Golden raspberry fingers…

He was so excited!

Eve was a little more hesitant.

All gone! (except the rest on the plate!)

… and black raspberries!

Not quite ripe yet, but so promising. The kids actually eat them as they ripen, so there will never be a photo of them all ripe :)

They make me smile.

We have been busy(ish) these past few days.  Busy at home anyway.  I’m organizing a yard sale next month (breaking out of my comfort zone here, more on that later… maybe) and yesterday the kids and I went door to door up our street and the next distributing flyers asking if anyone else wants to take advantage of the advertising and signage we’ll be doing anyway.  There will be three (maybe four) families at my house and then another family around the corner, so it would be cool to get one or two other houses and we could call it a neighborhood yard sale :)

After a rainy morning the kids were thrilled to get their bikes and hit the road.  Lex, my silly son, who is too shy (or just weird) to knock on Parrish’s door, ran up to every house on the street and ran the door bells.  I had trouble keeping them together though.  Lex wanted to ride ahead and ring the bells, and Eve wanted to stop and smell everyone’s flowers, and touch all the garden gnomes and fake garden frogs.  After making it up and down both streets the kids were hot and tired and ready to go in for dinner.  It was great!

When we got home Lex decided to draw a picture of himself riding his bike while he waited for dinner. I LOVE it!!

Today was an odd day. The skies were dark and gloomy and the kids decided we needed to go outside at 7:30am. Hmm… ok. So we went out, got soaking wet feet, did some tree climbing and weeding, and came in for snack two hours later. From there the kids decided to go their own ways. Lex sat at the table and did workbooks and Eve ended up in her room playing with her dollhouse. I kept asking if they wanted me to play or be involved and they did not… so I cleaned. Dusted, swept and even mopped!! Crazy, I know. I was leary of how naps and afternoon would go, but Eve fell asleep (easily!) and Lex took a great quiet time. This afternoon we made a giant train track all through the living room, played for awhile, then went to the produce market. On the way we noticed a new grocery store open, so we stopped there as well. Fun, right?! :) While we were in the store the weather changed from bright and sunny to torrential downpour. And I mean torrential!! We got soaked getting back to the car… then two minutes later it was over :) At home we went for a rainbow walk with the umbrellas. A great time to bring the camera!

We found the rainbow pretty quickly :)

I wish you could see the rainbow better in this picture.

I love them!

We broke out the hose today, finally, to water the veggies, flowers, and kids. Of course a wet time was had by all.

Like our new trellis for the peas? I hope they climb tall.

Eve followed Lex around trying to put her head into the water.

Eve filled her "little tin pail" from the hose and then followed Lex around watering the same things he did. They were so cute, and helpful!

Watering the trees? Or just fun with the hose!

Eve tried a fresh radish at the neighbor's house. She licked it for awhile, then finally took a bite and declared it "yucky."

Lex looked at the schedule this morning and said, “Oh, it’s 9:30, we should be doing arts and crafts. I think we should paint!” So paint we did. :) He made a nice painting of a house and a kid and a tree and slide, while she made a nice painting of a mud puddle! They both had a blast.

I was looking at the schedule when I hung it up and felt a little bad that it was so “reader” oriented. I used to have a daily schedule on the wall that involved many pages with pictures of clocks and food and playgrounds. Remember that? I can’t find a post on the blog to link to, but it doesn’t matter. I think that kind of thing helped Lex with his reading and now I feel bad that Eve isn’t getting the same thing. Sigh. This schedule was driven more by my needs for a set exercise and cleaning time though. Maybe I’ll make a version for her as well. Hmmm….

After a lovely morning outside digging in the dirt, swinging, building a trellis for the peas, hanging laundry, weeding the blackberry patch (which is hard work!) and just generally enjoying the sunshine we had nice naps and quiet time then packed up and headed to the Balloon Festival. We have been now three (maybe four) years in a row and only once have we seen the balloons launch. Today was hot and sunny, with a nice gentle breeze. Apparently not good launching weather :/ We stayed for several hours. The kids played, we had dinner (if you can call it that!) and ice cream, and more playing. The balloons were supposed to launch at 6pm, but by 6:30 when they hadn’t even started setting up we decided it was time to go. Overall a nice day. We’ll try again next year to see the launch.

Eve climbing in the Kid Zone. The kids begged us to pay $5 each to play in this Kid Zone. Lex was super excited about this thing. We waited in line and finally when it was our turn he decided it was too overwhelming for him. Eve loved it and Lex opted for the free playground instead.

More climbing!

Our only balloon exposure was when we paid $1 per person to go inside a half inflated balloon. The kids loved it, once we got past the loud fan that almost kept Lex out.

This picture cracks me up.

Tomorrow Alan and I are running our first road race. Four miles! Wish me luck! :) We decided to get a babysitter for the kids so at least it won’t be four miles with a double jogger!

I wrote up a very nice summer schedule this morning. Basically just what we do every day anyway, but I want to fit in daily cleaning (these days I’m lucky to manage weekly cleaning!) and I thought it would be helpful to me and the kids to see it all in writing. Fancy, huh?

Guess what we did just after hanging up this fancy new schedule? Got dressed and headed to the playground, Home Depot, ice cream for lunch, swimming at the hotel, no naps, to heck with quiet time… basically we completely ignored the fancy new schedule. Sigh. Today was our last day with Michelle and her family, so tomorrow will be a fine day to look at the schedule. Seriously though, we had a great day. We met new friends at the playground (a woman from the Good Beginnings Board and her two daughters, almost 3yr and just 1yr). The kids immediately took to each other, walking around holding hands. It was sweet. After she left we went to HD and then I was hungry and the ice cream stand looked good… sooo….

Then we got lunch at Panera and brought it to the hotel. I was the only one who ate. The kids did this for awhile… (that’s a girl from Dylan’s class)

then we went swimming. We drug ourselves away around 3pm so Michelle could get ready for a fancy farewell dinner the hospital is holding for Carl. I didn’t have my camera handy, but the kids all gave each other such adorable hugs (Dylan even picked Eve up and swung her around) and they made plans to get together again next summer. So sweet. We are going to miss them very, very much. Someday I hope we can make our way down south to visit so many of our friends and family.

We had an interesting day today. Michelle was going to bring her kids over here for the morning while she supervised the movers and did some cleaning, but you know what they say about the best laid plans… or something like that :) Anyway, nothing went as planned. We ended up hanging out at her hotel all day, swimming in the pool, “dining” (tex-mex in take out containers) in front of the TV, making forts and playing monsters. Everyone had a blast! One of the reasons we went there is because Dylan was having so much fun he didn’t want to leave the hotel, and by the end of the afternoon my kids didn’t want to either! The last thing Lex said to me tonight is that he can’t wait to go back to the hotel tomorrow :) Michelle is closing on her house tomorrow and driving away first thing Saturday morning. We’ll go have lunch and play some more tomorrow (naps be damned when friends are moving away!) and then say our good-byes. Sob.

Fun in the pool

Fun in the fort