Parker's garage sale finds

Took Parker garage saleing this morning.  Although he wasn't feeling very well, weezy from an asthma attack, he was still in a good mood and found stuff that made him happy.  We met Gabe and Rielee at Kaiser when we were done so he could see the doctor and get an inhaler. 
He bought:
a  new briefcase - $7
a new, tags still on it, wallet - $2
big bunch of used golf balls - $1.50
binoculars - $1

Rielee's broken wrist

Rielee was trying to use Parker's old roller blades on Sunday afternoon, and she wore them over to Auna's and then somehow, whoops, she took off out of control down their driveway and fell, injuring her wrist.  It was sore but everyone thought it would probably be fine in time.  Well, this morning she was still not using it very much so Mom took her to doctor and found out she has a "buckle" fracture of her radius.  She will get a cast on Thursday that she will have to wear for 3-4 weeks.  She is looking forward to getting a blue cast, her favorite color.

Twins overnight

 Tea parties are going to be a popular summer event.  They had Papa attend this one in the morning, I got to play the part of the waitress and bring them plate after plate of banana bread.  Ava, Papa and Rielee wanted "visible" butter on theirs, Harper has to have invisible butter.

 While the girls were napping, Rielee baked cakes in her Easy Bake oven.   Since I thought all of her mixes might be kind of old, we found a recipe on-line using 3 tbsp. of cake mix and a tbsp. of milk and that worked great.   She served 2 of her cakes at the afternoon tea party. 

Tea party

Today was our last regular day watching the twins since their Mom and Dad are now on summer break.   The first day of summer brought sunshine so it was a perfect time for them to have a little outdoor tea party.  Auna taught the girls the proper way to do a toast and say "cheers", and they drank cup after cup of "tea", actually just water.  They had a great time.

Auna pointed out this perfect long ringlet in Harper's hair

Rielee went down to Cathy's in the morning to play with Jillian and Bridget, then they all came up and played at the playfort and in the sandbox.  We let them play with the hose and they were at first making sand soup but then it turned into carrot soup.  Playtime ended when Harper peed in the sandbox, all that "tea" caught up her. 

After naptime, we took Ava and Harper to Barb and Mike's, where they took off running happily to the backyard to play.   We were already missing them before we had driven a block.  Fortunately, Rielee spent the night with us, so we had her to keep us company in the evening.  She and I played "beachball volleyball" outside until the mosquitos chased us in.

Combo party

 This was Harper this morning, elated at her "new" green undies...the girl really loves everything green, and after one too many battles with her over the lack of green undies, it dawned on me that I could simply dye some for her.  Problem solved.  

Harper and Dad

 We had a birthday party tonight at Papa Pete's for Rielee, who turned 7 yesterday, Charb, yikes, he is 40 today, and Macee, who will be 17 tomorrow. 

Laury made Charb a "Super 40" cake, similar to many Superman cakes he had growing up.  Rielee and Macee wanted a jello cake.  The kids had lots of fun playing in the game room,  the little girls spent lots of time on the merry-go-round and other rides.

Ava's allergies/Rielee's Chicken coop scare

Harper and Ava on Faher's Day

Poor Ava suffered with swollen eyes and a runny nose all weekend.  Mom and Dad took her to the doctor this afternoon, it was confirmed that she has allergies and gave her some medication.  

Rielee asked if she could pick up cones for me today to earn some money.  When I asked her what she was saving for, she said she was saving for college.  She picked up 200 cones, earning $2.00, took it home and put it in her piggy bank.

Rielee also had quite a scare today.  First of all, after the twins left, she wanted to go out and dig some worms to feed to her chickens.  We found half a dozen or so and took them over.  She gave them to the chickens out in their yard, then I sent her inside the coop to check on their feed and water.  I'm standing near the door and she reached into the bucket with the cracked corn in it-and there was a mouse sitting on the bottom of the bucket!  She jumped up, looked at me, screamed "A MOUSE!" screamed some more, ran by me, dove out the door and took off running and jumping up and down!   I got rid of the mouse and we found a coffee can to keep the corn in so the mice can't get in it.  Once we got back to my house she laughed and said she was so scared of that mouse that she wet her pants.

Washing cars/Riel's game

It was a beautiful sunny day so we were able to be outside for most of it.  They got some quality time in the sandbox, did lots of swinging and got their cars out and decided they wanted to wash them.  They especially like the hose and the rinsing part.

Since they were spending the night with us, we took them to watch Rielee's game.  They spent their time playing in the gravel, running back and forth to say hi to Rielee in the dugout, then ended up sitting and playing with a group of kids. They were so dirty that we had to give them a bath before bed.

Rielee played really well and had some good hits.

