Those who have passed their swim tests can play at the floating dock. The boys were kind enough to show off with cannon balls for my picture.
Lake time.
Lazy summer morning.
Wade and Kaitlyn finally finished the lemonade stand! Isn’t it amazing? We leave for vacation tomorrow so she is only selling to family tonight.
Wade roped Alex into helping with the yard work. I told Alex how nice he was to help. His response was, “Wait! I didn’t have to help?”
Teague used some of his Amazon money to buy the next two books in one of his favorite series. (He has read them multiple, multiple times before when he checks them out from the library.)
Kaitlyn was so excited to empty out the furniture in her LOL dollhouse and replace it with my old dollhouse furniture she found in the barn.
Ben had been begging for Wade to build him a “construction worker vehicle” with a front-back-scoop-dump-truck. Today Wade finally finished building and painting it (the paint job was all Ben’s idea).
My kids could spend hours playing with the leaf blower. Last night, Ben figured out that Pepper’s ball is the perfect size for some additional fun. Pepper was a little confused why her ball was not being thrown for her.
The video cracked the kids up and after we were back inside they wanted to watch it over and over.
Evening shenanigans.
Zoo day!
In an effort to get out and do some new activities – we decided to visit the zoo! There are two zoos very close by. I had been to one, but not the other. It seemed like a great day to visit a new one. Alex opted to stay home, but the other kids were game. We tried to rustle up some friends to join us – but I only planned this about 30 minutes before we walked out the door so no luck. I think Kaitlyn’s only disappointment was the snakes – we found one in the reptile house. She had been hoping for an entire building full. Otherwise we walked and explored and fed deer and goats. We ran into Kaitlyn’s wonderful bus driver. We had lunch, the big kids road a camel (Ben came close, but chickened out at then end), and then called it a day!
Alex found a new app that lets him read comics all day while listening to his music. He is in heaven.
These two decided to make cinnamon donuts together. Some moments were great. Some moments were a little tense.
A picture at Ben’s request.
Summer is always an adjustment. Teague has had the hardest time figuring out what to do with all of his free time. Because it was a day he didn’t want to join in on my planned activities, he was even more at odds. Today he slept, read, cooked, and played legos – even then he could have used about a million other activities.
Alex took a nap today. That hasn’t happened in years!
Teague has been spending a lot more time downstairs and now makes a nest of books wherever he goes.
Kaitlyn spent the day with a renewed interest in her “All About Me” book. My favorite was when she had to count all the forks in the house.
We went back to the park and my sweet boy brought me a flower.
Kaitlyn brought home lots of things in her backpack. One of them was a summer program – earning points for reading and activities. When school starts you turn in your points for raffle tickets to a Amazon gift card drawing. Kaitlyn has been great about reading and wanting to go on the adventures that earn points (hiking, museums, zoos, etc). Today we went on a story walk around the elementary school.
We’ve been watching Obi-Wan Kenobi and most of us are thoroughly enjoying it.
Ben and his crazy sleeping positions.
We attended our first baseball game in ages – maybe since Alex was a newborn.
We started the day with some reading.
Then we headed to the lake. (Alex stayed home. Firstly because he didn’t apply sunscreen very well on his first trip. Secondly because he couldn’t find a friend to come with him.) Kaitlyn did bring a friend and had a great time.
We ended the night with a baseball game – a first for all of the kids. We had a blast at the Woo Sox and Ben was completely mesmerized by the fireworks (which might have been his first?!?)
The first group hike of summer. And the first snack of 5,439.
We had our first hike of summer. Then I remember why hiking with four kids is so different than hiking with one kid. A 13 year old has a much different pace than a 4 year old and much less patience for his pace and snack breaks especially on a 45 minute trail. It was a good first hike and it did get everybody out of the house.
We had a chill afternoon and then walked up to the Common for a dinner and movie. Alex just joined us for the pizza but then walked back home. The younger kids quickly found friends and would have stayed well past when the movie ended.
This story is going to go down in Burch family history. Does everyone remember clean out day and I mentioned that I found candy and food wrappers in Teague’s room. (Honestly they were in both boys’ rooms.) We cleaned all of them out of all the rooms. I re-iterated that there was no eating in the rooms. I didn’t make a single comment about the fact that I found Coke cans, candy wrappers, etc about the things they weren’t really supposed to be eating in the first place.
