the day we went.

But then the sky started to turn gray......
That was OK, it was starting to cool off.

Then it started sprinkling.

That was OK too.

It was actually refreshing.

Then it started POURING!!!

That was not so much fun.

Luckily there were some workers in the same part of the orchard we were in, so they helped us pick ripe peaches quickly so we had some to take home.

Then we rode back to the barn.......

soaking wet!

Poor Lily was so cold.

We were going to pick blackberries too, but we did not get to do that.

We did get plenty of peaches though!

One whole box full.

We made peach crisp out of some of them.

Mmmmmm!

The kids were eating them like crazy!!

I had bought some fruit fresh so I could freeze some,

but I wasn't sure I was going to have any left to freeze!

They ate them for breakfast and with lunch, and in between.

I am glad that they like peaches so much.

I was able to freeze some, so now we have a yummy cold treat for these very hot days!

Next time we will have to get more!