School's out

 Laury showed up for coffee this morning with Emmy, Will and Auna.  Uncle is trying to make Will into a coffee drinker and gives him about a quarter of a cup every morning so he can develop a taste for it, since he will probably need it once he starts college.
Will is a good sport and drinks the coffee even though I know he hates it. 

Ava and Harper got to play with Jillian and Bridget this morning.  The played with the kitchen and dollhouse and then Jillian got their two play tents out.  She also brought out some blankets to put in the tents, which kind of upset Ava and Harper because they thought it meant they might have to take a nap, I had to explain that Jillian was pretending. 
Rielee got out of school at 10:30, so we went back home so the twins could play with her, then Rielee went to play with Jillian and Bridget while the twins went down for their real naps.  After naptime, Parker showed up to hang out, play some basketball and eat lunch with the girls.  They had the potato soup with roasted garlic that they all love.   Em, Will and Auna came through again, too, with all of them playing ball out by the playfort for awhile.  It was like old times, except they are all big now...

Scary woods

Having fun in the playfort

Goodness, they're still wearing winter boots in JUNE

We went for a walk this afternoon down into the woods and Harper got very scared.  She said "these are scary bushes" and "there are monsters here".  They both stayed close to me and hung on tight to my hands.  Then Ava found a long fern and they started a tug-of-war fight over it and forgot all about being scared. 
Harper's imagination cracked me up today.  She called me into the playroom and told me her stuffed dog had pooped on the carpet in several places, which she carefully pointed out.  When I started to walk in the room she yelled "don't step in it, I've got to clean it up!", and got a rag and pretended to clean it up.

Friday-Will's graduation

It rained so hard right before Will's graduation ceremony began, it was awful.  All the seats out on the field were wet, and empty.  But then the clouds lightened a little and people started drying them off and filling them up.  It stayed dry right until the end and then rained just a little.  Afterwards, the sun came out just long enough for people to get some nice pictures, perfect timing. 

Riel's talent show/recital

Rielee played the piano at the school's talent show today.  She did a great job.  She really had fun when, at the end of the show, each class got to come out on the floor and dance.  She was all over the place, doing cartwheels and flips, really getting into it.

 
 Ava, sporting a puffed up eye, Rielee, and Harper after the show.   Ava had run into the wall this morning but her eye didn't look bad until after her nap.  Rielee had her piano recital tonight, and again, did a great job. 

Rainy morning playdate/Rielee's twisters

 Bridget and Jillian came up to play this morning.  The little girls were busy with toys while Jillian at first watched some cartoons before joining in.  They all got along quite well, as long as Bridget didn't touch  Ava or Harper's babies.  Fortunately, we had a spare baby she could play with.   Ava and Harper even let Bridget drink out of their sippy cups.

 I bought some large crayons for the girls and they loved them.  Much easier to grip, Ava did some great coloring, even filling in the center of the butterfly and flower.  Harper hasn't yet mastered her grip, but she draws pretty well anyway. 

 They learned a valuable lesson from Rielee today-how to make a silly face.

 After the girls left,  Rielee stayed with me for a little while.  We walked over to her house and she fed her chickens, then she wanted me to push her on the big swing.  She loves "twisters" and we always have to say the same thing when I twist her up:  I say "round and round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows, except Grandma", she sings the alphabet.  I asked her why and she told me that Auna told her she had to.  She had about a dozen twisters and didn't get dizzy or sick at all. 

Reader board

The girls had a great year of sports!

Ava-pretty in pink
As we were driving down the freeway this afternoon, Papa briefly ran over the rumple strip on the side of the road, Ava told him "Papa, you're driving bad!"

Puzzles

The girls wanted to try the 24-piece puzzles today.  They have lots of enthusiasm and not so much patience, however, and needed  help, so Papa helped Ava and I worked with Harper and it went pretty well. The last time we did these, I tried to help them both and that was a fiasco.  Harper wanted to do the ones with Scooby-Do and Pluto, of course. After putting together 3, we switched to the easier puzzles that they could do on their own. 

Will's graduation party

Will is graduating next week and had his graduation party yesterday.  I still find it hard to believe this can be happening, since it just seems like yesterday that he was a little boy, running around the neighborhood...

and now he has grown up to be a very handsome guy.

And these two, wow, weren't they were just 3 and 4 years old, playing with Pokemon and riding around in their little Jeeps? 

Timer went off!

Potty training is going really well with the twins-as long as we use the kitchen timer.  If you ask them to go potty without the timer having gone off,  they will often refuse.  But if the timer goes off, boy, they both yell "timer went off!" and run in the bathroom, no arguments at all.  And sometimes they don't even have to hear it, if we have forgotten to set the timer, Papa will just announce that the timer went off and they will respond the same way.