Game central
“Throw some meat at me!” “Whoops, I threw my sword at you instead. Sorry!” Sigh, my boys are playing Minecraft together. I may never see either of them again. I’m having flashbacks to my college days and gamer boys.
“Oh no, my sword is broken. Now I’m punching a pig!”
Happy 4th of July… better late than never, right? Sometimes I wonder if it matters, but years later I know I’ll be happy to see the post. :)
We celebrated the 4th as we have the past few years, hanging out at home during the day then fireworks in town in the evening.
Eve, just hanging around. The branch fell a few minutes later, luckily when were feet were pointed down. I asked Alan to take the tree down. Sumac isn’t the strongest of tree!
The 4th was the day of the big wedding, so when I told the kids to pack for the fireworks Eve took the job seriously!
All packed up and ready to go.
Eve set up the wedding while Alan and Lex played frisbee. I took a few pictures then joined in the frisbee game! :)
The best part of the whole wedding was when Eve got all set up and then said, “Oh no!” As soon as she looked at me I had a vision of the two stuffed animals who were supposed to be getting married, laying on the dining room table. Oops! I suggested we have the wedding another day, but she said we’ll carry on without them and just skip to the cake part. :) She’s so go-with-the-flow!
Time for cake! Yum?
Look, Alan and I were there too. :)
A bit later we met up with some friends, and Mema and Grandpa Tom joined the group. We had a nice little fireworks party.
Two weeks into summer vacation and Eve was pretty happy to see a friend again. :)
Hard to believe that he is six months older than she is. :) It’s all about the genetics!
Lex likes to dance while eating ice cream. Real time calories.
Grandpa Tom tried Eve’s cake and even went back for a second bite! :)
Playing cards by the light of the glow sticks.
Two of the kids in our group were 5yrs old and witnessing their first fireworks. Their commentary was hilarious! I wish I could remember all of it, but here are a few lines: “It’s like popcorn! And bombs!” and “Mom, what happens if you eat them?” They would have been an excellent Kid Snippets soundtrack. :)
The obligatory fireworks pictures. The show this year was fantastic! It lasted a full hour and they even had enough for a spectacular finale! Totally awesome.
So that was the 4th of July. I’m just a week late with my postings, but I spent most of that week at a conference learning cool teacher stuff.
I’m at a conference this week which is conveniently located just down the street from an awesome ice cream place Alan and I used to go to back in the day. It was 90° today, so when I got done with my conference at 4pm I headed straight for the ice cream!
A “kiddie” size cone of chocolate peanut butter. Pure deliciousness!
I took a few pictures while I was there because I knew people would like to see them. The place has grown a bit from when we were last there and a ton since way back when I first started going there!
It has become quite the destination location with event tents, golf, batting games, mini-golf, bumper boats, a huge arcade, and more.
They still have the goats, chickens, and tractor. I really wanted to see a goat on the tractor, for old time’s sake, but it was hot and the goats were chillin’ in the shade instead.
This guy is new, and beautiful!
Despite the heat the place was relatively uncrowded. The lines were short and it wasn’t too overwhelming. Sometimes it is total chaos there! I got lucky today. :)
I thought this was in order too! :)
Miss Eve
I wanted to do a 4th of July mother/daughter mani/pedi, but this little girl decided she’d rather do some tree climbing/pruning and stuffy fort building. I guess I can’t argue with those priorities.
The sun just peeked out from behind the clouds! Hopefully it will clear up quickly so we can see some awesome fireworks tonight.
Happy Birthday America!
The funny kid quotes are fewer and farther between as the kids get older, but I still find myself writing them down sometimes. Here are a few I’ve collected over the past few months.
“Eve, I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re not only a great sister, you’re a great person to have around.” said Lex to Eve. 11/9/14
“I think I just invented a gravity controlled water bomb!” said Lex. 5/19/15
“At the moment I’m narrating a conversation in my head between Google map software and a Google satellite,” Lex told me at bedtime one night. 6/30/15
Me: “Eve, why are you holding the bowl in your arms?”
Eve: “I’m doing it the old fashioned way, like before they had counters.” – 7/3/15
I know it’s a good day when I can get this guy out working!
We spent the morning outside doing yard work. I heavily cleared the berry patch of all thing not growing berries, Eve cleaned up sticks and picked berries, and Lex swept the porch and ran the weed whacker. It was a productive morning!
Eve has been planning a wedding for two of her animals since they fell in love at Niagara Falls last weekend. Each day she has wanted to make a cake for the wedding, but we have been busy. Today was our first home day and so we baked a cake. She wrote up the recipe a few days ago and decided today, since it is almost July 4th, that the wedding will be tomorrow and the cake will be 4th of July themed.
