Summer Catch Up Post #1

WE CAN'T BELIEVE SUMMER IS OVER! School starts the day after tomorrow for Alice and Jackie and Eve gets to go to an introductory preschool day TOMORROW. It was such a bummer yesterday when Andrew had to go to work for the first time. Summer has just been so much fun. I love my little family and love having so much time to spend together. Now's a great time to start posting about what we did this summer.

The first week of summer, Andrew went off to Helamen's Encampment, a church sponsored camp for all the scouts in Alberta. It was huge and he was gone for a week. While he was gone, we had the Romeril kids over during the day, since Jenny was a girl's camp. We had a great time with the Romerils. We went to parks, had a picnic, went to the beach and did crafts. The kids played tons of pretend games and I believe that Jackie and Logan got married at least twice over the course of the three days.

One of our projects that week was making a pinata. All the kids were excited about making the pinata until they saw how messy it was. Chloe and Jackie enjoyed mixing up the glue and preparing strips and let the sloppy gluing to Alice and I. It was really hot that week, so even though we didn't start it until Tuesday night, it was ready to paint by Thursday night. Alice and Jackie started painting it while I was mowing the lawn. Eve asked if she could help. I told she could but she had to wear her painting clothes so as not to stain her regular clothes.

When I got around to mowing the back yard, I could hear the kids painting in the kitchen. They were working so nicely together and having so much fun. When my mowing took me to that side of the yard I looked in and realized that Eve kneeling on the kitchen table, happily painting the pinata stark naked. Her little bum was right in front of the window. She couldn't find her painting clothes and didn't want to stain her clothes or miss out or take the time to go and get my help.

I told her that I never mind if her underwear gets paint on it and told her to get her panties back on while I found her painting clothes. Once the kids were done painting, I cleaned that kitchen table...yes I did!

Then On Friday we brought the pinata over to Grandma and Grandpa's house and used it to welcome the Wrights who had just arrived for their visit. Here are some pictures. I actually remembered my camera and remembered to use it:
You can tell that it is always a party when all the cousins get together.


All the kids had a couple of swings at the pinata. I learned that the pinata doesn't last as long when the kids are older - the last time I made one was for Jackie's two year old party and they were not strong enough to break. The big kids did a great job. Final blows when to Jack and Max.