Auntie Marlene & Uncle Dave

Helping make carrot salad.

Making rhubarb pie with Grandpa's help.
She did a great job!

Dirt!

Daddy ordered a truckload of dirt.  Literally.

Visit to Nannie's House

Every year the kids and I make a trip to Nannie's house.  It is much anticipated by us all.  We have a few regular things we do each year at Nannie's - visit certain parks, walk the dogs, go on the ferry to Wolfe Island, have a bath in her deep jacuzzi tub, play with the Nannie toys.  It's always a great visit.

This year, the atmosphere was a bit funny.  The weather was heavy and dreary and rainy.  Internal dynamics and dramas and different aged kids and a baby and it was just a bit of a different visit.  It was a bit hard for the older kids who have such high expectations.  But like every difficult thing, much learning was had and the end result is a likely deeper and more realistic relationships.

Thursday

Travel.

Puppies.

Play.

Picnic stop on our way.

The boys loved playing with these "fighter guys".

PUPPIES!
What kid doesn't just LOVE puppies!

My sweet animal girl was in heaven.

Friday

Plastercine.

Rain.

Lake Ontario Park (in the rain).

Boxes.

Puppies.

I brought up a package of plastercine and a book.
It was a great rainy morning activity.

Crabs.
Nate wanted his crab to stand up.
I just absolutely LOVE this picture.

Rain or shine we go to the park.

The boys discovered that the pouring rain made the slide
into a very fast waterslide!

Nate throwing a rock and Benji looking on in awe.

It started to rain heavily so we stood under a tree.
Except Nate.  He stood in the rain.
He looks SO tall!

Perma-smile baby.
Seriously, this girl is almost always smiling!

She just loves the dogs.

Nannie saved out some appliance boxes for the kids.
It took 3 days to work out the kinks, but by the end
of the visit the boxes were a hit.

Popsicles in a box.

Saturday

Garage Sales.

Face Painting.

Wolfe Island.

Puppies.

A garage sale find.
Anna found some nail polish, an art kit and a huge stuffed dog.
Benji found a play lawnmower and a rake.
Nate didn't really find much of anything so he bought chips.

There was faceprinting at the park.
The lady who painted their faces has 7 children of her own
and foster children as well!  So inspiring.
Anna is a princess, Nate is a pirate, Benji is Prince Charming.

Gotta have ice cream on Wolfe Island
- even if it takes 2 hours to get there!

At the very front of the ferry!

Evening art.
Learning how to blend pastels.

Orderly structured art.

Puppies!

Sunday

Parks.

Bath.

Puppies.

Mine craft.

Bathing the baby in the sink.

This was the only picture I took on Sunday.  I was tired (I don't seem to get much sleep away from home - especially sleeping with a baby and a 3yr old and with lots of dogs around).  

We went to a park.  The boys had a bath in the jacuzzi.  I bathed Zoe in the sink in mom's beautiful new kitchen.  The kids played with the puppies a LOT.  Nate showed Nannie how to play Minecraft.  The flip side of that though is that after playing Minecraft, everything else is boring so he was irritable for the rest of the visit.  Grrrr.  What a love-hate relationship I have with that game!  Boy does it command Nate's attention but it also demands his attention and makes him feel so restless and bored when he is not playing it.

Monday

Parks.

Boxes.

Puppies.

By the last day, the kids finally figured out the boxes.  What a lot of drama to get there though!

"Adrianna's Book House"

A boy and his duct tape.

Don't run in Rubber Boots!

We went to our favourite outdoor space for a water bug hunt.  I didn't get many pictures as Zoe was a bit fussy.  The big kids have done this outing before so they were a bit bored and explored in the creek a bit further than I would have liked.  Benji had a great time searching for bugs.

Unfortunately, the big kids decided on an impromptu race through the gravel parking lot in rubber boots.  Deeply competitive, the one losing gave the one winning a bit of a shove and she went flying and landed HARD on her knees.  I knew immediately that it wasn't something my little first aid kit could patch up so off to the ER we went.  Two hours and four stitches later we were all resting at home.  Poor girl.  It really is an awful scrape.  And her brother felt absolutely awful about it.

After a few days healing.

Shades Mills

Our weekly Shades Mills outing almost didn't happen after another rough school morning.  The full moon this month is wearing us out with bad attitudes and crankiness and poor sleep.  

Once there, we almost left early due to lingering attitudes and a dumped water bottle on Zoe!  But we sat in separate spaces, gathered our thoughts and kindness back, ate an early supper and continued on.  Happily the second half of the day was much better than the first.

I am rarely disappointed with time spent in nature.  It may take some time (in this case a few hours!), but we always leave in a better mood.

Attempting to build a tee-pee.
It was a short lived endeavour.

Blue damselfly (I think).

Getting ready to race down the hill.

Dragonflies mating?
or fighting?

We watched them for a few moments and then realized
that the dragonfly on top had taken the head off the
other dragonfly!!  It was pretty gross.

Decapitated dragonfly.
Adrianna "explored" it further.
I didn't.

Dragonfly wing.
Cool details.

"Threenager"
Sums him up entirely.
Good gravy he has been a LOT of work lately.
Not even nature can take the 3yr old out of the boy.

Furiously (and I do mean furiously) trying to crawl.

Collecting Goose feathers.
She wants me to buy an ink pot so she can try dipping
them in ink and using them as a quill pen.

Adrianna caught this baby fish.
The girl can catch pretty much anything.