Chocolate Crumb Cake recipe
Start by mixing the eggs and butter.
Me: “Why are you holding the bowl in your arms?” Eve: “I’m doing it the old fashioned way, like before they had counters.”
Hmm…. I think we need more liquids.
I asked Eve if she wanted suggestions, but she said no, she wanted to make her recipe as written. When it ended up too dry she started making modifications and asked me to document them as we went along.
The update recipe and a drawing of the cake.
We baked them for 20 minutes. They are dense and almost fudgy… in texture, certainly not in flavor!
When we flipped the first cake onto the plate it broke apart a bit, so we took the opportunity to sample it. I wish I had gotten a picture of Eve’s face! It was not the flavor she was going for! She decided the cake had too much cocoa powder and not enough sugar. I agreed!
To increase the sweetness we added some leftover Cool Whip between the layers and then, as originally planned, Eve spread the her black raspberry puree on top. She picked the black raspberries for the cake just this morning.
She added some leftover macerated strawberries, blue sparking sugar, and white sparkling sugar to up the festiveness and (hopefully) the flavor of the cake.
As the final touch, Eve added black raspberry “fireworks” to the top to make the cake perfect. Then she very carefully carried it to the fridge. :)
So now we have a lovely, and maybe yummy, chocolate crumb cake ready for tomorrow’s stuffed animal wedding. I’m not going to write up the whole recipe here because I would highly recommend you not make it. ;)
The kids have been so crabby with each other these past few weeks (months?). I find myself saying time and again, “remember that you love each other!” Lex will bug and poke and annoy and Eve will scream and shriek. He calls her weird and she screams that she hates him. She tells her friends that she has a super annoying brother and he “accidentally” bumps into her as he passes by. All normal sibling stuff, I think, but totally annoying to everyone! Alan and I do our best to ignore, until we can’t any more, then we yell. No fun for anyone.
Last week I ended up yelling and sending them to separate rooms. While they were there, now pissed at me instead of each other, I fumed in the other room, trying to figure out what to do. I consider going back to making them write lines, but I couldn’t decide what they should write. Then I came up with the idea of making them write apologies. I brought each of them a piece of paper and a pencil and told them they could come out after they wrote a sincere apology to the other one. Eve took to it easily and wrote Lex a very sweet note, complete with pictures. Lex, on the other hand, needed much more time. His first attempt was vague and mostly blamed her for the problem, so I made him try again. His second attempt was much better. Once they were both done I had them exchange, read each other’s notes, and then, if they accepted the apology, write “I accept your apology” on the other person’s paper. I loved watching them read the other person’s note. They both smiled a little. When Eve wrote her acceptance she spelled apology wrong and that made Lex smile sweetly even more. I think the idea totally worked!
A few days later they ended up in a brawl and I ended up screaming and sending them to their corners. When I walked into Lex’s room with a pencil and paper he said, “Oh, not this again!” But he did it much quicker and more easily the second time. Now, the challenge is for me to get to that point before I scream at them!
I appreciate...
Another idea I had was to hang up a central place to write appreciations. We say them each week at family meeting, but we have been missing meetings lately (busy summer, so far!) and getting a bit lax about the whole thing. I thought that having a place to write appreciations throughout the week, and see appreciations that others have written to you, would help the kids (all of us, really) remember how much we love each other and maybe be a little nicer to one another. I hung this paper up yesterday and wrote one appreciation. The idea seems to be catching on. :)
Here’s to a calmer, happier summer vacation going forward.
Strawberries from our local farm stand, biscuits from KAF, and Cool Whip from the grocery store. Pure summer yumminess!
This weekend we took an awesome trip to Niagara Falls! I have been planning it for awhile, and thinking about it for even longer! We got passports for everyone and the kids are now international travelers!
We left bright and early Friday morning, preparing for the long drive. The map said 7hr15m but it took us closer to nine hours! I lost track of how many times we stopped! But we made it, eventually. :)
A little rock throwing break. Things got a bit tense in the car so we took a break to walk around and get some space. The kids immediately found some rocks and a little pond and went to town! :)
Instead of getting three hotel rooms, I rented a sweet little house through HomeAway. My first time doing such a thing, but it went really well!
The adorable little house we rented. It was so much better than a hotel, especially when you’re traveling with seven people! Lex declared it an excellent place to play hide and seek. :)
Friday was nice and sunny, but the forecast was rain, rain, rain for the weekend, so we hurried down to the falls Friday night to get our first glimpse.
We made it to the falls!
This made the long drive worth it!
The Canadian Falls
Feel the power!
Saturday morning we woke to rain, as expected. We gathered up the umbrellas and went out anyway. The plan for the day was the Butterfly Conservatory and the Floral Showhouse, both indoors.
