Mother of the Year Award

It took me too long to realize that Gus was wearing two different style of shoes...and even longer to realize that they were both for the right foot. Did I change it? Oh no, I just let that kid go on with his unique style.

Clearing My Phone

PJ is practicing her spoon skills on potato soup.  She loved it. Meanwhile, my third child had a half hour fit as I tried to make him eat his portion. Good times!

 

 I know that my time is limited where she will fall asleep on me.

This kid!

 

  Pearl always has fun at TaTa's house.

 Gus is taking an art glass with his cousin and friends. All went well, which is HUGE...listening and paying attention are still a struggle with this dude. He has developed a new quirk and wants to keep his hands clean at all times. I think we went through 50 wipes during the 1-hour class.

Sweetness

 Vera lucked out this year. It is the first year where teams are assigned randomly, not by school and she has an amazing soccer coach, assistant coach, and team. 

 Keller's team is a school team and a sweeter group of boys you will not meet. Keller is playing the slapping hands game with Omar (Vera's coach from last year and one of Gus' favorite people). 

  Taken on our 12 year anniversary!

Pearly-Girl

 

Banner Season - aka Soccer Time

Yep, soccer season has arrived, which means banner making time. J loves it, as I clutter our house with felt, hot glue, glitter, and paint. Thank goodness the kiddos' teams chose animals that I could draw. For a second I thought that Vera's team was going to be named the Teal Tornadoes and that would have been hard to make look cute on a banner. It is up for debate as to which one is better. Ha! I guess I am pretty proud of them. 

 

Pirate Day at the Library

Our local library pretty much rocks it. They have a good story time every week, cool crafts sporadically, and theme days at other times. Last Friday was Pirate Day and so I took Barnacle Bill (August) and our little Pearl (she already sounds like she belongs on a pirate ship) to meet the cousins at the library. 

We made pirate hats and hooks!

Both Gus and our cousin were invested in the scavenger hunt. 

 

It might have had something to do with the fact that you got to pick from the treasure chest.

  

Barnacle Bill had a great time!

 

Alice in Wonderland

This video needs a bit of description. Vera had a friend over for the afternoon. They took one of my old phones and recorded several different segments and then edited their segments into a movie. We are teaching Vera to take videos horizontally and to avoid having your brothers screaming in the background. 

P.S. Guess who Vera is going to be for Halloween?

Giving Me Grey Hair

Adorable standing there with her siblings, but her new climbing skills are giving me a headache. She climbs onto couches, chairs, picnic tables, toy cars outside, and even out of her crib (once!). It would be okay, except once she is up there she forgets that she is high and proceeds to tumble off. Urgh.

Beach Day and Pearly Girl is 10 Months

Crazy Girl

Kidspace

Kidspace is one of our favorite museums and is close enough to be a day trip. The other cool part, we get in free because they have a reciprocal relationship with our Natural History Museum. Well, kind of free. Wanna hear the bad part, we still had to pay for one person. It turns out that the reciprocal is only good for 4 people. I might actually say that is prejudiced against big families. ;)

There is a trading nature post. You bring cool items that you have found (all from nature) and earn points. With those points, you can then buy other items that you think are better. Vera ended up with a neat purple shell and Keller bartered for a shark tooth. 

We traveled down with Tata and her family. We even managed to stay together for a good 30 minutes before realizing that keeping our families together was impossible. Too many kids all wanting to go in different directions. 

This would be Gus before his epic meltdown on the trike. 

The petting zoo was a little anti-climatic. I think by the time we visited the animals had eaten 100 carrots each. Still, all three olders enjoyed the llama, but far the coolest animal in the zoo. 

The would be Gus being adorable. Bucket head!!!

Making butter and spinning wool...all in a day's work.