In other news...

Things have been a little crazy around here for the past month...since school has ended life has been a blur and I spend too much time with my kids.

My birthday was the Friday before school got out.  The kids had the best day ever.  First, I took them strawberry picking.  It wasn't near as much fun as I remembered as a child.  After about 5 mins they all stopped helping me pick (which is probably what I did as a child, and explains why I had such fond memories of berry picking) which left me to pick the rest of the box by myself.  At least they played together well and brought me flowers--it was my birthday after all.

At some point some lady asked me if I knew where "their mom" was, pointing to Marcus and Addy.  I politely explained to her that they were mine, hence the reason I kept talking to them.

For the kids, the best part of the whole experience was the group of animals the kids were able to pet and feed grass to.  They had a pig, a goat, a lamb, a miniature pony and some ducks.

After strawberry picking, I took the kids to the Butterfly Museum for the afternoon.

 

Then we headed to the pond to feed our leftover lunch to the ducks.

Someday my birthday will be about me again. At least that night I had a hot date, and Mark and I escaped the kids for a few hours.

The last day of school was a party for the kids, which I had/got to attend.  Everyone was pretty sad to say goodbye to their teachers.  

At lunch the Little Caesar's mascot showed up (with the pizza).  Katie and Addy ran up to say hi--Marcus went crazy with fear.  He clung to me with his eyes closed, burying his head into my chest.  At one point he opened his eyes and realized the mascot had come closer and he got down and hid under the picnic table.  He begged me to go hide, pointing to the woods.  Finally, we left and headed to the bathroom for Addy.  Marcus calmed down when we got out of sight of the mascot and was standing in the open doorway while I helped the girls.  All of the sudden I hear a blood curdling scream and Marcus is banging on the door of the stall.  I get to him as fast as I can, he can't control his screaming.  I finally calm him down a little bit and try to find out what happened, when a man walked out of the men's bathroom with the mascot costume thrown over his shoulder.  Poor Marcus thought he had gotten away and was then left alone to face the terror.  I guess Disney World is not in our near future.

Katie and Addy got umbrellas last month and have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use then.  Luckily, we have been getting some pretty crazy storms.

 

Our pool opened up around the same time school ended.  We have been in it almost everyday we have been home.  The kids took a couple days of swim lessons.  Katie is swimming and getting stronger each day.  Addy will go in the water and under the water and everything else as long as she has my hand (she is driving me crazy) and Marcus...is a little fish.  He got in the water this year and started swimming.  I am still in shock.  I was worried about some of the kids being scared of water this year, now I am just worried because no one wants to wear their floaties--they think they can do it on their own.

Our neighbor's son turned 3 and had a big birthday party.  They had a bounce house and a balloon guy, at least some people are willing to throw parties like this otherwise my kids would never experience them.

Marcus helping John open things

Katie with another neighbor, Everly

Marcus new favorite thing to do is blow bubbles.  He could sit outside for hours and blow bubbles.

PS: I think we need a new camera, that or I need to learn how to use the one I have because the quality of these pictures stink.