And All The Rest

Grace and Juliet got into the makeup bag....

3 days after loosing the first front tooth, she lost the other one...  The tooth fairy has been busy at our house!

Billy and I went on a few Sunday dates.

"do I look like a bird?" "no, you look like a nerd."

When Avia and Alice woke up before dawn (5ish) Juliet also awoke and wanted to go.  We said goodbye to our Texas travelers at the airport.

Then we ran some errands, including donuts from meijer.  Sadly, Michigan doesn't do early so we didn't find a single open garage sale. = (

When we came home, we headed out on our Dow Gardens/Mt. Pleasant adventure.

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Father's Day 2019

I had the piano tuned for his special day.  The kids each made Billy some special father's day gifts at school.  But the only gift that made me tear up was William's.

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Crafts and Cooking

Alice and Emily were making a stop motion video.  Grace came to me in tears because the big girls wouldn't let her play.  So, Grace and I made our own.  

She wanted to use Doc McStuffins, and I grabbed my Dean Winchester figure and they battled the giant rogue pig.  Spoilers: they won. 

I used some browned bananas for a banana nut loaf. I'm pretty sure Alice ate half of it all by herself!

For my sister's 30th birthday, I transformed a sweatshirt into a bag for her.  It was a bit more difficult than I thought, and I ended up with a broken needle halfway through! My machine and I persevered til the end. I went through piles and piles of change and threw in all the money I could find from 1989. It wasn't much.

I also sent her a gift from Amazon that she actually wanted.  So hopefully she had a fun birthday!

My 'something you've never made before' on our summer bucket list was an Ouzo cake.  I thought it came out pretty tasty, though the directions had a few typos that I've hopefully corrected for the next batch.

Lemon and black liquorice  is a weird combination, but it wasn't too bad. It was however very sweet. I may leave out the sugar in the glaze next time.

At least I used up some of the ouzo leftover from our party a year ago!

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Zap Zone

As part of the summer reading program, Alice and Emily earned their coupon packs, one of which was a zap zone attraction.  William* was put on a week's notice, because Avia, Alice and Emily would be travelling for the month of July. So, we needed to make Zap Zone happen before they left.

William had a bit of a reprieve when we checked the hours.  They had them listed on the internet as 4-10 weekdays.  Turns out they do have summer hours, but we didn't know that at the time, and waited for a Friday.  William read his time, and earned the free attraction pass!

Emily and William chose the bummer cars.

 

Alice picked the VR attraction.

Once the big kids had redeemed their coupons, we jumped and played in the trampoline** area.

This was moments before Emily lost her first front tooth!

After the jump, Avia generously sponsored some arcade time for each of the kids (I had said no.)  Everyone left with a little prize, and Emily left with one less tooth. = )

Since Billy hasn't been yet, I'm sure we will be back!

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*The twins are part of a pre-reader program, so were not eligible for the coupons.
**Alice's jump socks, from Emily's party in March, barely fit!  So, she will have my socks for the next go round. I am absolutely astounded by how fast she is growing!

Summer Chores

The final month or so of school I started to make a "to do" list for the summer.  I'm not overly ambitious, so I set a goal of one task a week.  We are only 3 weeks in, but so far I've met my goal.

First was to clean the freezer.  It is not overly impressive, but it is now void of crumbs and 'unknown' substances for the time being. = )  I think I only tossed two things.

Week 2 was manual organization.  I keep all of our user manuals in a central location, but when I needed something it always took much longer than it should have to find it. I opted for a baggie sorting system by room or use.

Tossed more than I thought I would!

Still full, but now easier to find.

Task 3 was not anticipated.  The day that finally broke me to turn on the air here (it was 87°F in our house) I'd sent William, Grace and Juliet down to the basement to cool off.  We have what the natives call a "Michigan basement." This means has unfinished walls and ceilings and is not used as a living space, only a storage space.

I sent them down to "cool off" since it stays 65-70°F year round.  I heard them playing, but didn't worry too much, until I couldn't hear them and made them come up.  I did finally turn on the air, becaue 87° is a bit warm indoors, even for me.

