Len Christmas in July, Year 5

And the meat festival begins…Of course Timmy brought a ton of his amazing brats…but this year he added smoked brisket to the menu! HOLY WAH!

And no, your eyes aren’t deceiving you…that’s a Gummy Bear brat. With real gummy bears in it. It wasn’t bad…just a sweet taste. I thought Katie would love it because she LOVES gummy bears but nope. Silly kid.

And the annual kid comparison! After last year when Owen was taller, Nick pulled ahead (which he should, as he’s almost 14).

Owen and Nick 2018

2017:

Owen and Nick 2017

The kids goofing around while I was getting the camera set up.

My test shot to make sure the settings were okay, and I loved it so much I kept it. It’s also fun to see how we can all pull it together for the real photo!

Nick and Owen…conspiring? Planning? Who knows.

Gramma created a project for the kids—money frozen in a block! They had to figure out how to get to it! (It didn’t take them long!)

Oh yeah! We also gained a dog for an hour or so. Mom didn’t recognize him and Tom called the number on his tag and it was animal control…?!? He was good and just hung out with us—got a few pets and belly rubs (Maggie pretty much ignored him). After awhile a young girl came looking for him—and we found out she was visiting someone in the neighborhood.

Overall it was a perfectly gorgeous day—not too hot and not too cold, lots of good food (too much, actually, but we’re Lens so it’s expected), and great visiting with family and watching the cousins play!

Katie’s birthday adventure with GJ!

Remember last year when Gramma took Katie out on a birthday adventure? Well, she loved it so much they decided to do it again! But this year, Katie was really nice and invited her brother along, too, since she knew he’d have fun, too. Awwwww, what a sweet Katie bug.

They went to the city park and had a picnic lunch, skipped stones, and played in the river; then went mini golfing and to another playground; and finished off with ice cream from Dairy Queen and a quick treat from Dollar General! They had a great day!

Sparklers and smoke bombs.

Since we went out last night to watch real fireworks, we were just going to do some little fireworks at home. I went to the store to buy some and guess what? Turns out fireworks are illegal in Illinois so it was a pretty boring evening. We just had a campfire and neighbors came over so the kids still had fun with the sparklers and smoke bombs but we can’t wait to go to Michigan and do some real fireworks. (Get ready Gramma Jean and Grandpa David!)

When the Six Flags fireworks started we thought we might be able to see them from our front yard or the street but we walked all the way to the church and we could just see them through the trees.

Happy 4th everyone! Even my lips are celebrating!!

It wasn’t until I was done that I realized I did it backwards—it appears as blue, white, and red instead of red, white, and blue (because I was seeing the reverse in the mirror when I was applying and didn’t even think about it). So I flipped a later photo:

And if you want to see a speedy version of the application…

Fireworks!

Six Flags has fireworks for four or five nights so tonight we went to a local parking lot to watch. (We could have watched from the Six Flags parking lot as we have free parking but we honestly didn’t want to deal with any traffic.)

It was a short and sweet 15 minutes. We missed some because they were below the tree line but the kids were happy so all was well. And we were out of the parking lot and home in 10 minutes.

Owen’s belated birthday trip with Gramma Jean!

Owen loved Katie’s day with Gramma for her birthday and wanted to do it for his, too! Since Gramma was in Florida for his birthday, they did it this trip.

Gramma says:

Owen and I had a belated birthday adventure today; three parks, shopping for picnic lunch goodies and a stop at Dairy Queen for birthday ice cream treat.

Gramma even tried the roller slide!

SURPRISE! Daddy and Katie just happened to show up at Dairy Queen at the same time Owen and Gramma were there—totally unplanned. They sang Happy Birthday to him!

Easter Bunnies

The good thing about the kids getting older? I don’t feel the need to be up at 6:30am with them to look for eggs! (Tom was up, though–he’s always up!) I heard them excitedly searching for and finding them, then rolled over and went back to sleep for a bit. When I did get up, I made them pose with their because of course. 🙂

This is part of what it looks like while I’m trying to take them:

And then moments later they got their Easter treat: xbox time!

