Category Archives: Playing
Popsicles with the principal.
One of the back-to-school events…
Owen took over pushing the swing and then Katie joined as well. He had a blast.
Katie’s Fashion Shop
This was taking up the entire two feet at the head of her bed right inside the door. Cute and imaginative but not in the best place (of course, this is what she was doing instead of cleaning her room). So I took a picture and we discussed moving it.
Lay’s Smiles!
These kids crack me up. Grannie Lin thought they were so creative coming up with this…until they showed her the back of the bag that suggests doing it. 😂 I need to teach them to not share the secrets!! 🤫
Time for mini golf!
Len Christmas in July, Year 6
I’m not sure we have enough crap for one day.
See? It really is Christmas!
When you learn awesome party tricks from your elders: Tequila-infused watermelon with salted limes. Aunt Rose, you rock!
The annual cousin lineup, by age: 7, 10½, 11, 12 (almost 13), 14 (almost 15).
And Nick is pulling away, which is okay since he is almost five years older!!
Adding older cousin Alex (17) to the mix (Jess was working).
I introduced Lisa to a few new products.
Unfortunately, it was a stormy day so we had to dodge rain and lightning for most of the afternoon…but, on the plus side, it wasn’t 100° with 95% humidity! My hair kinda grew throughout the day.
There was a fishing contest… Aubrey is a Master Fisher so she helped my kids. I was surprised at how long they kept at it! (Of course Tom was out there, too.)
Darrell caught the biggest one:
And then this happened…
Someone started the cooties!! (I think that will be a blog post in itself!) So for the last two hours we all had to keep our fingers crossed! We reminisced about the old days and learned Greg still has what it takes!
The big bummer? Lisa and Alex left pretty early and with the rain throwing things off, we totally forgot to take our group photo!
Dual pool birthday party…go!!
Katie’s birthday is obviously today and Owen’s was back in February, but both kids love a pool party so we decided to celebrate both birthdays together! (Owen also begged for another pool party!) So we had a 7th birthday and 10.5 birthday!!
The party officially started at 3:30 but we got to the park when it opened at noon so the kids could get in as much playing as possible (and to stake out the best shade seats, as is my usual). I didn’t take many pics because, well, I rarely take pics at the pool… And once people started arriving and the party started it was crazy busy—we had 15 adults and 27 kids!!!
But first, lunch. Of course the kids hadn’t eaten lunch before we left, so they were hungry pretty much as soon as we got there. We asked if we could have some of our party food early and that wasn’t a problem, so the kids had hot dogs and popcorn! (Our party package came with 20 cafe meals but we were bringing in pizza so technically didn’t need all the meals, so we snagged them for lunch! Brilliant!)
The arrival of the pizza!
Once we got it set up it was like a feeding frenzy. You’d think these kids hadn’t eaten in days. For a moment I wasn’t sure we’d bought enough pizza as the boxes were emptying at an alarming rate, but in the end it was perfect and we ended up with about 1.5 pizzas to take home.
Cupcake time came shortly after…
Of course we had way too many. I figured with 42 total guests, 60 would be just right because some kids would have two. But apparently most adults don’t eat cupcakes… So we literally had an entire tray left! I walked around handing out cupcakes to random people then took the rest to the manager’s office (they were happy to get them)!
We left just a little bit of garbage…
Sooo happy to see these guys together again!!
Tom and I went back to the water to cool off (it was still like 85°) and relax and two of our friends snapped pics of us. 😄
Katie was actually done before Owen so she went home with Daddy a little early.
All in all a great day… The weather was hot (I think it got to 94°) but it was perfect around the pool. Everyone had a great time. No one got hurt. Well, I take that back…Tom tweaked his back a bit but he powered through. And I lost my sunglasses on the waterslide—I had them tucked in my suit but they still came out…but they totally disappeared. They weren’t in the pool with me and we couldn’t see them in the pool anywhere. It’s a mystery.
Perfect weather for mini golf!
I heard about this cool mini golf course that was supposedly difficult so we tried it today…and while it was neat (with lots of moving parts) I wouldn’t call it difficult.
They had some of the coolest balls we’d ever seen!
Getting some math in while keeping score!
A water hazard led to balls in the shrubs and Tom ended up pulling out about four extra balls trying to get ours.
Super cool moving parts:
Spur of the moment night!
Today the kids and I hung out at the pool with some friends and then were invited over after. Tom already had some beef tenderloin smoking so we let that finish, grabbed some salads and a watermelon at Sam’s, and spent the night hanging out with friends. All the kids get along smashingly and hated to say goodbye.
This is what Owen wanted at the thrift store.
Its a goalie mask which he obviously doesn’t need but he says he will use it for a catcher’s mask playing with the neighbor’s kids. 😄
Fun Mom™ let Katie cut open a squeeze toy
But Fun Mom™ still won’t let the slime leave the table—and it’s going into the garbage after. #babysteps #ihateslime
No more Ladder Ball
We bought a cheap Ladder Ball set and it falls apart really easily so the kids have taken to using the parts and pieces for their own games.
Milwaukee-bound, Day 2
My friend Anna invited us to go to a kid museum in Milwaukee today so why not? It’s only an hour away. The kids got McDonald’s on the way in the car so they were excited about that.
Turns out it was mostly for really young kids, but all ours said they had fun…
Being a sportscaster—for all of 4 seconds.
Owen did like the baseball section—he got to time his run for stealing a base, play catcher for some little kids, practice pitching at a screen for accuracy, and batting at a screen to see if he could hit a home run.
There was a Scrabble exhibit with a huge board…but it made me twitchy because it wasn’t a real board with the correct number of squares or bonus color squares in the right spots.
