June 2013

I guess the most exciting thing that happened back in June was that school got out.

Here are Oliver, Rachel, and Elizabeth ready to bike off to their last day of 4th grade, 2nd grade, and kindergarten (Tristan left a little bit later).


Then I had one last day with just these two goofballs.  Cindy’s nightgown is my favorite thing she wears.

Later that day we went to Tristan’s 6th grade award ceremony at the middle school.  I’m still not used to him mingling with all those teenagers.  Even though he’s going to be a teenager himself in a few months.  I’m in denial.

Then it was time for all sorts of fun summer activities:

Like color tiles!  (I thought it was funny that this was what they busted out on the first day of summer)

And a rock crystal sale!  Lizza is my queen of collections – she always has little bags or tupperware full of random  collections.  One of her big ones is a bucket full of the little rocks (or crystals, as she calls them) that she finds at the playground.  I told her she was going to have to get rid of some of them, so she and Rachel did a little sale.  Which lasted for a few minutes before they changed their sign to say “free crystals!  Take as many as you want!”

And it wouldn’t be summer without blanket forts!  Pretty much every year the kids choose to spend the first few weeks of June sleeping on a random assortment of blankets and pillows in the playroom. 


There’s nothing like getting some good summer reading done.  Especially if Mom joins in.  Henry wanted to sit by me so I could softly tickle his armpits while we read.

More reading.  I love how Henry was so into his book, he didn’t even take the time to get up on the couch:

Reading with a friend:

I guess Henry figured if Mom’s not around to tickle you while you read, you have to be creative and make other arrangements:

The first weekend of summer we headed out to Inks Lake State Park, which is about an hour away from us.  Daniel has taken the kids before when I was out of town, but this was our first time going all together.

First we rented some canoes and paddled around the lake:

Lizza and Henry were feeling adventurous, so they jumped out of their canoe and swam over to ours:

Then we went on a little hike:


And then we did a little cliff jumping.  Here are Daniel and some of the kids after swimming across the water to start the climb up to the top of the cliff.                                                         


Tristan on his way to go join them.  Cindy stayed by me and swam around in the water with her tube while I took pictures. 



Climbing up:                                                                          


Sitting at the top, waiting for Tristan to join them:                      


Lizza was the first to go.  The kids were all so brave.  There’s no way I would have done this when I was their age.


Then Rachel: 
                                                                     
And Tristan:                                                                         


Then it was Henry’s turn.  He started slipping right away, and it wasn’t clear if he was going to be able to make a great jump, so both he and Daniel decided it would be better if Daniel just threw him off the cliff.  Pretty sure he was the only 4-year old going off that day:                                                                


Oliver was next.  You can see Lizza behind Daniel – she had already climbed back up and was ready for another jump.


Then it was Daniel’s turn.                                                         


I jumped after Daniel, but we don’t have pictures of that.

Then Daniel decided to conquer the taller cliff that was next to where everyone had been jumping.  No way would I ever. 


And then Daniel offered Tristan $20 if he would jump off the big one, too. 


Here’s a video clip of Tristan’s jump:

And a little video of some of the jumps off the smaller cliff:

After our cliff jumping we drove straight back to Rudy’s BBQ for dinner.  Everyone was pretty worn out.


Then in the middle of June Elizabeth turned 7.  The night before her birthday we got together with some friends at the pool (we went to the pool a lot in June, but I never took my camera, so I don’t have any swimming pictures).  The get-together had nothing to do with her birthday, but I decided to surprise her and bring a little birthday treat so we could sing to her and she could blow out candles, and then the whole thing would feel like a party. 

She was surprised and thrilled.  Easiest party ever.  Please don’t ever tell my children what real birthday parties are like. 


Here she is the next morning with her stack of presents:

A Lego house!                                                                                           


Her special birthday breakfast of a pancake shaped like a 7 with strawberry sauce and whipped cream:


The happy birthday girl:

She picked homemade pizza for dinner, with pineapple and mushrooms on it

And a candy-bar cake for dessert.  Happy birthday to beautiful Lizza!                                                      



Then to top off an already great day, we played Ticket to Ride that night, and Lizza won. 


The next day was Father’s Day.  Here’s Daniel with his large group of children and an ice-cream cake.  We ate a lot of cake that weekend.                     


The rest of June was filled with more fun summery things. 

Like doing chores:                                                                                


Playing at the park:                                                 


And taking care of lots of stuffed animals.  Cindy was a really good mother to these little puppies all summer.  She would get them all lined up in the hall and then change their diapers, put pretend medicine on them, and feed them a bottle of milk. 


But Cindy is nothing if not well-rounded, so when she was not mothering her puppies, she was off fighting zombies.  As of this month, she's not in diapers anymore, so it's weird for me to look back and see her looking like my little baby still.  My little zombie fighting baby.   


This video makes me laugh so hard.  She came downstairs to tell me about how she had been fighting zombies with her razor (that’s what she was calling her dagger).  But I guess there was a creepy green mask up there that was a little too realistic for her, because she was super scared to go back up.      
She went partway upstairs with me, hiding behind my skirt, before she got too scared and said she would just go back and look for zombies downstairs.

Eventually she did go back upstairs with me and showed me the green mask in the playroom, where Henry the Brave took care of it once and for all:                                                              


The kids and I had gotten Daniel a puzzle of Lavell Edwards Stadium for Father’s Day, and the next week we opened it up.  Instead of leaving it out on the table all week and working on it here and there, Daniel set the timer for an hour and a half, and said if we finished it completely before the timer rang we were going out to dinner.  I have never seen a 500-piece puzzle put together more quickly.  We had a wonderful dinner at Torchy’s Tacos. 


And we finished off June with a nice Sunday walk through the forest.

The end.