Where's Phil?

If you like playing Where's Waldo? try playing Where's Phil?

And how would you like to be that guy on the table?

heat wave

We should be playing outside, enjoying the sunshine, but some days we just want to be indoors where it's cool. I'm not sure if we've even hit the 90's yet, but the 80's are just killin' us! Considering the fact that we had snow on our front lawn just last month, we're going to need some time to become acclimated. A few weeks in the 70's would have been helpful. Oh well.

Even our toys want to be indoors. :)

Jared's invention

I love how Jared's mind works. He's always thinking, always creating something useful--just like his Dad!

Today he invented a pulley system to send the girls' dishes up to the playhouse when Mommy says, "Time to clean up the yard and come inside."

And here to demonstrate is the lovely Gracie.

Step 1. Fill the bucket with any items you'd like to send up to the playhouse.

Step 2. Turn the wheel.

Step 3. Unload the bucket and send it down again for the next load.

And here is our inventor, Jared, with a few of his adoring fans!

while the cat's away...

I went out for a bit on Sunday afternoon, and look what I came home to. The back yard had been converted to what Phil called a very cool obstacle course (translation into Mommy language: safety hazards galore--notice the very high "step ladder" in the background). I had to ask about the yellow net contraption in which my kids were tangled. It's a helicopter cargo net, of course! Doesn't everyone have one of those?

O.k., Dad...this isn't fun anymore!

This is one of the things I love about Phil...he's a wonderful father! The kids have so much fun with him. And, who else has a helicopter cargo net stashed away somewhere just for fun?

two by two

Here are a couple of sweet pictures from last week:
Giggly Gracie and Silly Lily

Jared and our friend, Addie, on the swing out back

Caleb and Gracie chatting on our Friday School quilt

stepping stones

The kids and I stopped by Wal Mart this morning on the way home from the library. I wanted them to paint stepping stones leading out to our little bird bath. We found these nice stones for $1.26 each.

Here's my sweet Caleb painting with his left hand. He also used his left hand for the hand print.

The girls did theirs after nap time. As you can see, the sun came out for them.

All done!

how our garden grows

As promised, here are a couple of pictures of our new brick path.

And did I mention already that I'm really sore?

new family members

We finally managed to get over to a pet store to replace the fish that "are in the toilet." Wal Mart fish don't seem to survive at our house. I'm not sure why we didn't go to a pet store in the past. We were able to purchase 6 little goldfish for only $1.20! The kids had a ball in the pet store! Gracie would love to have a pet pig now. She spent most of her time talking to a baby piglet in its pen.

Yes, these fish have names...let's see if I can remember them. Phil named his Charlie, I named mine Daffodil, Jared's is Goldie, Caleb's is Goldfish, Lily's is Mary Purple (named after Mary Ingalls and her favorite color, purple), and Gracie's is Strawberry.

garden work

We've been busy little bees out in the garden this week! The kids and I have spent 2 whole days pulling weeds, transplanting bushes and plants, planting flowers and building a brick path through the garden. Last year Phil found a man just around the corner from us who wanted to sell his old bricks. We purchased about 300 bricks for $50! The kids designed a pattern and helped me lay all 300 bricks. We were so excited when we finished the path by using the very last one! Can you believe that? It was looking pretty slim toward the end, but they prayed that we'd have enough.

I'll take pictures of the finished path tomorrow. I took pictures this evening, but the overcast sky made the bricks look gray.

And here's what all of that yard work did to my poor hand. It was definitely worth it, though. It was so much fun to spend this time working with the kids!

play ball!

We went to our neighbor, James' baseball game this evening.

The kids enjoyed playing in the school playground while Phil and I watched the game. We made sure to call them over to watch when James was at bat.

AWANA Awards

Last Wednesday night the boys received their awards for working so hard this year in AWANA.

Could this be? Caleb will be in Sparks with his brother next year.

The girls decided to wear their princess dresses so they could cheer for their brothers. They'll both start Cubbies in Septemberl. So, with all four kids in AWANA next year, I'm thinking date night!

more pictures of gramma's visit

I can't even count how many games of checkers she played the boys!

We spent lots of time out in the front yard riding bikes, coloring with sidewalk chalk and playing on the lawn. I'm so thankful we had several sunny days last week!

This is Gracie's invention. She worked very hard on it.

A Special Visit from Gramma

Gramma came to visit us this week! The kids worked on "Welcome Gramma" signs Monday morning, and then we were off to the airport to pick her up. We stopped by Sonic for lunch on the way home and then drove by Phil's school to see if we could find him. We were able to catch him on his lunch break, right as he was going back inside for class.

The kids "helped" Gramma unpack her suitcase, since she mentioned in the car that she had surprises for them. Poor Gramma...she hadn't even taken her coat off before her suitcase was raided. It doesn't look like she minded though.

Lily's New Bike

One of the reasons Gramma came to visit was to purchase a new bike for Lily. She wasn't ready or interested in having one when Gramma and Grampa visited for Thanksgiving. Recently she told us, "Gramma is going to come and buy me a Dora bike." So Gramma came. :) How could she not?

Phil had lots of help putting it together.

We pushed the kitchen table back and let her ride it around the house the first night.

But the next day, she was outside bright and early on her brand new Dora bike!

Polka Dot Pottery

Caleb and I went to Polka Dot Pottery last Sunday afternoon. He chose to paint an alphabet cup. He painted the cup yellow, and then asked me to paint the "C" black. He wants everybody to know that "C" stands for Caleb.

Didn't he do a great job on his cup?

lilac craft

last year's blooms

I keep forgetting to take pictures and post about our Friday Preschool. Here's what I have planned for today:

We'll make paper lilacs using purple paint, straws, green pipe cleaners, green construction paper and white tag board.

You can probably figure this out by looking at my terribly dark photo (sorry). We'll use straws to dab the paint onto the white tag board, which, surprisingly takes awhile. I always love it when kids' crafts last longer than 5 minutes. Sometimes it takes me a very long time to prepare these crafts for my kids and then they finish lickedy-split!

Here are a couple of fun books that feature our very lovely lilac flower.

In Bunny's Noisy Book, I'll have the kids make the sounds that Bunny hears or makes. In Little Green, I'll have the kids use their fingers to imitate what Little Green, the hummingbird, does in the book (flying high and low, zipping, darting, starting, stopping, looping, etc.).