Water table fun.
Ben
Ben has been pretty great about entertaining himself. Somedays that looks like building towers and poking a pencil through the holes in the seat of our chairs:
Ben was al little perturbed I interrupted his playing for a picture.
Sometimes nothing seems to go your way.
Yesterday was Mother’s Day and I still asked the kids to put on special clothes and take a picture with me. They agreed and I also took a cute picture of just the kids.
Working puzzles like a rockstar.
Kaitlyn asked to build a birdhouse and Wade has a very hard time saying no to any of her requests. In her Sunday best, they built a birdhouse. Quarantine has done funny things..
And the finished product:
Happy Mother’s Day.
Amazingly, after snow yesterday morning it was warm enough (barely) for the water slide today. Teague didn’t want to join in the fun but Alex played with the littles.
Waterslide!
Morning reading.
Ben has a reputation for eating anything. Here he is finishing a casserole before I can put it in the refrigerator. (It was a new recipe that no one else liked.)
The weather makes the afternoons so wonderful to be outside! The kids are definitely bored with everything inside and love being outside to run and play. Even Alex is enjoying playing with us outside.
Some days it takes more energy than others to keep everybody entertained. Today it took a lot just before noon! We made chocolate chip banana bread, read books, played with magnatiles and legos, and Kaitlyn started practicing haircuts on her new hair doll.
Today we played with MadMatter.
Afternoon fun with magnatiles.
They are all having fun but only one is appropriately dressed for the weather today.
Ben and Kaitlyn were determined to play in the water today. Teague devised a wonderful game for them. Teague would have a water gun and shoot. They would try to run away. Amazingly, everyone had fun.
The kids were anxious to get outside today and play more with Ben’s water table. Before long they had moved on to water guns and other fun outside adventures. Ben was just excited to be included.
Ready. Aim. Fire.
This weekend finally began to feel like spring (a little) so we did outside things. Wade even started on outdoor maintenance and the kids were excited to help.
I’m pretty sure Ben must mean Trouble in some language.
Everyone loves a good box.
I had bought a water table on a previous trip to BJ’s and been saving it for warmer weather. I don’t really think today qualified as warmer weather, but the kids needed something new and were very excited about the water table. Even Alex wanted to join in the fun and he’s definitely too old for such an activity.
Ben and Kaitlyn stayed outside for over an hour before the chill got to them and we put it up for another, warmer day.
These three are constantly building couch forts or just dogpiling on each other.
These are some of my recent favorite pictures of Ben.
Today they played cars.
Today I attempted real haircuts for the boys. I really just attempted to barely trim the boys, but everybody is starting to look shaggy and it doesn’t appear haircuts are going to be normal again anytime soon. In general, the haircut went about as well as the pictures I asked Alex to take. (Here’s hoping the world opens back up soon.)
The Legos started even before breakfast today.
Family movie.
Sunday morning silliness.
We were all ready for a break. Today we did chores, played outside, and finally got around to some chores at our old house too.
Throughout the day, I gather books from all over the downstairs and put them in this basket at the backdoor. Ben loves to sit and go through them. His favorite are the ones with pictures.
All of this schoolwork is rubbing off on Ben. He wants to practice his writing.
Alex convinced Teague to play basketball and before long Ben was trying to join in too.
Today is a Lego day.
Teague is an awesome big brother. He seems to have so much patience with his little siblings and is always happy to provide some entertainment.
Alex was nice enough to take a few minutes with Ben on his iPad.
Everybody loves when Daddy is reading bedtime books.
Happy Birthday to me!
Lego cities – day in and day out.
My heart sank when I sat down to my computer and saw the green lines on my screen. The last time this happened, Wade was able to fix my computer by baking some components. However, I’m always afraid of lost data and being without a computer for a long period of time. This time it was a quicker fix and I am once again thankful for a husband who can fix most anything.
In this crazy year that is 2020, we not only got April snow, we got 5 inches! As luck would have it, I had just put all our snow gear away last week. I dug it out and we went outside to play. Alex was agreeable to joining us for a little snow play.
Random snow – in APRIL!
I will be the first to admit there has been less supervision of Ben in the chaos of the last few weeks. He is into everything all the time – but mostly because I am trying to keep the other three on track with everything they are doing. Wade is busy figuring out a new job with a new company combined with working fully from home.
At some point I realized Ben was getting his iPad at playing at will. I put it up on a high shelf and thought that would take care of the matter. Today I walked in and Ben was again playing his iPad. It took some strategic questioning to figure out if he got the iPad or if one of his siblings got it for him. Once I determined Ben got the iPad, I asked him to show me exactly how he got it. Below is his demonstration.
Movie night.
These kiddos are taking their forced “recess” time pretty well. Pictures show they are actually having fun.
Just a boy playing in a drawer.
Just some sillies hanging out in the kitchen.
Spring cleaning.