School is in session.

The kids went back to school on September 1st! They were all pretty excited.

Wesley is the only one riding the bus, because he goes to 4k for 1/2 day. He was so excited to get on the bus! The picture of him with the sign didn't turn out as well because the bus was coming down the street and he was too excited to move where I needed him to. But I love how it shows his excitement!

Last of Summer

 The Ice Cream truck drives through our neighborhood fairly regularly in the warm months. I am always telling the kids no to buying an ice cream from the truck. So at the end of summer, I decided to say yes and they were so excited. Pretty fun ice cream choices!

 The girls found a baby bird hopping around the yard so they decided to take care of him/her for a few days until he/she could fly. They had fun bringing food and watching over the little robin. Sullivan thought it was pretty amazing!

Car wash fun.

Our van needed a major cleaning after our summer trip, so the kids helped me clean it our really well and we took it to the carwash. Miles was waiting for the soap gun to turn on and he pointed it right at his face and it blasted him with pink soap! Luckily it didn't bother his eyes.  We couldn't stop laughing - especially Miles!

 We went to Cherry Berry afterwards as an end of summer treat.

Last of summer!

We decided to do one quick family camping trip before school started, so we went up to Door County on the thumb of Wisconsin and camped at Peninsula State Park. It was kind of last minute so there was only one night available, but we had a great time! Our camping spot was perfect!

I love lighthouses! This one was very pretty. It had some of it's history written on a plaque and it was kind of sad. One of the lighthouse keepers watched his own son fall through the ice and die. Sad!

We decided to take the "difficult" trail. Which ended up being not too difficult. Although we did get a bit of course, so we aren't sure if we accidentally skipped the difficult part.

The boys thought these cliffs looked like minecraft caves! They really do!

Wesley needed a moment of quiet meditation. Silly kid!

Even though the hike wasn't too hard, the boys were able to convince the girls to carry them. And Brian was carrying a sleeping Sullivan. Lucky boys! It was so nice to spend a few days as a family before school began.

Bits of summer...

Summer around here means: playing in the backyard, walks to the park and library, popsicles pretty much every day, games or movies in the heat of the afternoon and back outside in the evening playing kickball or jumping on the trampoline, grilling outside or having a campfire and catching fireflies at dusk. Yeah, I love summer.....

I watched the Roylance kids quite a bit near the end of summer. Which meant I had 10 kids ages 12, 11, 10, 7, 7, 5, 4, 3, 1 and 1. So it was pretty crazy. But I was grateful it was a small way to help John and the kids. The kids all get along really well so they had a great time!

Nora chopped her hair near the end of summer and loved it!

Bouncy ball trades were a big thing this summer. This is the kids with our next door neighbor Hailey. They all loved collecting bouncy balls and would meet out here between our two houses every afternoon and make trades. It was fun to watch them.