Gotta get down on Friday

We went to Imagination station at the library today. Our library offers so much to do all summer! We are taking advantage!

It was a total "use up all the leftover art stuff we have!" kinda day. Addie was in heaven!

They each made about 10 dream catchers. Then they wore them on their wrists like bracelets. #summerfun

Delaney happily hummed as she colored. We come from a long line of happy hummers. (:

The Aina's met us there and we all got our reading prizes (chicfila next week!) and some new books to read. 

After the library we headed to the wooden park for a quick lunch and playtime. 

Then we rushed home to take Chris to Myers. He met with Dave (eagle stuff) and I got to visit with Shelly and hold sweet loralei. (:

More running Chris around (Myers, Myers, McCombs, tripps, McCombs) and some fun visiting for me. 

Lex went with her friends up to dc. Apparently the zoo, sans babies is palpable. Tonight she worked at salsas. She's a busy working woman. (:

Calvert cliffs eagle project

Our boy is on his way to Eagle! We are so close! And so ready! We've spent several of the last few Saturdays (among other days) out at Calvert cliffs state park. It's a very cool place. (:

The first Saturday I took Chris and Asa, and then tony and Robbie met us out there. I took the opportunity to run one of the trails while we there and it was awesome!

I loooove new sights during a run. I get so bored in our neighborhood. 

While I ran, the boys built a shelter and poured the concrete to protect the "cookie."

At the end of the beach trail. 

Some people look really pretty and healthy when they exercise. I am not one of those people. 

On to Christians project. (:  a 100+ year old tree fell and he is building a display with a "cookie" cut from the tree. He had to completely sand, cut, and take the bark off, put a band around and varnish it, then they took it to brother Krugman, who carved the numbers into the rings to show how old it is. 

Just sanding and taking the bark off took many, many hours. 

He's worked really hard on this. A lot of people have. We are so proud of him!

It's in need of a few more coats of varnish and then tomorrow Chris and Matt will head out to hopefully finish this guy off!

Today we've been running around getting signatures and filling out paperwork. We aren't doing the 18-year-old eagle rush, we are doing the seabase eagle rush. But soon we'll have ourselves an Eagle!

addie's party

addie's party was a hot mess.

i really like the every other year party idea, but i seem to be a little bit of a sucka. frankie really wanted a birthday party. she had at least 5 birthday party themes picked before we'd even talked about it. and i do love to celebrate, so we had a party. so of course addie wanted a party too. i tried to dissuade her. i tried to talk her into a simple movie with friends, but no dice. she wanted a repeat of her fun bouncey house party from last year.

our may and june were cray-cray and i really wanted to do her party before we went to the dr. so we set it for the first day of summer break from school. as soon as i sent out the evite, i thought, 'hmmm, maybe i should check the weather.' and sure enough, rain and thunderstorms were predicted for every day the week of the party. and it did rain every day. by thursday the bouncey house guy emailed me that the ground was too wet, so that even if it didn't rain on friday, (which it was supposed to) the ground was too saturated to safely set up a bouncey house. indoor party planning for me!

i googled indoor party games and addie and i came up with musical chairs, bingo, and addie's choice - bobbing for apples. we were also going to have the kids make their own pizza, plus free playtime in the basement, so i figured we'd be good.

the day of her party was a work day for matt, which i didn't think would be a huge deal because it was supposed to be an outside party. we worked and worked and worked, as we do before parties. and we still weren't prepared! thankfully we have awesome friends that step up and help out! it was craziness!

musical shapes (who has 20 kiddie chairs?) in the basement was fun. i had gotten ring pops for prizes, but then right before the game started i realized that the kids would be getting prizes for getting out of the game, and then they would probably get out of the game on purpose, which just doesn't work. so then i rescinded my promise of prizes until right before they went home. oopsie. :)

we went around the circle doing different activities - walking, running, crawling, walking backwards, jumping, etc.

the biggest problem of the party were the dumb pizzas. because i was so busy, i didn't read the directions for the pizza dough. because if i had read the directions, i would have prebaked them all and had them ready. alas, i was busy cutting weird shaped individual pizza's (remember my motto lately - #goodenough) and baking them for the first half hour of the party. not good. again, thankfully the friends stepped in and helped. christian also helped in his very teenagerish way.

bobbing for apples was fun. most of the kids had never done it. addie had read about it in our trick or treat, marley book, so she was thrilled. it wasn't easy for the 5-6 year old crowd, but they quickly discovered that it's not too bad if you bite the stem, so that's what they all did.

silly birthday girl. :)

every kid that wanted a turn to bob, got a turn to bob. even cute abby with no front teeth got to bob with her hands. :) miss frankie took one look and decided bobbing for apples was not for her.

cupcake time! i love kid faces when they are the center of attention and when they feel special.

present time!

her friends are so thoughtful! i am always impressed when people give such special gifts.

she got all of her favorites - princesses, books, lego's, and tons and tons of art stuff.

girlfriend has been in heaven!

 

the pizzas turned out ok in the end. it was just craziness getting them all in and out of the oven, figuring out whose was whose, etc. craziness.

all worth it in the end. addie loved her second special day. she had a fabulous time with her fabulous friends. and hopefully they had a fun time too. :)

in other party news, i have been trying to let go a little bit, so i let addie and frankie decorate the front banisters. they did a good job, right?

