What a summer we have had! It truly was a wonderful summer. To be honest I was terrified for summer. I was worried the kids would be trapped inside and resent Dane or Dane would never get to nap or eat on a schedule and be terrible and I would resent the kids for making me "ruin" Dane, or that I just couldn't do it all. Amazingly NONE of those things happened. Dane could care less if he was on a schedule and was happy everywhere we took him. The kids were happy to play at home and in the neighborhood most days so Dane could take a good 4 hour nap. And I chose carefully and sought inspiration form the spirit about what to keep doing and what to let go (one thing we let go of was school work:)
When I look back on this summer I will remember nothing but joy. Dane made everything better. The kids were awesome helpers. The next few post are going to be categorized into activities. Rather than post about every hike or every time we went swimming there will be a "hiking" post and a "swimming" post. Almost every week we did three things - swam, hiked, and went to a park.
Below are random summer pictures:
Dane loves to play in the sandbox.
This isn't a great picture but we went to Goodwill and bought a bunch of things for the kids to take apart. It was fun but we learned that most really cool things to take apart are actually really dangerous - so it wasn't as cool as we thought it would be.
This was the summer of play dough. Since I wasn't doing preschool we changed our basement into a "big kid" zone. Turns out the girls and all their friends just wanted to play with my preschool stuff. They spent HOURS in the basement coming up with the most amazing play dough creations.
I didn't even make it out into my garden until JUNE!! Usually I start around March/Aprilish. I probably only spent about 5 hours total on it all summer. It still turned out ok. I didn't add anything new and my hydrangeas never bloomed - which is devastating... they are my favorites! But everything is better when my fairy garden is out.
Dane spent a lot of time in the car. I just LOVE looking in my rear view mirror and seeing this:
He is my first baby to have a mirror in the back and it is so much fun.
Dane started the summer with learning to sit and ended the summer with learning to crawl. He had a very productive summer.
The more children you have the easier it is sometimes. Dane never wants for attention. love, or stimulation. If I am busy making dinner or cleaning something there is always a sibling ready to play with him. Even if he is just playing on the floor, every time a sibling runs in or out of the house - even just for a second - they stop and smile at and play with Dane for a few minutes - they just can't help themselves.
We also baked - a lot! About once a week I let who ever wanted to bake something. This was hard for me to say yes and it often took a lot of supervision and clean up but I knew it was important. By the end of the summer they were all pretty competent bakers and didn't need as much supervision.
Oh the American Girl dolls...
The girls in the neighborhood spend hours and hours playing American Girl dolls. Fun side story. They all have their own real AG doll. My girls have the target brand My Generation dolls. They have never complained or acted like they felt "less then". But I knew they wished they had one. One day I was at a garage sale and saw 3 perfect American Girl dolls for 15 dollars each!!! I was so so excited to bring them home and give them to my girls. They so deserved them becasue they never even asked for them. They had a lemonade stand the next week to help pat for them.
Said lemonade stand:
More playing in the sand.
Lots and lots of library trips
We had a Young Women, Ella, come over for some baking lessons we won at our church's silent service auction.
Brock went on SEVERAL boy scout camping trips. Including scout camp and hiking a 14er.
I was in charge of the ward summer bbq. The theme was based on the book "Saints". I even got hand carts for people to pull. I think we make a pretty good team and are happy to pull this load with him.
We played a lot of board games. One day while playing Clue Noah obviously had to dress the part.
Here is an example of one of our weeks.
Boys at the skate park.
We had a few neighborhood outdoor movies.
Great summer, eh? And that is just the odd ball stuff that doesn't fit in all the other posts that are coming!
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