It didn't seem like the last month of school was the hot, slow, slog that it often is. So the last weeks really flew by (at least from my perspective)!
I wasn't planning on doing any deep cleaning in the basement, but then we had a basement company come look at some cracks and efflorescence on our basement walls.... We had to take a dying tree down on that side of the house a year or so ago and it seems to have affected the drainage and soil structure. It's almost like there's a reason they don't recommend planting medium sized trees 5 feet from a foundation. mur. Anyway, I got to move stuff in two rooms. woot.
It was not a good week for field days. Cadence's got pushed back due to rain so Emmy was up first. We took some toys and snacks to keep the littles occupied.
Poor Emmy, her shoe got stepped on as she got the baton so she kind of shuffled the whole leg of her relay. :)
Hooray for spending money on very boring things. They had to grind off the paint before they put up the carbon fiber reinforcing strips... somehow Perrin and Miriel slept through all the noise.
Then I had to wait two days before I could paint them and put all the stuff back again. Woot. We have too much stuff. For field day number two we took some corn kernels to put in the trucks. It was hotter and the kids were less excited to be there.
Cadence ran a relay also. :)
Emmy was chosen to receive the Illinois Principal's Association Student Recognition Award, but she couldn't go to the breakfast because of a school conflict. She was pretty excited to get the certificate later!
I had to laugh... I read the email that said she'd been nominated because she "displays great character, leadership, and kindness to everyone" in the midst of an epic sibling altercation. 😂 I'm so glad they behave themselves at school. Perrin likes to pull all the kitchen chairs out and get a sister or two to build him a 'pi-at ship!'
Jake and Rachel invited us all out for a Sunday. We drove out in time for church, hopefully weren't too crazy/disruptive, and then some of us went to see Seth's miniature open house.
They were so cool!
He does farm toy/mechanical miniatures as well, so not only did he have a model of the train depot, there was a caboose outside on the tracks.
I did not get a picture of the whole basement, but the walls were lined with collectible farm toys, big and small. Miri was actually enjoying herself. :) I was glad we had left Perrin at Jake's house, he would have tried to play with everything.
So detailed!
We maybe said 'look with your eyes, not with your hands' a lot, but they did pretty good. :) Oh, and the church on the left even has the Gospel Hymns in the pews.
Then we went back to Jake and Rachel's to play, eat supper, and celebrate Carl's birthday.
And pile on Cecily reading a mushroom identification book.
Miri got a lap harp for her birthday. She thinks she's big stuff.
After Iowa there were just a few days and school was out! This year went really fast. Cadence is all done with second grade!
And Emmy is off to the middle school next year! (How???!!!)
No teacher pictures for Cecily... she's done with 6th!
Our fun first day of summer plans got deferred because they were all suddenly being awful to each other and to me and so instead we all ate PBJ's and there were many more tears because, consequences. *sigh* It's been better since then.
It was barely in the 70's and they wanted to get the sprinkler out. Also, there are 5 kids in this picture- only 4 are mine. Our neighbor is M's babysitter and she's been over kind of a lot already this summer and I'm not really sure how to navigate this kind of thing since it's not like she actually lives next door, I don't even know her parents and they don't know us and it's just kind of weird. She's a nice girl though.
Cecily very sensibly read a book in the shade with me instead.
Cheese! :D
Evening walk and bike ride and a stop to check out this poor tree.
So after seeing all of Seth's amazing scratch built miniatures, this kit is just so sad. It's a struggle to get anything to fit together nicely. Bob was helping me glue the roof on and he was also equally unimpressed- it's not just my poor miniature building skills, it really doesn't fit together very well. I'm hoping with enough trim and furniture that no one will notice. 😜
They all got to help spring clean the living room. It was probably too many people at once moving things and taking things off of shelves, but we got it done.
Bob helped Sharon and Rustin move into town, and Perrin inherited some old tractors and trucks the girls don't play with. He loves them.
They've been driven through many ant hills and been given multiple baths. They might not survive Perrin.
My dad's aunt Shirley died and I went to the visitation. I stopped at the farm for a straw bale because Bob wanted some for the garden. Perrin thought jumping in it was the best thing ever.
I was frustrated by dollhouse building, so I took a break and finished rewiring this light.
It's probably going in Cecily and Emmy's room someday. I like the little tulips on the shades, and the individual switches.
We all went to the Memorial Day service at the park, then we played a little bit at the playground.
We went out to firefly creek that afternoon.
There was much rock throwing, and the girls got pretty wet.
The first lake day of the summer was a bit chilly and windy. The kids got in the water once for 10 minutes maybe before they got out and spent most of the time huddled under towels.
Perrin happily played with trucks.
This dollhouse feels like a never ending project. I'll think I'm done painting parts and then the instructions will throw in, oh by the way if you want you can cut more trim for the windows. Or, you can use this trim for baseboards if you want. And yes I want, because there are so many wonky places. So I'll get the saw back out and the paint back out and cut and paint more things. And I keep seeing more spots with funny gaps that I want to hide and need to figure out how. *sigh* Baby steps.
The driveway is full of chalk again.
There's an older lady that lives next to Mom's office who should have a phone on her at all times... she asked if Emmy wanted to make a phone carrier. We worked on it together one afternoon.
Then we had to go deliver it, so we met Grandma for lunch at work. Mark has a whole bunch of fun toys in the waiting room.
And some not so fun toys. 😜
We ate lunch at the park with Grandma.
Then she went back to work and we went to the board game convention.
Some of the guys had ordered lunch and Perrin was pretty sure that there was a bag for him. He didn't want to share Bob's food, he wanted his own food. He was not happy. Bob managed to slip some french fries into an empty bag without him noticing and then he was happy as a clam.
He also did not want to share the Jenga blocks with Thalia, so I took him home pretty soon after and he fell asleep in the car.
Day 2 of the game convention we dropped Cadence off at a birthday party and the rest got to play games with cousins.
And draw pictures of cats.
And not share trucks very well.
Sigh. Perrin was pretty much Mr. Grouchy pants again. It started pouring rain so we didn't even get to play outside much.
The kids did find the pool table and fusball upstairs, so that kept him happy very briefly.
I took him to pick up Cadence from the b-day party and we three got soaking wet. Perrin fell asleep in the van, so we let him sleep and Cadence got a little bit of time at the convention too.
How many games did I get to play? 0. ha. (Honestly, most of the games are more involved and complicated than I enjoy, so I don't really mind.) :)
Blessings.
