August

Mini-golfing always seems better in theory.

Maverick let me pull his hair back for a minute.

Maverick is not ready to get a haircut yet, but the three middle girls all let me trim up their hair.

Before

The library was closed throughout the spring and once they opened the kid areas were still closed. But being in a familiar space (outside our home) felt good. 

I "dyed" Violet and Autumn's hair red with Kool-Aid.

Throughout the summer Grandma Linda rotated spending afternoons with each of the kids.  Sometimes they would bike ride, or play games or have hot chocolate tea parties.  Violet's favorite activity though was doing grandma's make-up and having grandma do her make-up.

We made a goal to visit 25 different playgrounds.  This park was a new one in Fort Collins.

Each week we did a different art project, focusing on a different element of art.  Autumn's favorite week was the watercolor week.

We made delicious s'mores in the oven to round out the summer.

We found an awesome pool north of where we live in a small city.  Children 5 and under were free so I paid a grand total of $4 for the whole family to swim.  The three big kids loved the big slide and diving board. It was however very cold this day, so Lark sat on the outside of the pool the whole day.

BUT she had no problem getting soaked at the splash pad in her clothes.  I didn't know if the water would be turned on so we didn't bring swim suits.

Lark is feisty and loud and loves to play rough.  Other times she will sit and color for an hour or more.

The start of school got pushed back by a week. So at the last minute I decided to drive with the kids to Washington to surprise my parents.  Here we are at our favorite stop, The Little America Hotel, where the ice cream cones are 75 cents.  We stayed in Boise at a hotel that night.  The kids didn't go to sleep until at least 11.  It was stressful and even more stressful in the morning trying to feed them the continental breakfast and stay away from everyone.

Lark is quite the little artist.

Lark got to stay up each night since she keeps everyone else up.  She got to do lots of puzzle with grandma and grandpa, watch TV and play with toys.

The kids took lots of walks to feed the "world's ugliest pig".  Lark especially looked forward to grandpa coming home so they could go on a walk with him.

I took the kids to a park one day adding to our "parks visited" list.

Olive doesn't take "No" for an answer.  She found grandpa's stash of chocolate.

Giant "Connect Four"

A couple weeks before we went to visit my parents two of my brothers and one of my sisters had visited.  My mom celebrated "all the holidays" with them. So she repeated the egg hunt with my kids.  All the kids except Violet complained that the eggs were filled with Skittles.

Grandpa was trying to give Lark clues "look all around.  Up and down"

We had a costume fashion show one morning with all the old Halloween costumes and Aunt Hannah's dance outfit.

We decorated T-shirts.  All the big kids liked it. My mom ended up decorating Olive's shirt.  My mom had a great time!

More costumes.

Lark avoiding bedtime.

We went to a beach on the Puget Sound.  The kids enjoy the playground behind the beach more since there wasn't any sand there.  Maverick especialy didn't want to get his feet/shoes sandy.  He only had tennis shoes with him and no sandals like the girls.  Autumn, however enjoyed being buried a couple times in the sand.

On Sunday we set up our art work as a museum so grandma and grandpa could "ooo" and "ahhh" over their collection.

We drove to Seattle.  The plan was to play at the huge park they have near the space needle, but it was closed. So we took the monorail (with one other person) to Pike's Market.  The walk was way too long and we about killed my mom.  The kids' favorite was the pig, they thought the gum wall was gross.  Then we walked back and by the time we returned our parking was up and Olive (and I) were ready for naps.

The first Starbucks.

The monorail transformer??

Space Needle

The kids all talked about which toys they wanted to play with once we got to grandma and grandpa's.  They have some cool and different toys than we have.

Noah also created an escape room while he was visiting.  My mom off-handly told Autumn "oh, next time you're here we'll have to do it" not knowing we were coming. So I recreated it with some modifications. I'm glad the big kids enjoyed it since, even with Noah's help it was a lot of work.

Once we got home we had a birthday dinner (breakfast) for Grandma Linda and let grandma and grandpa "ooo" and "ahhh" over their summers long work.
 

Violet and Maverick's teacher sent me these pictures from the first day.

Lark and I working on a kindergarten workbook.  She is very intellectual and is quite the sponge.

Lark picked out these new tennis shoes and kept asking to wear them.  She was very frustrated I wouldn't let her wear her "school shoes" before school started.

August 31st First day of school. In person, masks required all day, no drinking fountains, temperature checks, health questionnaire screenings, assigned seating at lunch.  Lots of new rules but since Autumn loves rules and Maverick and Violet don't know any different it has worked out just fine!

Maverick doesn't watch or play Pokemon, but was very excited to pick this outfit out.

Autumn picked out and changed her first day of school outfit out a few different times.  She and her BFF decided to do their hair the same, but her friend "forgot".

It was unfortunately cold the first day of school as you can tell from Violet's face.

Violet and Maverick are in the same kindergarten class and Autumn is in third grade.