Last night I was in Teague’s room to tell him good night. There was a snack bowl on his bedside table and Legos all over his bed. We had a slight disagreement about him cleaning the bed of Legos so that he had enough room to sleep. (I didn’t even mention the snack bowl because he was so upset about having to clean his bed off.) As we were moving the Legos, it happened to shift some pillows on his bed and I saw a bright yellow something under his pillow. When he went in his closet, I peaked. I just about died! It was a BJ’s bag of chocolate chips – 3/4 gone. The child had obviously had this under his pillow a while and was working his way through it! Part of me was so impressed at the guts to take an entire huge bag and part of me couldn’t believe after our discussion on clean out day that he hadn’t gotten rid of it! I told him I was going to take the bag and his Alexa and we would discuss tomorrow. Then I went downstairs and started laughing and laughing (and called my Mom to laugh some more).
Some of our craziness today:
And the sad news – I was walking in the back door yesterday, when I tripped and fell. I had my camera in my hand and tripped on the camera strap. The camera hit our granite back stoop. I am sending it off to Canon today but the estimate doesn’t look good.
Everybody loves when Daddy pulls out funny videos at dinnertime.
We are all so excited for our first trip to the lake. Alex has figured out what he needs to make a lake day work (he brings a friend). We ate lunch at home and brought snacks. The big kids took the swim test – including Teague for the first time ever! Then they spent all day out at the floating dock playing the bottle top game. (I’ll be saving gatorade tops endlessly.) The rest of the kids love the shallow water and the sand.
Alex got a little overexcited in unloading the dishwasher while dancing to his music. He got everything offtrack and out of whack and it took him much annoyance to get it all back to rights. I was highly amused.
For the first time ever, Teague decided to take the swim test. (Of course he passed)
Even without school, mornings can be rough.
First trip to Silver Lake for the year.
All last week, I started telling my kids that today would be clean out. We do this several times a year so they knew what was coming. I go room-by-room, and work with the kids. We go through drawers, closets, under beds, etc. We sort, organize, get rid of old things, try on things that might not fit, and return things to their appropriate home. Kaitlyn has been so excited about the process and asking me if she can go first. The big boys have been indifferent and Ben has no clue.
The only real surprise was what I found under Teague’s bedside table. It appears he has taken up Alex’s habit of snacking in his room – a big no-no of mine.
Alex is using the last of cocoa crepe batter to make himself breakfast. He made it for his friend the other day and carefully saved the leftovers for himself.
Teague refused to join us outside so this is a picture from outside looking in on Teague through the window.
Elsa has arrived!
Ben dressed himself in his swimsuit and is looking hard to find some water today.
Happy Father’s Day!
I have a bag of “goodies” that I take to church to entertain the kids before children’s church and for the Sundays that we unexpectedly have Ben and Kaitlyn with us for the entire service (which happens more often than you would think). I’m sure the bag is about due for an update but the kids seem to still be entertained by the random things they find!
Kaitlyn had a special request for Daddy. Wade was only too happy to agree. They have been working hard to build a lemonade stand. (Do you see how she is dressed? Can you believe it is necessary in the middle of June? The weather has been crazy this year.)
Alex has recently gotten back into drawing. Today he showed up with this comic.
Reading this book for the 458th time, but obviously still enjoying it.
This crazy game required every lunch box we owned but they had a lot of fun.
School is out! The kids finally had their last day of school. Since it was only a half day, the kids started coming home at 10:30. Here’s a comparison of the first day and last day.
Alex had invited a bunch of boys over to spend the night so he was busy getting ready for his big evening. Kaitlyn had a special afternoon planned at a friend’s house and was even getting picked up from school by her friend. That really left Teague and Ben with no big plans. So the three of us walked up to the Common to visit the ice cream truck.
Alex’s friends started arriving around 5. Some of them were were staying a few hours and some of them were spending the night. I was pleasantly surprised that they went for the trampoline and Nerf guns instead of immediately heading for the video games.
Last day of 7th Grade!
Last day of the 5th Grade!
Last day of 1st Grade!