This summer we will...

Summer has been fine.  I'd even say summer has been great so far.  I have managed to strike a comfortable balance between coming up with engaging activities for the kids and giving them time to be bored and entertain themselves.

We spend a lot of time down at the pool or at friend's pools.  Which makes a crazy mess out of the girls hair...


Some of our dearest friends are moving back east this summer so we've been trying to pack in a lot of play dates with them.


We made flubber and cake pops.  Flubber was so much fun we had to make it twice.  We have enough borax to make it a million times...school glue is harder to keep on hand.


Cake pops were not so successful.  It was a pain in the butt trying to dip those cakey-frostingey-delicious things in the candy coating without having the cake ball fall off the stick.  I think there were more complete cake pops than mess-ups but I can't be sure.  You can see a plate full of mess-ups in the bottom left of the picture (down there).  They were delicious.  I am pretty sure, to be a cake pop expert you have to commit to gaining a few extra pounds (like 100 extra pounds...).  I think I'll leave aspirations of cake pop perfection for someone else.

Colter is having a blast with all his siblings around.  However, even with all these fun kids around Colter still does his best to be my shadow--which can make daily chores like dishes or making dinner kind of hard.  Good thing he likes to hang out in a sink full of dirty dishes and eat soap.

It is really just water in an empty soap bottle.  

One of our neighbors got a dog this summer and every day the kids meet our neighbor outside to pat and play with their dog.  My kids want a dog soooooo much...have I mentioned how I am not an animal person?  Our neighbor's dog is going to have to keep them happy...forever...

So, there are some of the things keeping us entertained this summer.  I do not have any pictures of the hundreds of drawings and letters Adell has made.  She sends a note off to Grandma Claudia every week.  I do not have any pictures of the blanket/couch cushion forts the kids have made (every. single. day.).   I do have some pictures of the few outings we have made...but I'll save those for their own post.  Summer is awesome.