This is the kind of post that happens when you 1. Continue to Take Pictures and 2. Compose Stuff (in your head) for a blog, but 3. Do not actually get around to doing the posts. This should have been 5 separate topics. Therefore, I will try to split them up a bit for easy reading :)

Post 1: Crazy for Crazy Bones
So...I had never seen or heard of crazy bones until I went to our favorite toy store with the boys one day. I was intrigued by this big display of carrying bags, tins, a game book etc....but I still could NOT tell what these things were all about. That's because the actual "bones" come in bags like trading cards and you can't see what they are until you open them. I bought a pack, which contained 3 little guys, to investigate. The "original" game is based on an ancient Roman children's game, played with actual bones, called tabas. I checked out the crazy bones web site and it turns out that there are tons of ways to play with these things. We pull them out every few days and make up a new game (or race them down the matchbox car track or....um....carry them around in a variety of containers <-- Aiden). Here is a game we made up called "Roll a Bone". First, line up the crazy bones on the floor...(aren't they funny!)

The older boys went to a summer camp in the mornings all last week. It was a rough start for both of them. Logan wasn't keen on participating, decided camp was boring and refused to make the craft on Monday. We talked about how fun is often about attitude and that if you THINK something is fun, it's much easier to have fun doing it. If you THINK something is boring, well of course you're going to dislike it. After our talk, Logan decided to think that camp was fun. He participated in all the activities and was excited to go each day. He liked it so much, they are going again next week for "Super Hero Week". Yeah Logan!

Aiden's issue stemmed mostly from the fact that he was at camp with ALL the neighborhood kids including his best friend, and personality twin, AJ. Aiden got written up the first day for wrestling around with "another camper". Since that is pretty much how Aiden and AJ communicate with each other (a big bear hug that disintegrates into falling on the ground...and actually doesn't involve much wrestling...), I figured that "the other camper" was probably AJ. He went to camp for the rest of the week with a list of things he couldn't do. He would name them for me on the way "1. no wrestling....etc" He did a great job and had a "much improved" stamp of approval from the girls running the camp by the end of the week.

On Thursday, I told the boys that I would have a special surprise for them if they both had a good day at camp (which means getting a sticker from the counselors). When they proudly showed me their dinosaur stickers at pick-up, I happily showed them the 2 cans of shaving cream I bought at Walgreen's. After lunch, we dragged the wagon, Brady's car and the cozy coupe around to the back yard to play car wash for a little bit. Ella and AJ came down...we even brought out some spray bottles left over from the get messy party. I was surprised at how fast you can use up two cans of shaving cream!

Post 3: Matchy-Matchy Me

Why am I compelled to make everything match? When I do stuff like this, it makes me think of team sports, pictures of ballet recital outfits....and cheerleaders. Like..is this a trait left over from my own cheerleading days when we all had to wear the exact same bow the exact same way?? ....or is this a god-given trait and potentially one of the reasons why I was drawn to cheerleading?? The bottom line is that I like to match stuff...and by "stuff," I mean my children...and by "match" I think I mostly mean coordinate....cause doing all the same color is too confusing. These are the morning milk cups ready for filling.
Post 4: Camp Invasion

As mentioned previously, the boys went to summer camp last week. Of the 10 campers in the class, 7 of them were from our neighborhood. On the last day, the parents were invited to come for a picnic.

I was dying laughing because my boys never eat hot dogs in buns. Aiden attacked his from the top...like a hamburger. I better get started on proper dog-eating form if they want to represent at the Cubs game next month!
Auntie Denna was in for the day. She came to the picnic too!! Here she is smooching crazy-hot-dog-eatin' Aiden.I took about 20 group shots of our gang...and I have to post several of them because they're pretty funny. Here are the kids sitting relatively still: Now the exodus from the table. This is Ella yelling "Camp is fun!!" AJ jumps off the back, Aiden jumps off the front. Logan yells and preps for his jump.Ella jumps (Aiden and AJ are actually now back ON the table, ready to jump again...Logan is gone...Maddie poses...Jack observes) Jack jumps. Aiden and AJ eye their next move, Maddie slides off the end. Auntie Denna and Brady play around. A few more minutes of fun before we all head home.
Post 5: Family Fun Magazine Rocks

