June

June, the beginning of a summertime that seems to stretch out before us with an offering of some well earned freedom.  Here’s how we spent some of it.

Kaitlyn embraces the idea of re-using and re-cycling by taking this old tube from wrapping paper and turning it into a VERY long and VERY funny set of binoculars… good for spying and having plenty of adventures… one of which led her to pretending to be a baby for a little while!

We have about one month each year to spend with these lovely lilies.  The month of exquisite orange and yellow blooms began a little bit early this year and ended before the month of June was over.  We made the most of enjoying them.

The month began on a trip to NY and some outdoor fun, a time when it still felt comfortable to wear a light sweatshirt if you wanted and the earth around us was still a lush green without aid of a hose.

Household cats enjoyed screened windows, an occasional escape out a back door and Oscar was brilliantly grateful to have us return home again.  He was rescued from abandonment just a few months ago and acted as though he thought a weekend at home alone might be yet further abandonment.  One evening right after we returned home he plopped himself in the middle of the laundry folding party I was having on the couch as I watched the news.  As the news anchor was reporting on the Kentucky Derby focusing on the winning horse I realized that Oscar was watching the news with me… INTENTLY!  He was watching the horses!  He must miss seeing horses on his old farm.  And to prove that we would never ever want to abandon him again, well, he caught us a mouse!

Tristan loved having freedom to play computer games AND he found a love of reading finally.  He read the first Harry Potter book in June, is halfway through the second and shows no signs of slowing down.  YES!

Many meals were focused on the abundance of fresh foods currently in season.  Mmmm!

One morning we spent indoors playing with the castle.  We made up all sorts of stories and adventures for the royal family, its Dragon as well as the forest folk living nearby and before we knew it TWO HOURS had passed and it was time to make some lunch!

Kaitlyn and Nathan made some letters and pictures to send to their cousin Porter.  Porter was being sorely missed after a very brief visit with him at the beginning of the month.

Lots of stampers were used and a walk was taken to mail the letters to the new big brother who unfortunately lives thousands of miles away.  Nathan had lots of questions about how the letter gets to Porter’s house.  Nathan thought maybe I could put a stamp onto his forehead and he could just get passed from mailman to mailman until he got to his cousin’s house!  We both laughed when we talked about squishing Nathan into an envelope.  If only it were that easy!

Hurray!  Time for friends!  Kaitlyn had a friend over and they enjoyed lunch in the backyard as well as playing all over the yard and house.  Her friend is used to having brothers, big and little, hanging around.

Cub Scout Day Camp occurred for a week in June and hosted a family night.  Tristan was pleased to show off his BB Gun skills.  He’s pretty good.  His neighbor didn’t have such good aim and hit Tristan’s target more than once!  I was pleased, after hearing so many negative reports from his school teacher this year, to see Tristan with my own eyes being friendly yet focused and following directions with no trouble… especially when safety was involved.  Besides rain on the first day of camp I am very happy that the weather was great that week.

We had a picnic that night at the camp with homemade hot pocket sandwiches that I made and wrapped in foil along with fresh crunchy vegetables and sweet juicy watermelon.

One highlight of the evening was the skit that each den puts together.  Tristan’s den actually did two for us… One was a funny, catchy lemonade song, Tristan in the middle on the left pic.  The other was a skit about paying to see the ugliest man in the world whose face is hidden by a bandana.  The ugliest man was Tristan (under the blue bandana) and the other boys paid to take a peek.  The last boy lifted the bandana to take a peek but scared Tristan with his ugliness and so Tristan screamed in fear and ran away… Very silly.

Here is Tristan on the playground at the end of the evening along with two boys in his den he made friends with and also Nathan and Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn lined up numbers and letters on the fridge along with some letters and we ended up solving puzzles in equations where a letter was put in place of a number and you had to figure out what number the letter should really be.  When my older girls walked in and saw Kaitlyn doing algebra they were scared!  Pictured on the right is a NY style white cheese pizza that Rick made in an attempt to recreate a certain pizza we are missing.  The pizza was good, but it wasn’t the same sauce and it wasn’t eaten on a breezy dock overlooking sailboats and canoes on the cool water either.

My baker boy got in on the kitchen act every chance he got and especially when the rolling pin was involved.  He wanted to “do it himself” and so I let him.  He’s pretty confident in his kitchen abilities.

We went to a nearby park with some friends and learned about owls of Ohio.  There were three in the room with us and plenty of activities around the theme of owls.

Nathan and his friend Isaac, who are just three months apart in age, enjoyed putting together a lunch tray for the owls.  On first glance in the basket of food the boys had to choose from I thought to myself “that’s not food” but then I realized that the animals in the basket would be favorites of the owl for any meal of the day… or night!  The boys had a good time.

There were coloring pages to do… and Tristan enjoyed piecing a huge puzzle together with his friends Peter, Michael and Joseph.  Ah!  Boy heaven!

Nathan and Issac’s big brother Joseph both fit into a tire the size of an owl’s nest.  Then Nathan enjoyed doing a puzzle all by himself.

My friend and I were amazed that between the two of us we have 11 children!  My oldest was at school however so we only had 10 with us.

Our annual pilgrimage to Chuck E. Cheese with good report cards was taken.  One child had straight A’s and the other two were close behind.  Kaitlyn can hardly wait to bring her report card in for extra tokens next year.  More amazing to me than the letter grades on their report cards, all three kids had 100% attendance for the entire 4 quarters of the school year!  We had some illness, but it was always during school breaks this time around. 

Nathan was the perfect age to go and enjoy all that Chuck E Cheese has to offer.  Tristan loved having his favorite pizza (“except for yours, Mom” he assured me) and Haley and Kaitlyn partnered up to share game tickets.

Nathan loved the rides he took with Chuck E, Haley won a whole mess of tickets and Nathan pretended to be a policeman coming to get us!

Last token… spent to ride the musical clock.

Kaitlyn enjoyed a horse race as the boys raced around the playground high over our heads.  They got my attention as we were sitting briefly at the table sipping on our sodas.

Here’s my happy crew of five around one of Nathan’s favorite rides.

I am convinced that brothers, no matter how far apart in age, will wrestle!  They love it!

The month grew drier… and HOTTER!  No rain water outside, Scruffles made sure to check.  Then as the heat was on Sandy got a drink every chance she got and finally it was so hot we wouldn’t let her outside.  She is a wanderer and we didn’t want her wandering too far during all of our heat warnings and smog alerts.  Spooky still got outside occasionally.  But he stays in the backyard always.  It wouldn’t take Spooky long to decide, in that long black fur, that he was on the wrong side of the door.  After only five minutes we’d see him outside panting and go out to rescue him.  

And as the calendar started thinking about change once again the girls got their “mission calls” (for Girl’s Camp) in the mail turning their attention toward the excitement that July is sure to bring.