The End of Summer--Weeks 10, 11, and 12

The last few weeks of summer have been more of the same--lessons, playing with friends, pretending to keep the house clean, and really just slow days, enjoying our time together and hoping the kids get bored enough to want to go back to school!

This is Bree on the homemade wood swing that is at Kai's piano teacher's house.  Yes, it scares me!

And this is Finn on the swing next to it!  Bree can't handle this swing, but Finn likes the regular swing, too, so we have to take turns.

We pulled out the slip 'n slide one day and I had three kids staring out and not sure how to make it work.  They never really got the hang of it.

Monument is growing!  We are getting all kinds of new stores including Horseshoe donuts.  I found a coupon for half-off and the week they opened so we went to try it out.  This donuts are delicious and heavy.  Most of them are cake donuts which are my favorite, but not Reid's.

We've also been doing the last minute doctor appointments.   Here Finn is at the eye doctor.  He was making the funniest faces and cracking me up.  He even cheated if he couldn't see what he needed to.  His eyes are doing just fine.

On August 2nd, our friends Sawyer and Jude came to play for a good part of the day.  Their dad was having surgery and so we get them entertained.  Their mom brought some water balloons with them so we blew them all up.  The kids had a blast, except Finn, who doesn't like it when you throw one at him.  We also got out the slip n' slide again that day but unfortunately with so many kids it met it's demise that day.  

Bree had an ice skating lesson that day, so this is what my car looked like.  Poor Kai, we couldn't fit a booster back there for him so he had to ride like that.  I know...it's not safe.  We don't do it often but there was no way around it this day.

After ice skating, the boys had swim lessons.  So, I had 4 kids on the sidelines while one kid was in the water.  Yes, it was madness.

At least Jude and Bree played well together and weren't totally loud and crazy!

Finn had his quarterly CF clinic on August 1st (LONG day!) and he was put on a round of antibiotics for a sinus infection.  His culture came back with Staph (again) so this should do the trick.  Actually, it only took one dose and he has been clear ever since!  You gotta love it when the medication actually works.  Now the hard part is continuing it for three weeks when he is doing so great!

Can you guess whose head this is?  Did you guess Finn?  If so, you are right!  On Thursday the 4th he was doing cartwheels at Walmart while I was checking out.  I had told him to stop and to come stand by the cart but I was also at the self-checkout and needed to keep the checking going so I couldn't enforce it.  Well, he cartwheeled his head right into the shopping cart.  It bleed a bit but didn't seem bad.  I took him home to clean it up and was torn as to what to do.

After cleaning it up, it looked like this.  (The finger is to give an idea on size.)  I had the kids sit still and watch ET while I called the pediatrician for recommendations.  It wasn't deep at all and I didn't think he needed stitches, but I also didn't know how I was going to keep it clean on his head, or keep it from getting re-injured.  After ET and lunch we headed to Urgent Care at the advice of the nurse.  Urgent care glued it up which is what I was hoping for.  Now he has a glue stuck in his hair and I have no idea what to do.  Good thing his hair will comb over the spot and no one will know when he goes back to school.  But i have no idea how long it's going to take for this glue to come out.  And I'm not ready to cut it out....yet.

Bree's final ice skating lesson was on Tuesday the 9th with Ms. Stephanie.  She was the only kid in her class so she had a private lesson!  It was so cute to watch her with her teacher and to see how much better she was doing.  It kills me that she won't skate or do any of the skills she learns in her classes outside of class.  She wants more classes but we are going to take a break for now. She's still way too young to invest any money in lessons of any type (in my opinion).  But during this last lesson she was able to practice skills from three different levels, which was great.  In this picture she is working on walking on the toe picks.

While Bree did her lesson, Finn and I skated in the open skate.  We held hands and just went around and around.  Kai sat in the stands and read a book.  

Catching bubbles at the end of her class

The view from the Air Force Academy (where Bree takes lessons) is beautiful.  This shot was taken as I was driving away from the field house and it really doesn't do it justice.  I love where we live!  

To celebrate national S'mores day on the 10th, we made s'mores!  The kids were very excited to roast the marshmallows, but none of them wanted to actually eat it.  The only kid who enjoyed eating his s'more was Kai.  And then Reid and I got to eat a lot of leftovers.

Doesn't it look like she likes it?!  It's an act!

On Thursday the 11th, we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science with Sawyer and Jude.  It was Sawyer's birthday and so it was fun to spend a few hours with them there.  We bought ourselves an annual pass there this year (instead of the zoo) so we are excited to spend more time there and explore it again.  We haven't been there in more than a year.

Finn was soaking, dripping wet after playing here.  So much so that we had to cut our day short and head home.  Which was good because Bree needed a nap.

On Friday the 12th, we had Kai's friend Nathan spend a good part of the day with us.  His mom had taken his two older siblings to the temple so he got to hang out with us.  After playing at the house for nearly two hours, we headed to Fountain Creek Nature Center.  The last time I had been there was years ago with my friend, Laurel, who I thought about and missed while we were there.  We explored the visitor center (where we met up with Sawyer and Jude again) and then had lunch before walking the loop around the lake.  We were a crazy sight with 5 boys and little Bree.

Sawyer (and his mom actually) are much braver than me and my boys, as they had fun in this field of grasshoppers and even caught one.

And of course the boys had to take a turn climbing this cottonwood tree.  That is, all of the boys climbed it except for Kai.

While eating our picnic lunch, Kai came up to me and told me he had a loose tooth.  I told him that was fine and just to keep eating.  Two minutes later he came back and said the tooth was coming out.  Umm....buddy, next time you have a loose give mom more than 2 minutes notice.  He was chewing a bite of food and spit his tooth out in his hand.  Yuck!  It's hard to see which of the missing teeth in this picture is the one that just came out, but it was an upper left lateral incisor (yes, I did just have to look it up).

Finally, on Saturday the 13th we had friends come to dinner.  I was desperately to make my house clean and presentable and so I headed to Michael's to commit to buying something for this nook.  After nearly 9 years in this house it was time to bite the bullet and put something here.  This is what I found.  I told the cashier it was just too early for fall in my opinion but she didn't agree.  They didn't have any other arrangements that I liked that would fit this space, so I guess our house is now starting to get ready for fall.  Which, with school starting tomorrow, would make sense I guess.  I'm just not sure I'm ready for this new season.  It's the last day of summer vacation today, so now I'm getting off of this computer and I'm going to be with my kids.  Heaven knows I will miss them tomorrow!