A day at Green Lakes

It has been so chilly the past few weeks that we have not had many chances to go to any of the beautiful lakes there are in this area. We finally made it to the lake this week. We had never been to Green Lakes before so we gave it a try. It was gorgeous although you might not see that from these next pictures. I know I have 4 kids and I tried to get pictures of all of them, but they were too far in the water playing for me to get any good ones of them.
Gabriella and Jane found this little puddle right before the waters edge. It was very warm since it had been sitting stagnant in the sun for who knows how long, so they preferred to play here. What started out a sweet mud playing, quickly became really gross.
I am pretty sure Bree is drinking the nasty stagnant water...
Yep, she sure did get a mouthful of something. I don't think Jane actually ate the sand or water but she is grossed out for Gabriella. They were really muddy and dirty after their puddle fun.

Randomness

We love summer so that we have lots and lots of time to play with our friends! I don't know what Michael and Joshua are going to do in September when they have to go to different schools. I am sure they do not realize that they will not be together. It is sad. They love each other like brothers!

It is amazing what gel, humidity and a little genetic intervention can do! I had been wondering if I could get Samantha's hair to produce a bit more curl and ta-da! It does! We don't do this to her hair everyday, but it is nice to know my curly hair landed with at least one of my kids--she will probably hate it when she gets older:)
Joshua has been begging Kris if they could sleep out on the trampoline. But, since the bugs and mosquitoes are plentiful in our backyard they decided to put the tent on the trampoline to avoid nasty bites. It was a great idea until Kris realized that since he was the heaviest all the kids gravitate towards him in the night. He spent the night pushing them out of his way so he wouldn't get too claustrophobic. They took the lap top out and watched movies and had a great time. The kids could have done this all summer, but we limited it to 2 nights. Kris couldn't handle any more little kid knees in his back!

Where did July go???

First I guess I will start with our last day of school water parties! School lasts a long time around here and so it was nearly July before school was out. We love the summer and we are so excited to be able to enjoy the sunshine (when we get it)!Joshua is so used to it being winter he got confused and pulled out the snow sledding disks to try to slide on the slip and slide.
Joshua and Michael mostly like to see how much water they can get out of the pool instead of swimming in it.
Nothing says summer like kids in swim suits and watermelon!


Swim party at Mindy's house! This was great and I can't believe I didn't take more pictures, but thanks for letting us play at your house Mindy!

28 hours in NYC

Kris and I spent a total of 28 hours in NYC this weekend. It was quick, but so much fun. When we lived in Virginia we had some super good friends that we LOVED!!! The Jacksons are awesome and we have missed them so much. Anyway, they live in the Philippines now but they were in NYC for a work conference and asked if we wanted to hang out with them for a day or two. I thought about it for about .2 seconds and said,"Heck Yes, we will be there!" So thanks to Veronica (who is also way too awesome) we left all the kids and headed to the Big Apple. It took us a long time to get there (traffic and sleepy co-pilot), but we managed to make the most of it. Bret and Rebekah did not get in until 11:00pm, but we still stayed up until 2:00am talking. We all stayed in one room with one, yes one, bed. It was pretty funny, and I still feel bad that Bret ended up on the floor, but we will just have to make it up to them someday. During our quick trip we squeezed the musical Wicked--loved it, sight seeing, lots of walking, good food, people watching, and a bit of street shopping. Kris rode the subway for the first time and saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time. We left NYC at 11:50 pm and arrived home at 4:30 am. I dropped Kris off to work on the way home. The poor guy only slept for about 12 hours in a 4 day period. We are willing to sacrifice quite a lot for a weekend of fun! We did not carry our camera around with us, so hopefully the Jacksons will pass along the pictures they took--hint, hint. The picture at the top is when we were waiting for the Staten Island ferry.

We loved seeing you Bret and Rebekah, wanna do it again next weekend???

Graduation of the sweetest kid!

Joshua had his Preschool graduation today. I was teared up through most of it. Moslty it was because of sweet Joshua completing yet another step in his short life and a little bit because they set up a table of cookies right next to us and I had to wrestle Gabriella away from them the entire program. He sang us some cute songs. His favorite is the book and glasses song. He giggles every time he sings it. They each earned a diploma certificate and then we were finally able to let Gabriella have a cookie! She ate about 12, but I did not care at that point.
I love that Joshua will be able to join his big sisters on the bus next year, but I will be so sad to lose my little buddy. I don't know how Bree and I will get along without him next year. He walked around and said good bye to all his friends. He was surprised when I told him some of them might be in his class next year. He thought he would never see them again. That made him very happy!

Sorry most the pictures are blurry, but remember I was taking pictures and wrestling a cookie seeking little monkey:)

End of the School Year Celebrations!

I have spent a lot of time over at the kids school the past few days. It has been so much fun to stop in for all the different celebrations and parties they have been having. I love seeing the kids with their friends. I love the school my kids attend. They will miss their friends over the summer, but we are all ready for some relaxing summer fun!


Mariah's class had a Hawaiian Luau. It has quite the festive event. They were confined to the indoors because of all the rain, but they had a great time anyway. We stopped by in time to enjoy lunch with them, what a spread!

We also timed it just right to visit Samantha and her friends during their lunch time. She is so sweet and hardly said a word us, I am sure we embarrassed her. We stayed long enough for Gabriella to spill and then left them to eat in peace.

Flag Day at Brewerton Elementary

The kids school has a great tradition of celebrating flag day. Each grade prepares a song or poem to share with the rest of the school. It is so much fun to see all the kids in red, white and blue as they participate in the fun day. I was so glad to have all 3 older kids at the same program. That doesn't happen very often!

Gabriella thinks she is one of the big kids and usually insists on wearing one of their backpacks to school each day.