Kidisms 45

I leaned over to kiss Tom.
Owen: KISS ALERT! KISS ALERT! KISS ALERT!

Grannie and Papa sent a package with stuff to store for them and included a few small packages for me, Katie, and Owen. Katie handed them out and saw that there wasn’t one for Tom.
Katie: Why isn’t there one for daddy?
Me: They must not have found anything for him.
Katie: They should have done one with beer.

Tom told Owen he loved him.
Owen: Yeah, I know. From the beginning.

I was watching Ellen and Justin Timberlake was on and though Katie knows who he is, she sometimes gets him confused with another blonde singer:
Oh wow! Is that Justin BEAVERTON?! [Going for Justin Bieber]

Katie was showing Tom her valentines and was putting them back in the white bag she decorated:
Here’s my owl bag. As you will recognize.

Katie’s little love notes take a strange turn.

So Katie is still getting little love notes from Thomas on the bus. This one came yesterday with her saying he wanted a playdate. Fine, right? Look at the text. Do you see what I see?

❤️ Hey baby how do you make Katie get back together with me

😂 but also 😳, right?

Even though it’s coming from a Kindergartener it seems somewhat concerning. I emailed both teachers (he’s not in her class) just to sort of give them an FYI/heads up and to see if they’ve noticed anything weird. Katie’s teacher responded that they’d talk to them (I haven’t heard back yet if it’s happened).

Oh the teen years are going to be a joy…

Owen’s 9th birthday sleepover!

We decided to do a big summer party again so Owen invited two friends to spend the night.

Katie was thrilled to be able to play Xbox with the boys.

Pizza!

Katie helping get the cake ready. (Owen picked it out at Sam’s Club yesterday.)

Oliver and Brandon

Everything went really well. They were crazy loud at times but they were all really well-behaved and were in bed by 11 and had stopped chatting by 11:30…

Welcome to today’s hell.

A gift to Katie from a well-meaning aunt. While Katie does love puzzles, of course she doesn’t have the attention span for this (hell, I barely do) but she really wants to color it. If it was up to me I’d just throw it in the trash (well I’m not an idiot, I’d give it away). But guess who will end up doing it all?? Her face just about sums it up for me too. 😂

#whowantstohelp
#idonthavetimeforthis
#puzzleparty
#ihavewineandmargaritas
#whendotheygobacktoschool
#thisauntisonmyshitlist

A friend is going to come help Friday.

Someone just spent some birthday money at Toys R Us.

We had promised the kids we’d take them shopping after Christmas to spend some of their birthday money/gift cards. (We’d postponed shopping due to the move and then we just forgot about it but when I took them Christmas shopping for each other they both obviously wanted to shop for themselves.)

I went with Katie and Tom went with Owen. They each had $35 to spend. Katie kept trading items out of the cart as she found stuff she liked better. It took her a bit to understand that she couldn’t just get everything she wanted. I had to guide her a little bit but she did well.

She loves being a mermaid. (This was a last-minute purchase that was her entire budget but she also had an expensive doll she really wanted. So to make my life easier, I let her get both and now she has used up all of her Target gift cards as well!)

I wasn’t thrilled about this huge animal but I was thrilled it wasn’t a 200-piece Shopkins set. She also got a huge 24″ Barbie-type doll so all of her gift cards are now gone (she had Target ones as well but since she went over budget, they’re now mine!).

Owen bought a bunch of random smaller stuff that I’m sure will be played with for a week and then lost. 😂 But he was happy today!

Really? The ornaments?

So I come downstairs and Katie says “Mom! Guess what I’m doing? Playing with ornaments!” And yep, she has taken all “her” ornaments off the tree (Olaf, Elsa, Anna, Sparty, Doc McStuffins, Sofia).

I know in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal but seriously?! She has a thousand toys plus all the stuff she just got for Christmas and she HAS TO TAKE ORNAMENTS OFF THE TREE TO PLAY WITH?!

Kids. 😣