Then some of the kids put on a puppet show.
And then made some cool things out of biodegradable packing peanuts.
Then they had some fun on the bridge waving to the cars driving below.
And A&W ice cream on the way home.
Vacation house, Day 5
Our last full day!!! Of course there was more pool time…
And Katie’s dive got a little better.
But maybe the best part was that I got to read a whole book in one sitting!
Vacation house, Day 3
Random pics aplenty!
Cousin Gabby made some gorgeous flower crowns.
Kathryn and Izzy tried some lipstick!
Filipeks made an awesome taco bar for lunch and ice cream bar for dessert!!
We spent the afternoon chatting on the deck and then dinner was delicious cheesy shrimp and grits!
And then the annual pics!
Cousins!
The kids, then and now.
Aunt Marie put together an amazing escape room/box for the kids. They had a blast!
Then there was card playing and video games.
Vacation house, Day 2
We were sleeping in an awesomely dark and quiet basement room so combined with a late bedtime, we all slept in! I was up at 7:30 (technically 6:30 CST) and just waited for either kid to wake up. Owen finally got up about 8:30! I stayed in bed to enjoy the quiet and when I finally came upstairs, this is where I found Owen.
And I decided to have a fully relaxing no makeup day.
The kids spent most of their day in and out of the pool. Spending time with Uncle Jim was super fun and they even had a cannonball contest!
While the kids were (still) in the pool I got some work done. Not a bad view.
The kids were finally out of the pool and playing hide and seek while we were getting dinner ready. Uncle Marcus and Uncle Jim we trying to confuse Katie as she counted.
The birthday kids!
And tonight was a campfire and sparkler night!
And it was a momentous night—Katie actually asked to go to bed!!!
Vacation house, we are in you.
The kids really wanted to get in the pool the minute we got to the house but I was a mean mom and made them look through the house first and then actually put their suitcases in a bedroom and not just leave them splayed open in the middle of the living room.
Watching intently as I opened the pool cover.
It’s like this pool house knew I was coming.
They might already be in the pool and I might have bought them an inflatable unicorn. 🦄💦
Ahhhhh.
We had a bit of time before everyone else got here. It was quite a steep journey to the water and fire pit.
Dinner tonight was shish kebabs from the Coes. They were delicious!
She loves her bike basket!
She always has to take a doll to the playground. And you’ll notice we had to rig up a seatbelt for her. 😄
Sleepover photos
When you’re cleaning and find a pile of Polaroids the girls took during their last sleepover. Missing are the 25 pics they took of the TV show Nailed It that didn’t turn out at all.
A first and last time for the video game place.
We came home from a play date with friends and the kids wanted to go across the street and play with the three neighbor boys. They went over and the kids weren’t home but the dad offered to take Katie and Owen to them—they were at a local gaming place. They were both willing to spend their own money to do it so I then offered to pay for them, thinking that they would be able to play a multiplayer game with the other boys instead of being limited to two people per game like they generally are at home on the Xbox.
Fast forward to receiving this picture from the dad and this is what was going on: everybody was on a different computer doing something different. In other words, paying for exactly what they could be doing at home for free. so we had a conversation about that when they got home. Katie spent two hours on YouTube and Owen played by himself for two hours which is just an insane waste of money.
Kids.
Spring Break Day 2: Jump America
We planned to go for the whole day (with friends!) but Owen’s stomach started hurting so we had to bug out after about two hours.
Owen doesn’t really fit on his ATV anymore and he’s wanted a Segway for awhile, so when we were able to grab one for free to try out and review, we jumped at it! He practiced in the basement and actually got pretty good, so today was his first real world experience. I’m amazed at how good he is!!
I even did a Facebook live of it…
And of course Katie wanted to try but she’s too light so Tom helped a bit.
I even got on (holding Tom for dear life) for about 10 seconds and that was enough to know I didn’t need to do it again. 😂
This game went on for DAYS.
Sleepover night!
Owen was off at a sleepover so we let Katie have a sleepover, too. So, of course, princesses.
Rainbow face twins!
They hadn’t seen each other in awhile so they played today…and they came to show us their faces! Apparently Sophia got the same face paint Katie did!
Getting some air!
We went to a new trampoline place with friends. She and I sat and talked for two hours while the kids wore themselves out and pretty much left us alone. It was awesome.
After, it was off to Culver’s, which was next door…and so busy that the kids had to sit at a table by themselves. It. Was. Glorious.
Owen broke the wall.
The kids were being loud playing upstairs then we heard a really loud THUNK and soon Miss Tattletale was running down to us to tell us Owen put a hole in the wall. Okay, whatever, let me go see.
HOLY SHIT.
Yeah…. He was doing gymnastic front rolls in the tiny hallway space upstairs and managed to kick his heel through the wall.
This was after a stressful morning during which both kids were amazingly annoying.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
WHAT U TALKIN BOUT
The cousins were all having a ball playing together and I thought they’d have a blast playing “WHAT U TALKIN BOUT?” (the game where you try to say phrases while wearing dental mouthpieces—there are many versions of this game). Katie had bought it for Owen for Christmas and we weren’t set to open it for days but I am glad we did…we haven’t laughed so hard in a long time! It was definitely worth the $2.50 sale price at the dollar store.
We had Teddy for the weekend.
Each of the kids in Katie’s class gets to bring Traveling Teddy home for the weekend. They have to write a page about what they do and post pictures. I forgot to take a picture of what she wrote, but here are the pics.
Christmas in July in October!
Owen finally picked what he wanted from Amazon from Grauntie Rose and Gruntie Jim—a gem digging kit! (Huh? What? Okay, whatever!) He had a blast digging out all the rocks and reading about them.