I used to get a magazine each month called Wondertime, which I totally adored. It wasn't about developmental milestones or how to get your kids to sleep...it was about life as a mom or dad and about how to help your kids grow as real people with real experiences...plus it had totally cool activities, crafts and recipes. I almost cried the day I got an email explaining that Wondertime would no longer be published and that I would be receiving, in its place, a magazine called Family Fun. Well...Family Fun rocks too! Same great stuff....same basic feel!! I've been getting the magazine for a little while now. This month's issue came last week. I already have a list of things we need to try. #1 on list were the sponge balls....marketed, if you will, as somewhat permanent water balloons. Did someone say water? Rockin' awesome! I was at the store the next day for supplies!

Instructions: take 3 sponges (mix up colors if you like...for fun). Cut each into 5 strips length wise (seems like it won't work, but it does). Oh, and they need to be fresh from the pack, like sort of damp. I had a pack that was dry so I just remoistened them, then stuck them in a zip lock for a while before cutting. Here, Aiden and Auntie Denna prep the sponges! I bought 4 packages of 4 so we made 5 sponge balls (enough to share!)
Here is a picture of the article. You can see in the bottom right corner how you sort of "reassemble" 3 sponges on top of each other and tie them TIGHT TIGHT with a string...fan out the "arms", trim the excess string and away you go! (TIE THEM TIGHT...one of ours sort of wiggled loose once it got wet)

Totally fun!

They turned out larger than I imagined. We took them straight outside for a test run - A+ (except the one that wasn't tight enough)

Sort of like pom poms (kidding daddy! kidding!)

Saturday morning, the 4th, we woke up and started getting ready for our subdivision's annual bike parade. Sadly, it was raining while we were putting streamers and other decorations on our bikes so we made a group decision to postpone the 2 and 4-wheeled adventure through neighborhood and do breakfast instead.

Here we are at Benedict's. "Smile and say 'bike parade!'"
The kids were sad that the parade was off, but what's better than noshing on pancakes with your buds?

All American Boys

When we got back from breakfast, the rain had subsided so we headed out on our very own bike parade. Logan on his bike, Bear in his car.

Mackenzie & Ella are ready to roll!

Aiden got a brand new bike for his birthday from Memaw and Grandpa (Bumblebee Transformers - awwwwwsome!) Here, I think he's concerned about being left behind! He did such a great job riding his own big boy bike...he was in the front the pack during our roll around the hood.

Rendezvous on South Litchy

Brady gave Ashley's scooter a spin. Have we mentioned how he thinks he's a big boy?? The only snafu during our parade was that Logan lost one of his training wheels about 100 yards into the ride. He did a great job riding without it for a little bit, but got a bit freaked when he toppled to the side so Brian carried the bike most of the way, Logan walked :( and I pushed Bray in his little car.

On Sunday, we tried to head to the neighborhood pool, but it was inexplicably closed (no sign...no notice...we're thinking the life guards just didn't show until later in the day). Sooooo....daddy decided to create a bunch of water fun in the backyard. Step one: the world's biggest slip 'n slide. He took the tarps off of the fence from the get messy party, layered them on the lawn, hosed them down and...it actually wasn't as dangerous as I pictured in my head!

Daddy took the first slide down...I even went a few times myself!

Brady busied himself filling the water table.

We ended up in an awesome water fight! Logan and Aiden were on my team! At one point, I had the backyard hose and Brian pulled around the one from the side of the house in a battle of spray!

Brian took the kid wash down from the fort and used it on the slip 'n slide.

Mackenzie and Ryan made their way down to our house. Brian got the idea to fill up a punching balloon with water.

He took it up to the "fort" and splashed it down on the kids (then we hunted through the house to find another punchy balloon and did it again).

The town fireworks were cancelled on the 4th due to rain so we planned to go on the 5th instead. Here are the boys in their Sunday "red, white and blue"

We got to the fireworks area with some time to spare so the kids played with a variety of "toys" provided by all the moms and dads. Here's Logan throwing some poppers

Susan hands out some ammo :)

Aiden tries a popper too

Bad picture, but here is Logan with a sparkler

Aiden and his sparkler (we even let Bray have a couple!)

The fireworks were really good. Brady was a riot with his oooohs and ahhhhhs. I'm just happy we got to see fireworks at all...I was worried there for a while :)