box fun

There's nothing better than a big empty box.


or even a little empty box. Xander designed this costume and played in it for a long time. He was "Mr. Robotica" and Ari called him that, in her robot voice, as he chased her all over the house.

picnic at the park

We made a quick trip up to visit Grandma and Grandpa this weekend. We played at the park for several hours and there was lots of fun cousin time.
Everyone enjoying their hot dogs.Not sure what Kole was doing, but he enjoyed his food too.
Blond boy cousins stick together


After everybody ate their food they made s'mores over the cooling down coals.While the big kids were roasting I told Ari that all the sticks were being used, so she would have to wait until someone was done before she could have a turn, so, she went and found her own stick.
She couldn't quite get the leaves off though, so she was a little put out. However, Xander soon came and told her that he was roasting marshmallows for her, as it turns out she was the first one with a s'more to eat



she shared with Papa too

Lucus enjoyed his marshmallow too, it got a little sticky though


This zip line was definitely a favorite. Since Xander loves the monkey bars, but hasn't quite mastered them, this was perfect for him. He could jump up and grab it then hold on. Over and over and over.

Ari loved this little wabbly bridge. She spent lots of time playing on it, and requested that lots of pictures be taken.

Sophia volunteered to be burred in the rocks.
Kole really liked this slide. He didn't want any of the other kids to help him though, he had to go it alone.



The big girls played a lot too. At this point they were making stew of rocks and grass.

Papa climbed a tree

then Ari climbed a tree.
gotta see who's taller.

Lots of fun cousin/grandparent time

4th weekend

We had a very fun 4th of July weekend, Faron had a 5 day weekend and we stayed home and relaxed! It was nice.

Friday we spent pretty much the whole day out side, that was really our big "celebration" day. We started out with some water trampoline jumping.

Then Papa started setting up the tent. Last time we camped in the yard we went down in the field. The kids didn't like that so much, so everyone was excited to camp as long as it was right in the back yard, close to the house.
lots of help




Faron is a full service camp set-er up-er

Kole really enjoyed running around in the tent.



of course we had to grill for it to really be the 4th.





perfect picnic food




checking out the clouds


Isabella was describing to me an outfit that she was pretending to be wearing.

we moved to the front yard to watch the sun go down.




we watched the cat climb the tree, so Xander went up after it.




Trying to teach Xander the proper way to help a lady when she's knocked down. Also, don't knock the lady down in the first place!

Tarzan
watching the sunset
Once it was dark the kids had sooo much fun running around catching lightning bugs. There were tons and tons of them. I don't know why we don't do this more often.



After that we went to bed. Camping, even in a back yard, is primitive. The kids ended up having fun, after everybody finally fell asleep. First there was some getting scared and freaking out about noises, but eventually the fell asleep.

The next morning we went to pick some berries for breakfast, because Isabella thought it would be nice and "prairie-ish". Unfortunately our black berry crop is really bad this year, but it was still fun.






Fun Forth weekend!