Four-Eyed Phillip

 

Our "Make-It" Monday was a bit of a stretch this week. We "made" friends by inviting over 6 friends to play for the day. Amelia played with her cousin Anna and friend Brooklyn; Phillip invited over Anson and Ryan; Everett played with Gary; and Evelyn played with Isla (Brooklyn's little sister). We had a great afternoon just playing with friends. The kids played "pummel each other" with stuffed animals first. Splashed about in the pool for several hours to pass the afternoon heat. Isla and Evelyn got along famously! They mostly played Barbies to pass the time. I had several people ask me how having that many kids in one space is easy: it really is! The kids tend to take care of themselves, the resulting mess was quite fantastic. The kids consumed several boxes of fruit snacks and a case of soda. Ha ha ha. Sent them home hyped up on sugar. Everett taught our FHE lesson on sharing. We enjoyed some fresh rice crispy treats for our snack.

Phillip was overjoyed his new glasses came in two days early! We picked them up after dropping Mia off at piano. He was thrilled to wear his new glasses, thrilled that everything was sharp again. He does look quite handsome in his new specs. The Bear den hosted a carnival for pack meeting. First off the den leader handed out earned awards to the boys. Phillip earned a new belt loop! He got to putt a golf ball using either a hockey stick, golf club, or a tennis racket. So silly! The bears set up several different carnival games in the gym for us all to enjoy. There was a paper airplane game, where as you tried to fly your plane another scout would shoot it down with a nerf gun. A frog jumping game, a silly game that involved wearing pantyhose with a ball in the toe on your head and knocking down water bottles, fishing, coin drop game, etc. The kids enjoyed candy and the games! nice job Bear Den.

Wednesday the kids invited their cousins back over for a carnival of their own! Amelia and Anna organized a bunch of games like slip and sliding, apple bobbing, face painting, etc for all the kids to enjoy. I did the face painting! Evelyn requested rainbow eyebrows! Crack me up. The actual carnival only lasted about 30 minutes but was quite amusing while it lasted. I provided cream soda, chips, and licorice. We are so lucky to have family close by, especially happy they can come over on a whim to spend time and make memories.

We went swimming to the boy's home swim team pool this week at Greenfield. Josie is really excelling with her skills. She puts her face in the water and swims underneath the water! I get a bit freaked out watching her try to swim and half the time fumble her feet and go deeper under the water. In our pool she refuses to wear her floatie, preferring me to carry her about and swim under the water. I was amused by a fun ray of light that skimmed my phone lens, made some of my photos look like Josie was getting beamed up by Scotty. Evelyn is pretty much a solid swimmer now! She can make it across the pool alone, she flips on her back when she needs a breath or a break. The older 3 kids played a spy game. The game involved asking me what I was doing and reporting back to the others. I enjoyed making up stories to report back for them.

This week I finally signed up all the kids for the summer reading program. It took a chunk of time to enter in books and length of time they read for the month of June! Each kid earned free pizza, a free entrance to a national park, and a free book! They were all excited to earn something for their daily 20 minutes of reading. We can't wait to enjoy some free pizza next week. Around town are cute codes the kids can enter in their profile and earn more prizes. We found our first code at the pool this week.

We worked on cleaning up the yard Saturday morning. Just regular torture as normal. We took the van and Hamster Wagon to get cleaned up in preparation for our vacation. Phillip and Josie went with us. Josie looked so adorable with her tongue sticking out as she concentrated on shooting the water gun at the cars going through the automatic car cleaner. Justin took the older kids out to see the Incredibles 2 movie Saturday night. I hear the movie was fantastic! Josie and I went to get some food for our trip at Smart and Final, a fun discount grocery store. The store caters to restaurants and bulk buying for ethnic foods. I picked up a huge package of crackers for half the price at Costco. While I was checking out Josie started singing "Monkeys jumping on the bed!" so loudly that lots of folks were looking at smiling at her. She was completely oblivious to the attention as she belted out, "no more monkeys dumping on da bed!" We agreed to run across the street for an ice cream cone. Yum.