 

another party done! and now i'm birthday free until january. it's nice having the last family birthday of the year. :)

misc.

total randomness:

our graduate! stolen from instagram. or twitter. or fb. who has time to keep up with the specifics.

i had the girls ballet pictures done and they came out really sweetly. loooove this one! i have yet to order because i liked so many.

preciousness!

alexis went to ohio with meghan, lisa, and emily for a few days. she really wanted to go to ocean city for senior week. i really didn't want her to. we worked on talking her out of it for a long time. every adult that loves her worked on her. i dreaded senior week. in the end, she surprised me by deciding on her own not to go. words can't express how proud i am of that decision. proud, relieved, thrilled, you name it. this mama was happy. so, ohio for a week? absolutely! they got their hair did while they were there. lexi's a blond!

laney ate a chocolate pop tart for breakfast one morning on the go, and when i looked back at her, her teeth were chocolate covered. it was awesomeness! i was driving, so i couldn't quite get my camera out in time, but i did get some cute ones.

i am batty in love with this daddy look-a-like!

1:00 church. every week. i still love it, even with crabby baby.

see? 

in love!

ps - that's yogurt all over her mouth. we only eat poptarts for breakfast 50% of the time. ;)

hair cut for the boy. and a shave with a straight razor. i should have cropped this, but whateva. it's how i roll. #goodenough

there. 

a lil' bit of randomness from me telephono.

one tiny day at a time

and no, i do not feel the need to post every picture i take. believe it or not, these are the ones that made the cut. i have a terrible memory, but if i have a picture, i can be back in that moment. i remember details and that is important to me.

#ilovepictures

Today

Addie has caught the reading bug! We have worked with her on reading all year. She's not behind, but she's definitely not blazing trails. I really wanted to work with her this summer and send her to first grade a full blown reader. But she hasn't been into it. Until last night! She just decided she wanted to go for it and has been a reading machine! I hope it lasts!

We headed to the pool at 12. We planned to go at 11, but, you know. Sarah came over and we packed up our 6 little sunscreened girlies, picked up 2 more friends on the way, and hit the pool. Chris and Adeline cuddled before we headed up. 

Multitasking boy! PS3 and baby time!

Laura brought mags and alora to swim, and then she ran some errands, so for a few hours Sarah and I had 10 girls to watch. We counted heads every few minutes. Everyone was having so much fun that we ended up staying till 4. That's 4 hours at the pool. Everyone was pooped, which for a mama is pretty sweet!

We went to McCombs for Hawaiin Haystacks for dinner and ice cream pie for dessert. It was nice because lex and Chris came along, which doesn't happen a lot anymore. 

Tonight Chris, Matt, and David headed to krugmans to work on the log for Christians eagle project. Fingers and toes crossed that he's able to finish on Saturday!!!  

Lexi and Taylor stayed at mc's to watch a movie when I brought girls home to bed. In spite of being exhausted, bedtime was tearful and drama filled. Hopefully they sleep in tomorrow!

Another summer day in the books!

DR trip - installment #1

we had such a crazy few weeks leading up to our vacay that it was so nice to finally be on our way!!! we parked our car at a hotel near the airport and we were off!

it was a 4 hour non-stop flight down to punta cana. i was up till the wee hours of the morning doing laundry and packing, and then up in the wee hours of the morning to make it to the airport in time for our international flight, so i slept almost the whole flight. no snack, no drink, just sleep. 

it.was.glorious.

also, we love the uso. we got to bwi plenty early, so we went and hung out at the uso and had breakfast. fabulousness!

everything in punta cana is open air, including the airport.

we tried to bargain for a cab, but no dice. it was $30, and not a penny less. we finally made it to the melia caribe tropical and it was so cute! we stayed in an exclusive portion of the resort called the level (adults only, yo!), so we had to wait around for a special golf cart to take us for our special check in.

enjoying some fresh lemonade. as we were checking in at the level, jackie found us. 

hooray!

our room was so nice!

fresh flowers, robes, slippers, fully stocked refrigerator and snack bar, all inclusive!

after a few minutes in our room, autumn dropped off a cute little gift bag with fun things to make our stay more enjoyable. including some poo-pourri, for, you know.

after several hours of being in punta cana, we finally were able to hit the beach. we were so ready!!! the sand was actually pink with bits of coral, it was just beautiful.

i didn't take a lot of pictures on my phone. i took some on my phone, some on our small camera, and some on our nice camera. and then j&p and a&d took some on their cameras. so this is the first installment with my phone and what dave has posted to fb.

one day we had a couples morning, where we slept in as long as we wanted and ordered room service. i have never ordered room service before, so it was wonderful.

so luxurious!

the resort was beautiful. it felt like disneyland, so well maintained. seriously, they left no stone unturned, it was all so beautiful. and the people there! they all seemed so happy! they were so polite and helpful. they just seemed really happy.

we hung out at the beach every day. it was so fun!

some well deserved rest time. i looooved having all day, every day to spend with my husband. it was so nice to reconnect. we really started to like each other again. ;)

one of the seating areas around one of the pools.

dinner. 

every day after beaching it up all day, we'd go back to our rooms, shower, and get all dolled up for dinner.

the pool outside the quatro, the four exclusive restaurants for guests at the level.

the view of the same pool from the inside. the quatro was all open air too, and by the end of the week it was pretty stuffy and warm up in thar'.

i just tried to soak up every minute. matt and i, and autumn and i, went on a few runs, and i just loved every minute. seriously beautiful.

da' boys!

d&a

m&m

j&p

on tuesdays and thursdays some of the local merchants come and set up at their wares at the resort. we headed up to check them out before dinner on thursday night.

this was after a day of snorkeling, speedboating, and snuba, and half of us weren't feeling too hot. thankfully food makes everything better. :)

ahhhhh!

 i wasn't too sure about a trip to the dominican republic at first. it seemed like kind of an odd choice, what with all the other caribbean destinations we could have picked. but it was a really awesome trip. highly recommend!