Had I the Heaven's Embroidered Cloths...: June, Part the First

I am behind, yet again. June was a busy month. 😜
Emmy very patiently waited for me to finish her dollhouse... it finally got to a point where it looked mostly finished, just needed all of the final details.

Bob took the kids on bike rides while the weather was mild.

Emmy declared that she was going to bake something every single day one week... and she would have, but I made her skip a few days since we didn't need that many treats all at once. Also, we were running low on butter. 😜

Bubbles!

So far, Perrin has not been interested in the water at lake day. He spent one afternoon playing in the ashes around the fire pit.

Shingles were finally going on!! There was great rejoicing!

Mr. Perrin doesn't like milk in cereal, and most mornings he doesn't really eat anything, so I just leave it out. Then I find him a few hours later, quietly sneaking a second breakfast.

Turkey fest weekend! We opted to skip the carnival again this year and do merchants night instead.

Nothing quite like eating pizza on the sidewalk.

Emmy neeeded to make a bouquet. Some friends-of-friends are starting a new local flower farm, which I love.

I had to move the dollhouse to the floor to finish up the shingles, it was too tall on my work table.

We ate turkey at the park.

And watched the bed races with friends. Cecily and I worked a shift in the food tent that afternoon... her first time.

Sunday was parade day. Perrin loved it- "Wook! A twactor! Wook! a fie-a-twuck!"

Cecily volunteered to carry the banner for the band, and the middles loved the candy.

Finally all done! There was great rejoicing! I feel like I got a decent chunk of time back in my day, and a whole bunch of space in the work shop.

The village came out to fix a broken water pipe one morning. It was pretty exciting. Not only was there a mini-excavator, they turned the hydrant on to flush the line when they were done.

Orthodontist appointments/consults for three girls all at the same time.... woot. It was really nice to get all three out of the way at once, and they had dentist toys while we waited. :)

The middle three did swimming lessons for two weeks, which overlapped with VBS in the evenings. They held it together pretty well, I was ready for both to be over. Perrin was very patient and kept himself entertained at the pool.

I've kind of decided that unless the girls really beg to do 4-H, I just really don't need to add that to my life. ha. I was in it for a few years as a kid and it was fine, but I didn't love it. The fair was always fun, but the rest of it was just extra work, and extra nights on the calendar, and deadlines, and drives to Cazenovia to pick up paperwork from the vet for my brothers' pigs. Anyway. It did force my mom to teach me to sew, so I'm trying to be a little intentional (for once) and do sewing projects with the girls without 4-H.

So far, Cadence has made a pair of shorts. She picked a galaxy print cotton fabric and did almost all of the cutting and sewing herself.

Miriel played with the mannequin, pinning 'outfits.'

Perrin loves cars, trucks, and tractors and drives them all over the porch all the time. I get to do a little light reading while I'm watching him outside. Ha.

And an hour at the dentist! Woot woot.

The library had a life sized game of Life day. I took the girls and they enjoyed all of the stations.

Bob has been picking wild black raspberries and I had to do something with them all so we made jam. It's really good, and might be my new favorite. 😋

Wendi posted that they were cleaning out and getting rid of this cute little gator... Bob was looking over my shoulder and decided that we needed it. haha. So he went and picked it up and took it to his parents and fixed it up a bit. Somebody was pretty excited. "My tractor."

Busily farming the front landscaping one evening.

Making progress on her shorts!

Cecily spent swimming lesson mornings reading.

Perrin drove cars.

They got some new sand at the lake... so that's where Perrin spent his afternoon.

Aaannd done! Other than the piping on the pockets, she did all of the work!

After he spread a bunch of cars out, he decided to 'clean-uh-mess.'

Going for a summer evening drive.... 😄

Cecily can hardly bring herself to call it swimming in our little pool, but it's cold and wet. "A fountain... trickle, trickle, trickle..... splendid ladies!" Name that musical... haha.

I took the kids to the community night at the pool. Soooo much cheaper. They all had so much fun, even though Perrin got a little grouchy at the end. :) I took very few pictures because I was chasing him. :P

We've been working through a list of house projects- after Tim fixed the leaking shower handles, it stayed dry enough for long enough to re-caulk the inside of the shower, so I could take off the layer of bubbling paint on the wall. It was worse underneath, of course. blah. I don't know how many times I've caulked this stupid shower. And I had a few choice words for the designer of 4 piece shower stalls, those who sell such abominations, and the 1980's in general. A pox. A pox on all of them. Anyway, I said 'stupid' a few times and the girls were slightly horrified 😂but as Earl Ringger once said, 'some things are just stupid.' It made me feel slightly better when Tim said that there's only one brand of multi-piece shower surrounds that don't leak. It's not just my caulk jobs. Now to fix the drywall and paint. Again.

So, since I'm too lazy for 4-H, I also have been trying to set goals for myself for teaching the girls to cook and/or bake. I had a certain child (who shall remain nameless) make double chocolate banana muffins. Said child can read and knows how to use measuring tools so I wasn't supervising overly closely. Until she said we were out of baking soda. um. What? I had a whole fairly new box. Yeah. She was trying to measure 2 CUPS of baking soda instead of 2 teaspoons. One cup was already in the bowl, and we tried to get it all out. Unfortunately we didn't get enough out and they were a total flop. haha. Oh well. I think we'll be laughing about it forever and she will never live it down. 😂

They all got to hear my story (for the millionth time) of the year the recipe was wrong in the 4-H book and I made a cake with too much baking soda over and over again..... on the bright side, Dad never made me take baking again. 😏

We went to the farm for birthdays and swimming.

Playing with water balloons.

We celebrated Cadence and Logan.

Perrin wasn't interested in the water until right before we were ready to leave, then he talked Grandma into letting him swim in his clothes. He had to go home in his dry swimsuit.