When I went down the next morning I found rice everywhere.  I was not happy.  William and the twins were 'banished' to the basement until they finished sweeping it up. Emily and I did go down to help too.

I used the opportunity to knock off another to do item: Sweep the basement.  I don't have any before pictures because I was not happy. at.all.  But they all worked hard and got the job done without much complaint.

I guess in the future they will just have to 'suffer through the heat.' Because they will not be allowed to just chill in the basement*.

Week 3 was supposed to be the painting of the bathroom, and since I had already started prep work on it, I did paint it today!  But I still have touch up and clean up to do, so the pictures will have to wait for another day.  And I may "save" it for a week when I fail to meet my goal.

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*winning at puns today!

Scooby Doo Day

Scooby Doo Day was William's brainchild.  I think he was inspired by his Scooby Doo shirt.  We decided that every time we ate a snack, we would exclaim "scooby dooby doo!"  And that scooby would come with us.

When we picked up groceries I found some Scooby Snacks for everyone.

They also wanted to have a Scooby Doo impersonation contest, so we took some videos, and my sweet facebook friends voted on the best impersonator.  William was declared the winner!  He won exclusive rights to the giant box for the entire evening.

We also made a Scooby Doo Day cake.

Everyone had a chance to enjoy some.

Truth be told, it was some cake mix that I bought last Christmas, but it was still within it's expiration date.  No one seemed to be the least bit bothered by it.

So, Happy Scooby Doo Day to all!

Scooby Dooby Doo!

Filling Up Our Passports

BATYOT not only is a cool event, but also has prizes up for grabs for filling your passport with 10 & 15 stamps before the end of the month.  Before the big kids got out for the summer, Avia, the twins, and I succeeded in collecting our stamps.  But once we had the big kids with us again, we worked on theirs.

One of the stamps was in the Meridian Mall.  While we were there we redeemed some pretzel coupons that the big girls had earned through the summer reading program, and then headed to the play area.

I was amazed to find that Alice and Emily were both too tall.  This happened so fast guys, I swear, it was just a few years ago that Alice couldn't even climb the stairs in the mall play area, and suddenly, she's too big.

So the three of us walked around the mall hunting loose change. lol.  They found a dollars worth of quarters under the merry go round, but struggled to get the 4th one. I finally forced them to give up. 

Another stop on our Passport collection was the zoo.  We didn't actually go visit the animals, as we didn't have much time before the movie started at the library.  But we enjoyed the playground and got a few more stamps.

Once everyone had their 15, we went to the office to turn it in. Grace and Juliet had 24 stamps each!  They were so ready to be done after all the stops to "get another stamp." = )

I really enjoyed getting to learn more about this capital city, and am excited to be a tourist again next year!

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Mt. Pleasant, MI

During the last school year Billy had the opportunity to orchestrate a Senior Design Project for his work with some college students at CMU in Mt. Pleasant.  Though the project has concluded, during his many visits he found a few things in Mt. Pleasant that he thought I might like to see.  Since Mt. Pleasant is just down the road from Midland, we headed there after our visit to Dow Gardens.

Our destination was a cute little café in downtown, but since they were closing in 15 minutes we ordered our food to go and ate it at a nearby park.

The first park we tried had a baseball tournament in session, so it was absolutely packed, with no parking or tables available.  We ended up at Nelson Park, which didn't have a playground, but the kids managed to find things to do. = )

Selfies on a rock. 

More pictures on a rock.

Pretending to read on a bench.

Rinsing their sandy hands in the river.

Exploring.

And during our exploring, we found that the trail led to another park, one with a playground!  This park had a softball tournament in session, but we were already parked and fed, so they played!

On our way back to the car they followed a chipmunk who "disappeared."

The rotary club bridge was pretty cool.

View from the bridge.

I'm hoping that maybe Billy and I can go back and stay overnight for my birthday this year.  It has so many cool things that weren't open after 5 on a weekend!

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