These two make my heart happy, even in the rain.
The Butterfly Conservatory was very cool, full of beautiful butterflies (of course) and plants. The kids each had cameras and took lots of pictures. It was a beautiful place to visit.
Eve, standing very still hoping a butterfly will land on her. :)
Lots of bright colors to attract the butterflies.
Eve is big into selfies these days. She wanted to take pictures with everyone so she could make herself an album. :)
This little guy hitched a ride on Mema’s shoulder as she wandered around.
Alan made a new friend at the Butterfly Conservatory. It stayed on his ear for a really long time and had to be physically encouraged to fly away before we left the area.
After we left the Butterfly Conservatory we took advantage of our bus passes and took the WeGo bus to the Floral Showhouse. Lex was excited to ride the bus. Despite the downpour, we huddled under our umbrellas and waited for the bus. It was fun for awhile. :)
Although the Floral Showhouse was technically indoors, it was still quite rainy in there. I’m not sure if parts of the roof were just screens, or if it was just super damp for the plants or what.
Rocking out at the Floral Showhouse. It wasn’t a terribly exciting place so the kids made their own fun.
There was a whole mini-village outside the Floral Showhouse. It would have been cool to explore, on a less rainy day.
Waiting for the bus, in the rain.
Saturday was actually Mom’s birthday and we talked about going out to a fancy restaurant for dinner, but by the time we got home we were all wet and cold so instead of going back out to a fancy dinner we instead bundled in warm clothes and ate enchiladas at home.
The original plan was to do the Journey Behind the Falls adventure and the Hornblower Cruise on Sunday, but since the weather as so awful we decided to reschedule those for Monday and just kick back and relax on Sunday. It took a little running around (for me and Rose) to get it all set, but it was totally worth it!
That day Rosy and I decided to buy matching “on sale” fleecies and go hang at the falls in the rain. Good times.
Sunday afternoon cleared up a bit (well, the rain stopped anyway), so we went for the Aero Car trip across the whirlpools.
You cross the US/Canada border four times on this trip in the Aero Car.
Mema and Grandpa Tom, enjoying the view! Not too scary.
Dad wanted to go on the white white jet boat seen here. We stuck to the arial view from the Aero Car instead. :)
Then we went up to the Skylon Tower! I originally thought it would be fun to have dinner up there, but the prices were higher than the tower so I reconsidered that idea! Instead we just went up to the viewing deck and hung out. Great views of the whole Niagara area. I imagine the views would be even better if it weren’t so overcast!
Up in the Skylon Tower.
The Horseshoe Falls as seen from the Skylon Tower.
Monday we woke to blue skies and sunshine. Excellent! We packed up and “checked out” of our house and headed for the Journey Behind the Falls.
Can you see where the mist from the falls mixes with the clouds in the sky? So cool.
This place is so awesome.
Lex at the falls.
International travelers!
The Horseshoe falls, crashing down.
Journey Behind the Falls. Up close and personal with the Horseshoe Falls.
Then we grabbed some ice cream and headed over to the Hornblower Cruise. I’m so glad we got at least one day of sunshine. It was beautiful.
Foggy family. My camera was misty from the Journey Behind the Falls.
The American Falls
I purchased Adventure Passes online before our trip so we were able to skip the ticket lines and head straight to the boat!
Waiting to board the Hornblower Cruise under the falls.
The Canadian Falls, from the Hornblower Cruise.
The American Falls, from the Hornblower Cruise.
After our cruise we parted ways with the rest of the family. They headed home and we headed to Coco’s for lunch! Then we crossed back into the USA and drove an hour and a half to visit Jim and Julie! The kids are all so big now, but they still hit it off like old friends. :)
I ask the girls if I can take a picture and this is what they give me. Pure silliness.
We took a drive over to Jim’s brother’s farm to visit the baby animals, then stopped at Wegmans for dinner (love that store!), then headed home for games and silliness.
Lots of baby piggies.
Playing with the chickens. Lex decided they feel soft, but weird.
Games with the Kirkwoods are always the best.
Sweet girls cuddling before bedtime.
Silly goodbyes. I’m so glad that they still like each other and get along after so much time. I wish we were all a little closer!
Tuesday morning, bright and early, we headed home. The return trip was a little bit faster thanks to an excellent audio book and a huge rain cloud that accompanied us most of the way.
The kids are already asking when we can go back. :)
If you care to see all of the 500+ pictures I took, feel free to check out the Google album. I can’t figure out how to add captions. I swear Google makes this photo thing harder and harder every time I try to use it. If you’re not sharing with the world on Google+ they don’t want anything to do with you. Sigh.