This week, some arborists came to cut down trees around the electric wires. They cut some of our tree, and some of other peoples trees, and made a lot of big sticks. We watched them for the better part of an hour noticing how the cherry picker part went up and down, and how the wood chipper worked. Then I decided that we could ask them for some big sticks to make a tent out of and the gentleman working the wood chipper was very amenable and cleaned up 8 big sticks for us from the trees. We took them out back and made a teepee from an old sheet and they colored on the sheet with marker. It took a lot of self control on Ewan’s part not to just knock the whole thing down, he’s still really into destruction these days. We ate our snack in it.

A cousin of ours was kind enough to host a party at a local hotel for family this past weekend. The kids had fun decimating the buffet and walking around the hotel exploring the dancing competition that was going on simultaneously. I managed to catch them all walking by each other for a brief moment as we tried to herd them out of the place.

ok so I’m cheating a bit, this is from the previous week, but I edited it tonight!

Every summer we’ve been going to cape cod, and for a number of those summers now I’ve taken the kids out early one morning to the beach with some breakfast in hand from a local donut shop to take some pictures (and let everyone else sleep in the quiet). We’ve been going in July lately and so to really get up early enough to be up for sunrise we’d have to be moving WAY earlier than I’d ever want to be. But we got lucky this morning at a semi-normal time of 6:30 we got up and the sky had heavy but not complete cloud cover which gave me some light but not too much and we had a hit. I’ve got tons of pictures from our trip but they’ll be doled out slowly as I manage to make it happen and edit them. For now, here’s them early on the beach in their own clothes, handily ignoring that my purpose is to take pictures of them in a lovely setting. This was a new tiny little beach but very close to the house and it worked out great.

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.

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.

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.

For Christmas this year we ‘gave’ my dad a coupon for 6 months of snack delivery service. I had looked at some online and then being stupefied by the prices decided that we could do a homemade version instead (which included many disclaimers, such as might not actually provide a snack, or it might be late). But indeed we did provide a snack each month, during said month, even if June’s snack was delivered today. This morning we made rice krispie treats, using the old style recipe that includes a whole stick of butter. The kids were excited to help make them. We left half plain, dipped a quarter in smashed (by Ewan) peanut M&Ms, and then dipped the last quarter in chocolate and put sprinkles on them because my girls like to put sprinkles on everything.

We almost live in the city, we’re only two blocks from Cambridge. But with three kids, we eat A LOT of food and this has become closer to a weekly rather than monthly trip for our family.

Last week I took a break, since my camera was ‘on break’ at Nikon. But we’re back in action now!