Wednesday Art

Had "art class" today in the garage. We were painting, and it's always easier clean up if you do it outside :-)    It was a very cloudy, rainy and windy day, so our papers kept flying all over and H&G eventually decided "gym class" outside in the rain would be much more fun.  They were soaked from head to toe, but giggling and laughing the whole time, so no harm done.  Below are some pictures before gym class started:

Backgammon

no way a little power outage is going to stop a backgammon tourney between Mike and Abby, oh no....he brings out the head gear flashlight thingys :-)

Bit of Catch Up

Father's Day was great.  The kids gave Mike sports flags for the house....the neighbors are going to love us :-)  We now have all the Chicago teams covered, in addition to our Iowa Hawkeye flag.  There should be a flag flying on any given day now.   They also made him Carmel Banana Nut muffins, which were very good, if not a bit sticky due to the amount of carmel they insisted on using!

Today Abby hosted her very first book club for the neighborhood girls.  Only three other girls were able to make it, but that was probably a good thing. They actually read the book and did talk about it with a little help from me facilitating the conversation.  After the book discussion, they moved onto a few games of HulaBaLou and Flapadoddle.  They all want to continue, so they've already picked the next book.

Lastly, our neighbors gave us their old Barbie Jeep for H&G.  Griff couldn't be more thrilled with it. Yes, it's pink, but we all know he doesn't have any problem riding around on pink bikes....nor does he mind the pink Jeep!

Loves His Daddy

Griff couldn't love Mike any more than he does.....he follows him everywhere, wants to do whatever he is doing, and very much wants to please him.  Today he is following Mike as he mows....just wants to be with his Dad :-)

this one is my favorite - love how he's looking up at Mike

Water Fun, Strawberry Pickin' and Skinned Knees at the Park

Bullet point list of our last two days:

Yesterday
*  fun with the pool, home depot bucket and hose. i'm not sure i want to see our water bill for this month.

Today
*  strawberry picking.  i think the novelty has worn out, they were much more excited about it last year. abby hung in there and helped pick, but H&G gave up after about 10 minutes and then proceeded to whine for the next 1/2 hour.  i wasn't finished picking, but i couldn't take much more of the noise noise noise (nor could our unfortunate picking neighbors, i'm sure), so we packed up and left.  couldn't get a picture of them to save my life. this is as good as it was going to get.

* park after strawberry picking. griff fell within 10 seconds of getting there and it was downhill from there. we hung in for about a 1/2 hour, but griff was not having much fun. we packed up and headed home for a hotdog picnic in the backyard....and finally griff forgot about his knees.

Hannah's Room

Hannah has kind of gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to her bedroom. It is by the far the smallest, and her closet is just awful (in other words, unbelievably small).  I had had enough of the thousands of books scattered all over her floor and clothes thrown all over her closet floor because there was no room to hang anything. So.....enter Mike and his tools :-)

I gave him a picture of some wall bookcases and asked him if he could build them for less than $20.....he came through, and well under budget at $9.00 (love the scrap wood pile at Home Depot).  After a bit of paint, he put them up and I couldn't love them more. Hannah likes them, too.

He also installed additional hanging racks in her closet, and took off her closet door. Completely opened it up and almost doubled the space in there. I didn't like having just an open closet, so I reused a piece of wood I had, painted it, and hung some girly fabric from it....Tada and Hannah loves her princess closet.

and the "extra" chandy from our basement project....found a great home in Hannah's bedroom :-)

Ice Cream with Miss Rogers

Abby and her first grade teacher Miss Rogers spent the afternoon together yesterday, having ice cream and a trolly ride around one of the area lakes.  We won it for Abby at her school action.  Abby was THRILLED to spend the afternoon with Miss Rogers. She loves her and is having a hard time not seeing her every day, so this was very exciting for her.  

We are off to swim lessons this morning and then the library. Tomorrow is strawberry picking....will be sure to post pictures!

It's Been a Wet June

I think we are on day 3,476 of rain.....seriously, I'm not sure it can be any more wet here.  We are hoping the sun will come out tomorrow and we will get out of this funk.  We couldn't take it any more today, so even though it was raining, and at times thundering, we were out.  Abby's friend and next door neighbor had apparently had enough too, as she was out in it with us!  We had all the necessities out with us: the infamous orange Home Depot bucket, squirt guns, bikes and bubbles :-)

they were roofing the new house next door (in the rain) and paper and crap kept blowing into our yard. Hannah picked this up and gave me a look like, what the heck?

what happens if i throw my sandles in the bucket....

squirt gun tag

um, my squirt gun is a bit wonky :-)