School's Out for Summer

On the day before the last day of school (yesterday), I thought we should have a fun treat.

 Reagan was at Karlie's house, and she doesn't really like s'mores anyway.  Her treat was hanging out with her friend!

 I discovered that Kate doesn't like s'mores either.  She likes all of the pieces, just not combined and ooey gooey melty (CRAZY, right?!!).

I made cinnamon rolls for our last morning with Ellie.  I was so happy that Ellie likes cinnamon rolls!  I wanted something special to thank her for spending time with us before school each day, and she did indeed enjoy the special treat!

While they ate, they made tape/crayon creations.

OF COURSE, I had to take a few last day of school pictures.

 Of course Reagan had to be silly.

 Poor Ellie is trying to get Reagan to cooperate so that we can get the picture thing over with!!!

Finally, one normal picture.  As much as I like this picture, the silly pictures are the TRUE Reagan.

Reagan's class had a pirate party to celebrate the last day, and I jumped on board with the theme.

 While they enjoyed their last day of school, Kate and I got ready to greet them.

Happy Summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Around Here

 We went to Madison's sixth birthday party last Saturday, and all of the kids had a great time with these Belly Boppers.  

Of course, I couldn't help but think of the time Reagan and I had fun with Belly Boppers at Davis' Mega Maze.

Kate finger painted this week.  This is a HUGE deal because she has never wanted to get her fingers sticky or goopy or anything that goes along with finger painting.  She LOVED it!  As you can see, her messy fingers found her face.

 This silly faced girl insists on carrying a bag full of toys with her when we leave the house.  Sometimes (like when I'm rushing out the door, which sadly is more often than not), this can be difficult for me to deal with, but it's important to her and it is really harmless, so I am trying to let her be who she is and go along with the whole thing.

 We had a picnic outside after school earlier this week.

Collin and Reagan are learning how to play chess.

 Kate loves to hang out and play in boxes.  It's exciting to receive nice big boxes like this one.

 Reagan and Ellie have been playing Cake Wars and Cookie Wars with play dough before school each morning.  The top creation is by Reagan, and the bottom creation is by Ellie.  I have to be the judge, and it is not easy.

Ellie brought me this Edible Arrangement yesterday to say thank you for having her over before school every morning.  We all enjoyed it, and the fruit disappeared quickly.  I get teary eyed when I think about Ellie going off to middle school in the fall.  We are going to miss her tremendously; she is incredibly sweet and she has been a great part of our morning fun.

If you look closely, you may be able to see that Kate is wearing underwear!  Woo hoo!  She has not worn a diaper since Saturday; that's right NO DIAPERS, not even at night!!!!!!  She has been easy to train, and I am so proud of her!

I'll end this post with a video of Kate singing "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" from Frozen.

For those of you that read this via email, you have to go to the blog to see the video.  Go see it; she's so darn cute.

Around Here

June is always a crazy month, but we have so many fun things to do this month that who cares if it's crazy!  Here's a look at what we had going on recently:

Reagan and I recently read Charlotte's Web.  I have read it with all three of my big kids, and it never gets easier, always brings tears to my eyes.  Reagan and I went to see a stage production of Charlotte's Web at the Zeiterion.  The show was cute, but definitely a little too goofy and not heartwarming enough.  I assume they did that to ease the pain of Charlotte's death for this young audience.

After the show, we went to Not Your Average Joe's and Reagan ordered this gigantic pulled pork sandwich.

Reagan and Collin had field day last week.  The weather was beautiful for a day of outdoor fun.

 Play dough has been the before school activity for these four lately.

Who can resist these play dough treats?

I chaperoned Collin's field trip to the Whaling Museum.  Here he is standing in front of a sperm whale skeleton.  The trip was very educational.  I grew up in New Bedford and always had lessons about the whaling industry and whales, and yet I still learned a lot on this trip.  The thing that I don't remember ever learning before is that the whaling industry is the reason why there are so many Portuguese and Cape Verdean people in the area; often, Quaker men would quit when the ships arrived in the Azores or in Cape Verde, and the captains of the ships would hire young men (kids really) from the Azores or Cape Verde to replace the men that quit.  I'm actually a little embarrassed that I didn't know that; how could I have not learned that?

We went to Lou's 40th birthday party on Saturday.  Tom enjoyed being with a bunch of his college friends.  I enjoyed seeing everyone; they are really a great group of people.  Reagan and Collin had a great time with some of the kids their age, and they really enjoyed the pool and hot tub.  Kate liked the pool too.  The member of our family that had the most fun is definitely Boo.  There were three other dogs there and the yard was surrounded by woods.  Boo LOVED every minute.  He played hard, ate lots of dropped food and one stolen hot dog, and just had a blast.

On Sunday, Reagan competed in a gymnastics meet.  She recently moved up from Rookie to Bronze, and this was her first meet as a member of the Bronze team.

Today, Collin had a 4th grade strings field trip.  They went to two elementary schools to play for the students, and they also went to McDonald's for lunch.

So much more to do and enjoy this month!  Two more weeks of school, a few parties, Father's Day, another field trip, a gymnastics show, and I'm sure there is more!

N is for Nose

I could not resist some silly nose cups right in time for the letter N.

The cups are all named.  The one Kate chose with the nose ring is The Artist.  I hope this is as close as she ever gets to a nose ring.

 Reagan had The Starlet, and Ellie had The Yenta.

I could NOT convince Collin to try a cup.  He thinks they are gross and made it clear that he will not drink out of a cup with a nose on it!!!

Dad tried one though; he chose The Leading Man.

So funny!!!

 Kate and I read these nose themed books.  The Little Bunny book has scratch and sniff pages.  Kate enjoyed this, but she found most of the smells to be too strong; she did like the strawberry fragrance though.