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Monday, June 22, 2015

Summer Fun--Week 2

A recap of the week....

On Monday, we started the chore charts. This went well for this one day. The girls did all their chores, got their literal gold star,  and earned their dollar. And then, they didn't complete the charts for the rest of the week. They may rethink this approach the next time we are in Target and they ask for things...they will be limited by the $1 bin. I may need to revisit the approach for this, but I suppose it's a process.
Also on Monday--Adrienne got her first mini-piano lesson from Miss Marilyn!

Tuesday, the girls had a RAC camp (sports theme) in the morning, but we started the day extra early by sitting at Chevy while the car got an oil change and tire rotation. Scratch 'n sniff stickers kept us occupied.


After camp we ate a quick lunch at the RAC, and then headed down to get the girls haircuts.

Jillian asked if we could stop at a park on the way home, so we did. She was rather dumbfounded to learn that it was just fine to go to the park at her school "when no one was there".  I think she was concerned we were breaking a law or something. The girls played away.



And I enjoyed my new luxury--I can now actually sit down, drink coffee, and read while we are at the park! No more hovering required!

Matt was off for the rest of the week starting on Wednesday. On Wednesday morning, Matt decided to load the girls up and take them for a bike ride in the burley. They ended up biking via the Douglas Trail to Pine Island, where they had a picnic lunch from Subway and played in the park.


Matt texted me this picture of the inside of the Burley. Looks just like the backseat of my car. They do not travel lightly!


They came home to tell me that Matt let them have Cheetos, chocolate milk, AND a cookie. It cracks us up how they tell on him to me...guess I'm living up to my name of "treat police".  They were all pretty wiped when they got home, so we had a little rest time then hit Chuck E Cheese for A's party--BIG DAY.

Friday was a big and exciting day as we were planning to camp out in the backyard for the first time (I caved at the last minute and decided to join them in the tent, so as not to further solidify my position in the family as the 'non-fun one'). We also set up the outdoor movie screen. Separate post coming soon about this whole adventure, but for now--enjoy this pic of these goofballs.

Saturday night I had trouble finding Adrienne when I went up to check on her before going to bed. See the foot at the bottom and the fingers at the top of the blanket?

And then of course I got a surprise when I pulled back the covers to adjust everything--a non-washable marker leg 'tattoo'. Awesome. The next day she told me this carefully penned zigzag was "an accident". Sure thing.

On Sunday we celebrated our main man! This included a lot of fun for the kids...lunch out, ice cream, park, and slip n slide. Lots more details and pics coming from this day in another post, too.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

A's Party

Although Adrienne won't officially turn 4 until the 30th, we celebrated with her official party tonight. Adrienne was pretty consistent with her choices--She wanted a Bubble Guppies theme at Chuck E Cheese. She also desperately wanted Lakin and Annabelle to attend, so since they are both moving soon (hazards of living in Rochester...), she elected to have her party early so they could be in attendance. Matt happened to be off on this day, so we figured we could handle 4 kids at Chuck E Cheese between the two of us. The girls were so good, and all seemed to enjoy the independence of spending tokens as they wished. Thankfully Chuck E Cheese wasn't busy, so it was easy to keep track of everyone. This was the easiest party I've ever done. Barely any planning, super easy cake request from the birthday girl, and zero clean up. I might be changing my tune on Chuck E Cheese...
A "few" pictures from the par-tay:







Adrienne asked for chocolate cupcakes, with blue frosting "like water" and a Bubble Guppy character on top. It doesn't get much easier than that.







Love this silly-face Lakin pic


Identical posing
Jillian LOVED this biking game. She did it at least 10 times in a row.
She looks SO big here!
All three little ladies riding on the "carousel". I'm not sure what the fascination was with this 'ride', but they rode it consecutively many, many times.
Annabelle was so precious as she posed for the drawing booth. 




Matt and Jillian giggled at the funny mistake they encountered in the drawing booth
Jillian wasn't so excited about the results.
Pizza time!














Just like her mother....frozen with indecision over too many choices.
Opening presents.

Annabelle made Adrienne this great mask!

Love that Jillian can freely write her own birthday card messages

Picking out their loot from the prize bin