Swimming at a lake

The children and I went to visit a friend and her family who are camping at a nearby lake for the summer today. It was the perfect day for it as it was 95 degrees!! We needed to be near water today! Everyone had a GREAT time! There was a dock to jump from and both girls jumped many many times! Snow White was jumping by herself with her noodle by the end of our swimming time! I couldn't believe it...she had to go under water and everything. This was good practice for our vacation in a couple of weeks! Flower Picker was jumping to one are while Do-Do was in the other with her floaties on and loving every jump! We had to take a break now and then to let Do-Do get himself full of sand...although surprisingly enough he didn't eat any!! YAY

After swimming we went back to the camping trailer and the children played on the slip and slide while dinner was being cooked..hot dogs and hamburgers. We were planning to eat outside on the picnic table but it was right in the sun and even at 6pm it was still so hot that in less than 20 minutes and entire stick of butter melted into a puddle on the potato plate! Needless to say we took the picnic into the trailer and although it was crowded it worked!

All in all it was a really fun day had by all! I need to be better about bringing my camera along to capture the fun! It just never seems to enter my mind until we are at and event and I wish I had it!! I will be working on it!

4th of July

Last night the children and I went to a 4th of July picnic (Hubby was working 3-11 :( ). It didn't begin until 7pm (which is bed time at our house!) so I was a little concerned about how they would do being out so late. The hosting family lives way out in the country about 30min. from our house (which was one of the reasons I wanted to go despite the late start). It was so beautiful there. They own 80 acres and their driveway is 3/4 of a mile long. You have to have 4 wheel drive to make it up the driveway so we parked at the bottom and caught a ride up with another family! I felt like we were in an ocean of green..just grass and trees everywhere!

The country is a child's dream come true! Lots of room to run! They have a large garden, raspberry bushes ( the girls enjoyed hunting for raspberries!), a strawberry patch, a huge sand pit (we came home filthy!) and a big wooden swing set. Do-Do loved that he could wander about without restriction! The family also just had two litters of kittens born and Flower Picker couldn't get enough kitten! She was walking around with one under each arm for much of the night...needless to say the kittens had a long night!

We ate and played, then prayed the Rosary and had dessert and by that time it was almost 9:30 and the fireworks weren't scheduled to begin until 10pm. So we said our goodbyes and headed home. We didn't get home until 10:15 but Do-Do was asleep and the girls went right to bed with out any trouble. All that running and fresh air tired them out! Despite the fact that bed time was 3 hours late Snow White was up promptly at 6! Flower Picker was next at 7 and Do-Do "slept in" until 7:20!! We had a fabulous night lets hope we wont pay for it today!!

Felt Food

Our moms group recently got into making felt food. One of the moms pointed us in the direction of the blog Helping Little Hands. Polly has a tutorial for making every kind of food imaginable over there and I was inspired to do some for my children.

Now mind you we have about every food imaginable already for our kitchen set (consisting of a wooden stove which I built)and it almost never gets used! So my hope is by adding a few pieces that will fit into the small pots and pans that they have to play with maybe we can get some use out of it!!

So here are my creations so far:


Pancakes with syrup and butter, eggs, and cookies with frosting. If I had to do them over I think I would have stuffed the cookies with a little batting...they are a tad flat! But they will do!
My further plans include fajitas and tortellini....more items that can be made in a pan on the stove! We will see if they are a hit or not!

At Home Fun

This morning we went to see a friends daughter get Baptized and went to the small reception that followed. At the reception the girls played with the other children who were there varying in ages from 2 -8 or so. I am always amazed to see how children who don't know each other can immediately become friends and act as if they have known each other their entire lives.
Adults on the other hand stick to their own group of familiar friends and rarely go out of their way to have a conversation with a new face let alone become friends with one! This strikes me at the playground and the library as well when we meet children who we may never see again and the girls have a fantastic time with them while the other mothers and I often seem to strain for polite conversation with each other while trying to pretend to be busy attending to children or reading something. I myself am as guilty as any of doing this while encouraging the girls to introduce themselves to strange children! Anyway I think I will try to be more outgoing to new faces on our outings in the future!
(After saying all this I will point out that there was not anyone at the party this morning that I did not know so I had no problem in this area today!)

Since we were out all morning I decided we needed an afternoon at home free of the pool or other away from home activities! So we pulled out the wikki stix and the girls and I made and ocean/beach scene on the side of the refrigerator! Complete with octopus and a clam with 3 pearls inside!!

We had not played with them in a long time so it seemed like a brand new toy. That's always fun! I was reading through the booklet that came with them and I need to remember them when I am planning lessons for Therese this fall. They can be used as manipulatives for math and can be really formed into any creation that we might be studying...including letters and phonograms! So thanks Grammy for the fun toy!
Katie