I scream, You Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream!

 I was SOOO tired last night and could not even stay awake for half of a movie, let alone blogging! My weeks are full and busy now and apparently I am old and get tired more easily;)

Yesterday I packed up my three kiddos, the baby and even one of our neighbors and headed out to a nearby park. It was a beautiful day, not too hot!

The baby fell asleep on the way there and slept the whole time. Here are the other four playing basketball with Eliana’s pink ball:) Look at her right in the middle of the fray!

I got the boys a new pair of jeans and a shirt for school and Samuel was dying to wear his. Because it has skateboards on it:) He’s easy to please!

Here’s Samuel thinking that he’s going to climb a fence to get a random, trapped ball of somebody’s. I nipped that one in the bud!

Here is Eliana showing Baby C some pictures in a book:) He just loves our kiddos and watches them closely. They get big smiles out of him, especially Samuel!

Today we had a really fun, relaxing family day, which we needed! Ben didn’t sleep well last night due to too late coffee-consumption (ha) so we left him slumbering and the kiddos and I hit a few garage sales looking for “treasures.” I didn’t really find anything that I was specifically looking for but we got a couple of small things~ a book, a $2 rug for the boys’ room, some shoes for E and a camping chair. Garage sales are fun!

Then we came up, ate lunch while Daddy got ready and we headed out to the splash park!

The boys took a few minutes to get brave enough to get all wet but they had SO much fun once they took the “plunge” if you will. Haha:) Eliana took a long time to get brave but she was having a blast!

Whoever invented splash parks was brilliant! Free summer fun!

There was this bucket that would fill up and dump water out. It took a LONG time for anyone to be brave enough for that! Here are the boys, back to back:) Ben even surprised us all and ran over and got dumped on to get cooled off, clothes and all!

Eliana kept running over to show us how wet (or not wet!) she was:)

Daddy and Samuel took a break to play catch, which Ben just LOVES to do! Samuel is getting really good!

I love that they can bond over baseball:)

Crazy Z-man. The other night at dinner he said, “Mommy, sometimes I wake up and there are monsters in my room and I yell and yell for you but no sound comes out of my mouth. I can’t hear myself!”

We all looked at him and I said, “Zakkai, that is a dream that you are having! Sometimes we have dreams like that, too. I have dreams that I am trying to run away from something and I can’t run; my legs won’t work.” (sidenote: I really HATE dreams like that!!!)

Zakkai protested, “NO, mommy! It isn’t a dream; it is real! I just don’t know why I can’t hear myself yell!” It took some convincing but I think we finally got him to believe it was just a dream!

We followed up our park fun with a little ice cream cone for the kiddos. We found a new place with cheap prices, which was nice. Sometimes ice cream places are SO expensive! This one was more than reasonable so we may go back. Nothing like an ice cream cone to put a smile on a child’s face!

Now I’m off to have my ice cream….

Peaches N’ Cream!

 Everyone here is baffled by the October-like weather. 60s and low 70s at the end of July?? Unheard of! Usually we are trapped inside by extreme temperatures, racking up air conditioning bills and dreaming of popsicles!

We took a really long walk this afternoon and it was just perfect out. The boys rode their scooters and we convinced a tired, under-napped Missy Girl to ride in her stroller. We’ve been thinking that it would be so fun to save up for bikes and go on family bike rides. My bike got stolen right after we moved to Chicago and we haven’t had one since. I can just picture Ben riding in front with Eliana in a little attached seat, the boys in the middle on their bikes and me being the caboose. I guess they say you never forget how to ride a bike. I wonder if that’s true….:)

Zakkai got out his guitar recently and it’s been a big hit around here! Samuel wants Ben to teach him how to play. This poor guitar only has 2 strings left on it but Ben can still use it to play some mean blues! Eliana decided to sit down right by Ben as he was playing and strum on “her” guitar:) (everything that she touches is “hers.” think we should nip that in the bud?)

The Blues Master:)

Samuel got a B&N gift card in the mail this week for his b-day so I took the boys this afternoon. Samuel chose a balloon animal making kit and a space book. This was our first attempt at a giraffe! Don’t laugh. I know it looks a little like a Dachshund and a Giraffe mix but it’s not a bad start, eh? Samuel just loves making things like this. His last thing he saved up for was an Origami set, which he just loves. I admit, I think it’s fun, too!

And last but not least, we decided to use some of our fresh peaches to make peach ice cream this weekend! Wow. It was SOOO good! Homemade ice cream rocks. It is so much fresher and richer so less of it satisfies you. This has to be some of the best I’ve made yet. Tonight, the flavor was even better, which was hard to believe was possible! We are thinking of making a new flavor of ice cream each weekend for our treat. What flavor do you think we should try next?