Boys night out

Tonight the Boys and Girls Club had a boys night out and our older guys were excited to give it a try.  What's not to love with swimming, pizza, and games.  Mr. 6 gave it an infinity (on a scale of 1 to 10) and Mr. 8 gave it a 9.999 (he typically actually keeps to the scale) so I think a good time was had by all. 

The rest of the family enjoyed a quiet dinner out with Mr. 2 charming the world.  Then Mr. 2 and I read books while David dragged dirt around and finally put the compost from the last year into the garden.  Now there's a whole new bed to plant!

Water play

 
 
 

Summer finally arrives

 
 
 
 

It finally seems safe to put away the winter coats and find our air conditioners. Memorial Day weekend was beautiful - in fact Monday the kids got our the water guns and battled it out. Even Mr. 2 wanted a gun - perhaps he just felt safer with his own weapon.

Five minutes

We've been watching Burley bike trailers on Craigs List so when I saw this posted on Saturday morning Dad and Mr. 1 immediately jumped in the car. It was a good deal and in great shape so now we have a Burley. Mr. 2 loves it and keeps asking if we can go take a bike ride in "five minutes".

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Making my own yogurt

A few months ago I read this great article on making your own yogurt and told David that I really needed to get a yogurt maker. Think what healthy yogurt we could make - organic milk, less sugar, real fruit - and it would be so inexpensive. He was skeptical to say the least but I found a yogurt maker on Amazon with good reviews and added it to my wish list. And then promptly forgot about it. Until this came in the mail.

 
 

A great birthday present! We make our own granola (actually I make our own granola) and now we can have it with homemade yogurt. I couldn't resist making my first batch that night. It couldn't be easier and really is delicious. I used 40 oz of milk and heated it in the microwave until it was warm but not hot. Then I added 1/2 cup of plain yogurt (the starter culture), 1 tablespoon of vanilla, and 5 tablespoons of maple syrup. Then you just pour it in, put on the lid, cross your fingers and go to bed. Sure enough it was yogurt when I woke up. Even Mr. 6 likes it and he is super picky about his yogurt (if it's not vanilla Activia in his lunch he will not eat it - he's a bit more flexible at home). He did add a bit of honey though - not quite up to his sweet tooth. So maybe we'll make it a regular part of our week - make a batch of granola and the yogurt to eat with it.

Now if only we would stop running out of milk...

Mr. 2's lunchtime prayer

"Dear God, thank you for this day. Choo choos. Castles. Jesus' name. Amen."
Whispered as always so you have to listen closely.

Growing up

 

Mr. 2 went for his first real haircut last weekend - I had done my best to trim it but I didn't want to use clippers as I do on the bigger guys and remove all the curls so it was looking a bit scruffy. Just a quick trim and he suddenly looks years older - a true kid and not a toddler. Not that this has stopped his toddler ways.

 

Mr. 6 is now sporting quite the toothless grin. He has lost all 4 of his front teeth in the last month or two and really only has the tips of the bottom teeth visible. This gives him quite a lisp. We had gotten Rosetta Stone Spanish to use next year and the boys were so excited to start it that we pulled it out of the box as soon as it came. It recognizes my voice and Mr. 8's voice without a problem but it does not approve of spanish pronunciations with a lisp and you can't move on until it approves. He gets frustrated until I come and say the words for him. Hopefully he'll have a few more teeth by the fall!

Spring concert for Mr. 6

Spring concert for Mr. 8

Chihuly

We celebrated Dad's return (he was away all week so it was just the boys and I) by sneaking in a trip to the Chihuly exhibit at the art museum. It was so colorful and dynamic and the boys loved it although their general inability to stand still made us a little nervous around so much glass. We think Chihuly and Dr.Seuss would be good friends!

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Salt dough map

 
 
 
 

As I started reading through the history plans for next year, I saw one of the first activities was making a salt dough map. It sounded like quite a project for my crew. On the way home from school I proposed it as our project for the boys and they were super excited. The plan was to make maps of Europe and we started out with 4 big pieces of cardboard, lots of markers, an atlas, and plenty of enthusiasm but then Mr. 6 decided what he really wanted to make was Droidworld and Mr. 8 asked if he could make an imaginary map as well of I was the only one who actually made a map of Europe. Mr. 2's map did have a river and a lot of yellow so perhaps that was Europe as well. It was a bit hard to tell. It took us three batches of dough to cover the maps but I think everyone added all the landmarks they needed. Now they're all drying and will be ready for painting tomorrow. Next year I will have to enforce actually making maps of real places but we had fun and even ended the night with a dance party. It was either that or Mr. 6 was going to keep doing "time laps" around the house to burn off his excess energy. An entire week of rain and we'll needed padded walls for him to bounce off!

Cleaning out the office

 
 

Mr. 2 is always very helpful when it comes time to clean out - his specialty is putting random objects into containers and dumping out anything with more than 10 pieces. So when Mouse Trap became in reach of course he needed to get it out. So far all the pieces are still in one location but it's only a matter of time.

Evening of the Arts

After the recital was through, we wandered the school exploring the amazing artwork the kids had done over the year.

 
 
 
 

Evening of the Arts

This spring the boys piano recital was combined with the annual art show for an Evening of the Arts at school. They both played well - Mr. 6 played "The Haunted Mouse", a minor key piece with a surprise ending, and Mr. 8 played Bach's Minuet in G and "Sword Dance". Their playing has really improved this year and it was great to see them perform. Mr. 6 is truly a performer and grinned the whole time, gave a bow, and then charged down the aisle back to his chair. Mr. 8 was more reserved and played well but missed a note and was really disappointed. Pretty typical for those two. We're thankful for a wonderful piano teacher who is patient with the boys when it's been a long school day and piano lessons are a bit wiggly and for sharing her love of music with them.

 
 
 

Letting Zeus go

Over the weekend Mr. 8 decided it was time to let our dark-wing beetle friend join the real world. He was raised from a little meal worm in captivity so this was his first venture into the wild. There's no apple slices to eat (or actually drink according to Mr. 8) but I think he'll be happy by the strawberry plants.

 
 
 

Brothers

 
 
 

Learning to somersault

After a delicious Mother's Day breakfast out (where we were reminded of the benefit of pre-feeding our starving children), we spend some time in the yard enjoying the beautiful day. I realized Mr. 2 had done a somersault so we spent some time working on our somersault technique. After the first demonstration I realized exactly why you shouldn't do somersaults 6 months pregnant and relegated that task to the older brothers. Now he's happy to show off his new skill anywhere he can and we've had to remind him that somersaults are really only for grass and not for concrete, wood floors, on top of your brothers, etc.