We bought this bounce house for Josie’s 2nd birthday party. It’s been used at almost every party ever since in addition to just random outdoor bounce times with friends and neighbors.

Yes this does take up pretty much our entire front yard, or back yard, but the kids find it attracts neighbors better in the front yard. And that’s our car sort of fixed in the background. It mostly looks better, but the door still doesn’t sound good and there’s some more paint and scratches we’ll be taking it back in for.

Josie has been enjoying some videos on artforkidshub.com and this one was of a pug. This picture also shows why we have the cut the corn off of Josie’s cob this summer with her lovely laugh!

Josie gave this picture to the lady next door who owns a pug/Chihuahua mix dog who was most appreciative.

Celia was not in the mood, it took a lot of work to get her to be even facing the camera. This was at Drumlin Farm to celebrate Ewan’s 2nd birthday! Josie said it was too bright to look outside, guess my old eyes aren’t as sensitive anymore. It was super hot and sunny, hence the sweat and sun hats. We’re in front of the pig barn. I set it up, my dad did the snapping for us.

One of Ewan’s favorite games to play lately is ‘goats’ in which he sticks himself or someone else behind a fence and then asks or gives pets and (pretend) food to the goats. We feed the goats at Wright-Locke Farm and it’s made quite an impression. This weekend we went to Drumlin Farm where we couldn’t feed the goats, but this goat sure knew that some excellent patters had just stepped up to the fence and put himself into prime position for lots of back rubbing.

For Josie’s 7th year around the sun, we continued to homeschool while she continued to develop her own interests throughout the year. Her favorite activities this year have been choir and gymnastics. She made it through the entire year of ballet, but was decidedly less enthusiastic about it once they started preparing for the recital and it became more repetitive. Choir has been a joy-bringing hour every week with singing and dancing and making new friends. We also did swimming and gymnastics, and as she’s gotten better at gymnastics she’s more excited about doing it. Swimming is merely a required event in our family.

This year it feels like Josie has really transitioned from being a younger child to being a full fledged kid. While she still plays with her younger siblings a lot of the time, she’s getting more frustrated with their lack of patience and communication skills. She also wants to try a lot of new things that she see’s as being for older kids such as having a bank account, gum, an allowance, and a longer leash in general with doing things. Mostly I think it’s working out well as she is a responsible kid, generally thinks things through and listens to our requests. She’s also more aware of comparing herself and those around her as to how everyone is doing. She can be pretty hard on herself at times so we’re trying to help her see that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.

At home you can often find Josie reading. She reads voraciously, often in the morning just upon waking up, and again later in the day sometimes after lunch when we all need a bit of a break from one another. Some of her favorites generally focus on fairies, animals or magic of some sort. We’ve been reading a fun series of fractured fairy tales called “Whatever After”. I have to keep a steady supply of books for her each week from the library she’s easily going through 5 to 10 chapter books a week depending on their thickness. I think she can read more challenging material than she’s currently choosing, but the challenge is in finding more rich reading that doesn’t focus on dating or scary topics or isn’t just all about school.

Josie otherwise plays a lot of pretend with dress up, the dolls and anything else she sees around for props. She’s also still very much into art projects, lately it’s been a lot of rainbows but she also loves to follow some online drawing lessons that we’ve found for drawing things like Anna, Elsa, rainbows, kittens and aliens. She’s also developed some great skills following building instructions for lego’s and other such toys. Giving her the space and time away from her siblings is the challenge. We’re really all going to enjoy having some more space soon. Josie reminds us every chance she gets that she wants her own room. We remind her that it won’t be happening any time soon.

Josie also enjoys cooking in the kitchen. She’s learned how to use a small pairing knife this year and will cut up broccoli and carrots for me and other softer vegetables and fruits sometimes. She can make her own cookies except for putting them in and out of the oven, and made some for her cousin Abby just last week.

She’s frustrated that a few of her friends have moved away lately and while they’re not totally out of our lives, they’re not nearly as convenient and frequent a fixture in them as they once were. She’s also been loosing teeth! Her first one went down the drain as she was eating and didn’t realize that it wasn’t a piece of food that was in her mouth.

Josie continues to be a big talker and will narrate and share everything going on in her head, in the car and around the dinner table. We’re working on reminding her to give other people a chance to speak as well.

She’s looking forward to starting soccer this fall, returning to choir and continuing with gymnastics. In general Josie will help out around the house when asked and will even pitch in when she sees something that needs to be done. But the cries of ‘that’s not fair’ have been rather frequent lately as she spies the world for more injustice. We’ll try to keep that spirit alive to fight for others in the world suffering true injustice. And I’ll try to cut the servings up equally and continue to give up my share to make things even out.

• Size/weight: 8, ~51″ tall
• Favorite foods: cheese, pasta, dessert
• Favorite toy: art supplies
• Favorite book: Whatever After series
• Favorite activity: playing with her friends
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8:15; gets up about 6:30
• New skill: good handstands and cartwheels
• Teeth: Lost 5 so far
• Literacy: devouring books

Today we had lots of physical activity. In the afternoon Google took us on a summer outing to SkyZone for fun on trampolines. The kids jumped for almost two hours and also ate lots of snacks and sandwiches. The menu was basically designed for Celia, they had tomato and mozzarella bites on a skewer that she could shovel into her mouth as fast as she could chew. Then she took a whole other plate home of them to eat for dinner. Above you see them all just after Jordi won a dodgeball game on the trampolines. Then after our time bouncing we went to see Jordi’s softball team eek out a close win in a high scoring game where Jordi got two triples. After the trampoline park, the kids were actually willing to sit mostly still for an hour and a half!

The trains have been in the basement for a while, so when I brought them up everyone was excited to have a turn to play with them. Sadly the needs of a 7 year old to set things up just-so and the clutziness of her younger siblings when walking around don’t go so well together. Josie tried to work on it while Ewan was napping some more, but he did appreciate the nice track she made.

So a few months back, like mid-April, Jordi’s brother and his girlfriend came to visit us! They are very chill visitors and mostly just hang out with us doing our regular thing. They first came in and we took them to Josie’s choir rehearsal since it was that afternoon and they got to see her enjoy her music lessons. Then we enjoyed some easy dinner at home with everyone. Since it’s been a few months I am now sadly getting spotty on which day we did what, but one day we took them to Google offices to see the sights and enjoy some lunch with Jordi. Then they headed into town, I think this was all on Monday. Saturday we had swim lessons in the morning and they took the opportunity to relax without the craziness of kids for a few hours. One of the days we went to the zoo!

Don’t they look great with three insta-kids! I like how Josie is wearing a t-shirt and Javi has a hat and scarf on. That’s April for us around here, we’re ready to break out the tshirts!

I remember having a lot of fun, and particularly in the evening we played Cards Against Humanity which was hilarious. We’ve had the game a while, but hadn’t really found the right company to play it with until now. Hope they’ll come visit again soon!

Here’s us outside our trip to Canobie Lake Park this year which was sponsored by Jordi’s parents as Christmas presents! We had a blast, perfect weather, not many lines and lots of rides. Ewan refused to go on any rides, although we dragged him on the carousel and the antique cars (against much protest). He mostly loved to watch the huge Boston Tea Party boat come splashing down with a huge wave.