Some summer fun

The shmuffin kids started school this week, but here's a little about our summer.

The big kids got to do two weeks of vacation bible school this year (out of the four that our church did), since Patrick was helping out.  He played a cowboy in the skits, and he and the kids had a grand time pulling out all the stops dressing up.

The big kids also had three weeks of swimming lessons in July.  They loved it!  Elijah continues to struggle with taking risks and being persistent in things that are not immediately easy for him.  Swimming was a good change to practice those things, and he still had a lot of fun.  Molly jumped into all of it with her usual enthusiastic abandon and even made a friend - who also happens to be in her class at school!  She worked her way up to jumping off the high dive by the second week - brave girl!

We also got to spend a long weekend visiting Rhode Island.  This was our first chance to go back since we moved away almost three years ago!  We had a great time catching up with friends and going to the beach.  It was Finn's first beach experience, and he had a great time!  The big kids loved going out as far as they could stand and jumping in the waves (with one of us, of course).

We also enjoyed plenty of low-key, regular fun.  We played outside and took a few picnics to the parks, went to the library and played inside when it was too hot.  All three kids played really well together most of the time.  We read and listened to some fun chapter books together too, which we don't usually have much time for during the school year.

At the end of the summer, Nana came to visit for a couple of weeks, and the kids packed in pretty much everything they wanted to do before school started.  They did lots of crafts and played and went to see Planes in the movie theater, and had tea parties and special dates with Nana.  It was great.

Our sweet girl is FOUR!

Molly turned four years old on Wednesday.  We celebrated last week at Koenobel's with Patrick's family, and we tried to make sure her actual birthday was pretty special, too.  She loved her Strawberry Shortcake decorations and reveled in choosing all her menus for the day.  We had 'M' and '4' shaped pancakes, smoothies, and "noodles with white sauce," of course.  Aunt Lorrie and the cousins came and took Molly and Elijah to a movie, in the theater!  And Bobbi came for dinner.  We had strawberry lemonade, strawberry cupcakes, and strawberry ice cream.  She was thrilled with all her gifts, including lots of Jessie and Hello Kitty and her very own (pink!) Legos. 

in her strawberry shirt, too, of course!

crisscross applesauce

Molly is spunky, silly, and full of energy. She loves to draw and color and is learning to write lots of letters.  She is really looking forward to preschool in the fall, and seems to be a little less shy around new people this year (although you never know when she's going to suddenly need to hide behind my legs or just need a few minutes to warm up).  She loves to play pretend with Elijah, or her babies, or just pretend!  She "has volleyball practice on Friday mornings" with her pink volleyball, and loves to swim and dance.  She is also our resident artist - she loves to color and draw and paint and write "notes."  We love this little girl, and the four years we've had together!

Bubba's new look

Elijah got his annual summer haircut this week.  His hair was really long this year!  He looked super cool, but he was getting tired of needing to have it combed every morning, and it is getting hot out - too hot for such thick hair!  Daddy was out of town for a few days at the beginning of the week, but when he got home, he took Elijah to the barber shop.

Before - leaving for the barber shop

After - wow, he got a lot cut off!

Piggies and ponies and such

Molly has reached a new milestone - her hair is getting long & thick enough to start doing braids and other fun things! 

She is so excited!

Low braids are excellent for wearing under your sun hat or bike helmet.

Braids at the top keep it all neat and out of her eyes, so she can have a single piggy now!

pretty girl - no matter what we do with her hair!

Molly's special flower - she planted it in her class at Bible study

Two braids with looped ends

Headband braid (yes, she is a goon - that's my girl!)

Our morning

Today we are having a quiet day at home.  The kids have a cold - Molly has been a giant snotty mess for a week now, and although Elijah has been fighting it off pretty well, he was just totally worn out when we picked him up at school yesterday.  I decided that he needed a day off, too.  Finn has been a little congested and a little extra fussy, but he's eating and sleeping pretty well anyway.  Thank goodness!

Finn woke up at 7 and I fed him and changed him and we got the big kids up. It was nice to take it easy and not have to run around in hurry to get ready for school.  In that way, today is not at all typical!  The kids played a little, and I made baked oatmeal.  While it was baking, Finn went down for his first nap, and the big kids colored some pictures to send out in the mail with some photos we need to send to grandparents and aunts & uncles.  As usual, Molly lasted a lot longer than Elijah, but they both did a nice job. =)

For breakfast, we had baked oatmeal with blueberries and milk, and they both had apple juice (their favorite perk of being sick).

Molly calls this hairstyle "hello kitty" because of the one bow -
I call it "desperately keeping her hair out of her snot."

Molly did some more coloring after breakfast while Elijah played.  Then we gathered pillows and quilts and they settled down for a sick day movie - A Bug's Life, which they hadn't seen before.

yep, lots of laundry!

I fed Finn and changed his diaper (a huge poopy blow-out!) and then his clothes.  Finn and I talked and smiled together for a bit, and I put away some laundry. I didn't get as much done as I hoped, since Finn was feeling a little fussy. But I got most of it done once he got back to sleep.

all clean again!

The big kids had some more time to play (build more train tracks) while I made lunch.  They had ham & cheese pinwheels with green peppers and carrots, and tomatoes for Elijah of course.  I fed and changed Finn again while they ate.

After lunch we had the regular flurry of sending everyone to different bathrooms and getting Molly into her training pants for nap, and then it was time to read.  Molly and I read Oh My, Oh My, Oh Dinosaurs! and then she got to read to herself for a few minutes while I read a chapter of Farmer Boy to Elijah.  Finn enjoys the nap time reading, too. =)  After I got both the big kids settled in, Finn and I rocked for a bit until he did that slow, sleepy blink that says he's ready to lay down.

I forgot to take any more pictures of the rest of our day.  I got a little more spray painting done - we had two nice sunny days in a row!   But I also spent some time holding Finn so he could sleep.  We tried a new recipe of creamy chicken enchiladas for dinner and they were good.  Patrick said he liked them almost as well as his new favorite dinner - baked chicken taquitos - yum!

Baby, sleeping

 love.

After a bath - you can see a little of the cute, goofy long hair around his cowlick. =)

Some pictures I missed

Here are just a few pictures that never made it to the blog.

Making Christmas cookies:

Hello, crazy eyes! (she does make that face a lot)

Still life, by Elijah

Haircut by Daddy this time. E's still not a fan of the clippers.

Molly style

While we were in Colorado, Nana bought Molly some bows for her hair. Here she is modeling her new bows - 4 at once.

From the front - look, they match my shorts!

The view from the back.

Elijah thought I should take a picture of him, too.
Hello, blue-eyed boy!

Just cute

I was trying to get some nice pictures of the kiddos last week, just because I don't seem to have very many lately that are cute smiles - usually I am taking pictures of them doing something, I guess. Here are a couple of my attempts to get just a plain ol' nice photo. Ha!

Very typical Molly grin -when she smiles she goes all out!

She's been wearing this 3-piggy (Cindy-Lou Who) hair style a lot lately.

This is what I got when I asked Bubba to smile:

What? Is he 13 already?

Not much better.

Aha! There it is!

That's my sweet boy's smile!