Welcome to our World

For D's birthday he chose to party at Lakeside Amusement Park again. This year he was joined by friend L and neighbor W.  It was these boys' first time going to Lakeside and I hoped they loved it as much as D did!              Our family was there from 3 until 9:30pm.  Totally worth the $40 we spent for all 6 of our family members to ride something, including K, D, and M having unlimited rides.  Yes, Natalie rode too!  She even rode the train all by herself when her siblings were on the roller coaster. And yes, I still can't believe I let her do that! Also to my amazement, he joined Dan and K in riding the Cyclone, one of the oldest roller coasters in America. Later I took the two of them and loved it!  Oh my word I thought D was going to fall out at one point because he seemed to small and the cars were so old (aka not as safe looking as modern ones).  It was fantastic. D picked a Despicable Me 2 theme based on the Ta...

With the earlier sunrises, it was obvious that if K was ever going to get to sleep at night, it was time to add curtains to her honeycomb blinds.  Since I don't even own a sewing machine, let alone have ever made curtains before, Lisa to the rescue!  Look at these big helpers while we were at JoAnn's picking out fabric.  That is a huge roll of black out fabric that is working quite nicely now.  After walking to Crazy 8 (and the children giving us a great photo op) we headed through the local Chick-Fil-A and on to Windsor Lake.  This was our first time enjoying the beach and lake and certainly something we would like to do with the P family again this summer.   The finished curtains are a success!  K can get to sleep at her normal time of 9pm again.  On those days we didn't have friends over for BBQs, at least.  We've been able to do that a lot more this summer than last summer.  The M family, C & M, and our former ne...

K only had to wait a matter of hours after her last day of school to have cousins come to visit us!  On a brand new adventure Dan's older brother & his family set off for the Wings Over the Rockies museum at the old Lowry Air Force Base.  We thought it was great!  I highly recommend it, especially if there are any little (or big or tom) boys in your family.   I geeked out at their space exhibit when it talked about Dr. Who, Star Wars, and Ender's Game all in one place. Our crew of 8 children ages 9 & under did so well we even went to the zoo afterwards.  One of the elephants was entertaining himself with a log in the water and entertaining us at the same time.  And after promising my children the last time we could try out the new penny smashers, we just had to do that this time.  M lost her penny twice so K gave her hers.  Then M lost that one too.  So we have D's lion one to put in the book.  Oh, well.  And as we found...

... comes from some other beginning's end D and M had their last day of co-op preschool and ended the spring soccer season in May.  The week after soccer ended, D began what he calls his ninja training at SMA.  Most people would call it karate class, but most people haven't chosen "ninja" for their future careers.  This can totally be blamed on Lego Ninjago, but I'm glad because my boy is loving it so far.  (We bought him his first Ninjago set for his birthday!) With how much fun he had, you would have thought Hannah B's graduation party was all for him.  Food, friends & fire were all this boy needed to want to stay all night long.  He did not feel the same way about his kindergarten open house.  N had a great time sitting in K's chair and we were very surprised to see so many friends signed up for his half day class this fall.  Between church, preschool, soccer and gymnastics had knew 7 kids.  Then I found out 32 students we...

... make our lives better, especially in the spring time  K was invited to a friend from kindergarten's house.  They live on 5 acres and own goats and baby chickens.  When it was time for me to pick her up it took me a loooong time to convince my children to come home with me.  It started with saying K could show D & M the goats before we left.  The W family organized another mystery progressive dinner.  We had gone to a 1920s mobster one a couple years ago and had a blast.  (There was much more picture taking last time.  I blame this year's lack of photos on Chelsea moving away.)  This time I was bound and determined to actually play the game because by trickery my husband knocked me out of the game almost immediately.  This time it was 1950s cold war & I was assigned to be a KGB officer.  I was treacherous, noticing a scientist reading his assignment.  I got him and Dan at the first house when I noticed Dan's...