summer snapshots

This summer was, by far, the craziest one ever!  Trying to get our house ready to sell, building a new house, having a visit from my parents, having the boys out of school and home all day, and just having 4 (!) kids in general, including a baby is just insane.  I've never been so busy in my entire life. Sometimes just answering phone calls and emails from the realtor, and the mortgage office, and the builder, and a subcontractor, and the builder again, felt like a part time job.  So, needless to say, we didn't have a typical summer where we enjoy having no schedule, we can play all day, do art projects, make treats, go swimming, and do whatever we feel like doing on any particular day.  But, we did try to make the most of the situation we were in and enjoy the warm weather while it was here as best as we could.  Here are a few random pictures from our summer. 

 One thing that we tried to really do as much as we could was playing outside in our yard, because 1) There are only so many months here when you can do that, and 2) our new house doesn't exactly have a yard--unless you call a bunch of dirt and some weeds a yard.  I really miss being able to tell the kids to play outside, and I'm excited for next summer when we will actually have grass to play on.

 Krew "read" a book to this adorable little dog at the library.

 Funny story time:  whenever my mom comes here to visit, we eat at Hu Hot.  I think we went a long time ago when she was here once, and the boys decided it needed to be a tradition.  Anyway, she came out in August, just after we moved, to help us unpack, so one evening we headed to Hu Hot (think stir-fry if you haven't heard of Hu Hot before).  Anyway, as we were going down the line, picking what ingredients we wanted to add to our stir-fry, we saw these little octopus tentacles.  I was joking and asked Krew if he would like some.  He was so excited to try one!  Now, this is my child who won't eat eggs (hasn't really eaten any eggs since birth), won't try oatmeal (never eaten a spoonful of the stuff ever), and will have a panic attack if you suggest he try popcorn, even if it's covered in chocolate or caramel or cheese.  So, I was shocked that he wanted to try octopus, and even more shocked when he loved it, and went back 3 more times for more tentacles. Three year-olds are an interesting bunch, aren't they?!

 Of course, we had to go to Bay Beach a few times, even if we didn't go as much this summer as we usually do.  This picture is blurry, but it was Everly's first ride (except Disneyland when she was 5 months old), and she absolutely loved it!

 We went to the county fair, where Krew got to pet this brand new calf.

 Another day at Bay Beach

 My four kiddos on a bench

 Bart and I took the twins on a date one day before school started.  We went to a trampoline park (I'll have to get the pictures off of Bart's phone of that), and while we were there, Bart climbed this rock wall.  Then, we went and had sandwiches at Tom and Chee.  It was so much fun to hang out with the big boys without having to worry about the little ones.  

 The boys have a new hobby, probably brought on by the lack of yard to play in the past month.  They have taken up folding origami Star Wars characters.  They fold them, watch YouTube videos to learn how to fold them, and even create tutorials of their own to post to YouTube.  It's been fun watching them get better, work together, and be so excited about something for more than a few days.  It didn't take long for Krew to join in the folding fun, and he's even created some video tutorials too (which are as hilarious as you would think they would be!).  Of course, we may have consumed a small forest worth of paper the past month and my house is overflowing with these crumpled folded quarter sheets of paper.  Seriously, I think they may be taking over my house! 

Origami Darth Maul and Yoda