June 2011

 

I have a list in my brain of things I want to be blogging about (our big family road trip, going to an Eddie Vedder concert with Oliver in Chicago, my sister trip in Utah, Rachel and Henry’s birthdays, and mine and Daniel’s trip to Baltimore and DC), but since June came first, I guess I’ll start with that.

Everyone was happy to be out of school.  We did lots of swimming and fort-building.  Lizza turned 5.

Other June things:

Cynthia discovered the dishwasher.  I have to be quick now, because she rushes over to “help” as soon as she sees it open. 

Oliver with some turtles he caught down at the pond.  Henry was so excited about it.  He kept making Oliver let them go in the front yard so he could catch them again.  Finally, an animal that moves slow enough for him to catch!  I know I’ve written about this before, but he is still so funny about animals.  Whenever he sees any animal, he yells out about how he would either like to catch it or ride on it.  It takes forever to get through books with him – the other day I was reading him a dinosaur book, and on every page he had to show me which spot he would sit on the dinosaur if he could ride it some day (I had pointed out that some of the dinosaurs might be too spiky, but he was good at always finding some tiny little spot that he thought he might fit). 

The kids sleeping in their summer fort. They slept in this for almost the whole month of June – I finally made them take it down right before we left on our big road trip.  Sometimes I asked them if they’d be more comfortable in their own beds instead of just on a blanket on the floor.  Tristan said, “yeah, it would be more comfortable, but sometimes it’s just more fun to do something different.” 

Rachel being a good popsicle sharer:

Cindy the Explorer:

I used to put her in the backpack sometimes when I was trying to make dinner.  She thought it was super fun to try to pull all my hair out, so I wrapped a dishtowel around my head and clipped it tight.  All the kids thought it was sooo funny, but I was proud of my invention because it stopped the hair-pulling.

 

The kids out on our tiny back porch in Lizza’s birthday pool:

Cynthia saying goodnight to her special lover, the hand towel holder.  She has such a crush – every night when we walk past it to go to bed, she squeals and lunges for it.  I usually give in and let her stand on the counter so she can hold on to it and kiss it and talk to it.  I don’t know what she sees in that thing.

My beautiful Henry boy with his face all messed up from jumping onto the treadmill while Oliver was using it.  It was a sad day.  He has declared that he doesn’t want to use the treadmill anymore. 

Cynthia at 8 months old:

Henry doing his summer job.  He has kept our barstools and benches very clean all summer.  It’s a good job for a two-year old.

Tristan and Oliver went through a big fishing stage in June. Their friend has a pole, and they’d all go down to the pond every day and fish for hours.  They’ve both asked for fishing poles for Christmas, but we better get some rain first, because lately it’s been so hot and dry that the pond has completely dried up. 

Cindy figured out how to climb up the stairs.  She was pretty pleased with herself.  She loves going up to join the big kids in the playroom.

Rachel working on her study time.  I’ve used this website for my older kids this summer, and I love it!  They each have their own account, and the website keeps track of how many problems they’ve done in each subject, tells them when they’ve gotten enough right to pass a subject off, and recommends new subjects to try.  It also has links to videos to teach them how to the do the problems if they’re attempting a subject they haven’t learned yet.  It’s really awesome. 

But for those who aren’t interested in educational websites, here’s Cindy playing dress-up: