HENRI'S HAPPENINGS: Catch up

I had great intentions of staying somewhat on top of this blog and photo sharing. But this recent silence can be completely blamed on technology and the un-usefulness of it. Thanks to the expert help of my resident and on-call tech guys, I have found a work around that will hopefully work. Mourning our switch to all Apple products, they really are the pits. Anyway, here's July!:

David doesn't get enough credit on this blog. He's the tension diffuser, the fixer, and my go-to child break. Here, he's saving my salmon from getting tossed when I discovered I'd bought the one with bones in it (ewwwww!!!!)

And here he's attempting to fix my slamming screen door. Unfortunately I think that's a hopeless task and we're just going to have to throw away the house and start again. But thanks for trying!

Hard to find her, but bottom left is Henri singing the song they'd learned at VBS this year.

Sigh, totally out of order. Sorry. Obviously, this is the 4th.

Waiting for the parade in Lincoln

All the Schoefflers. The whole family ended up coming down for the 4th and the cousins had so much fun together!

Henri won "Camper of the Week" for VBS. She got an African Violet and is so proud of it.

We had an informal cookout at church on the 4th

Then on the 5th headed up to Ogunquit for an entire day of sand and sun. And ladybugs. Not sure where she was finding them all, but Ava kept our castles well supplied with the critters.

Uncle Paul takes castle building very seriously. There was a moat and a ditch that ran all the way to the ocean.

Back to the cookout

On the way to the beach

It's been a hot summer, but on days it was especially hot we seemed to find ourselves with plans to go to Drumlin Farm. Because nothing makes you feel cooler than hanging out in a sweltering sheep barn.....

Gram got to stay for a week

Typical naptime attire

There have been so. many. showers this summer. The dirt has been unreal.

Got to put my Lilebaby to use and took a friends baby for a long walk so she could eat a meal in peace. The old magic is still there, he was out within three minutes.

Because using the water table as it was intended would be too logical.

More Audubon walks

Back to using that couch to 5K app cause I slacked off after last years race. Normally I run after the kids go to bed (and the temp drops below 100) but schedule required I haul them along. I still despise the act of running but really like how I feel afterwards. And I get super antsy if I can't go every day.

Hudson has decided he likes climbing, and it's pretty impressive what he can do with crocs on

Hudson touched a stove burner right after the oatmeal came off, so we got to spend most of a Saturday morning at the pediatricians. Fortunately it's all healing fine.

Organizing the art supplies

We were at the park and the local ice cream place had a 5K going past, so we cheered on everyone, especially the stragglers at the end. Hudson is your guy for that sort of thing, he's a big encourager.

Daddy helping Hen with her bike

The kids and I spent a week at my folks

A fantastic aunt to my kids. She tolerates their nonsense, they adore her, AND she lets me sleep past 6 because she gets up with Hud and makes his breakfast.

New plants all over my folks this year

Such a cool storm. There was a very distinct edge to it; the dark cloud were raining.

Storm coming in from the North

Some more of my moms flowers

Meghan forgot her pillow and we were trying to meet up with her, but instead we ended up taking her pillow on all our adventures that day and photographing it for her. First we went blueberry picking.

Pelkies had easy picking. Hudson mostly wandered and munched, but Henri was very industrious

Half of our haul. Henri picked that whole thing herself.

The kids discovered the stash of Tintin this visit and despite not being able to read were hooked

Playing memory with Gram

Feels like we spent a lot of time at the doctors this month. Just routing immunizations in anticipation of school. She did great.

Trying out a new water and play park

The tradeoff for having the kids amuse themselves quietly for an hour is that the house gets trashed. Some days it's totally worth it.

They built a pirate raft

School is happening so soon! Her backpack has come and been tested to approval.

On our way to a playdate, so I needed coffee. And two sets of pathetic eyes convinced me life would be better if they got their own. It is nice not having to share all of mine....

We decorated in honor of National System Administrator Day (those are mice hanging, and computers on the window) and made Steve a nice meal with dessert.

Got to spend the day at Meg and Nate's. I loved their old window fasteners; don't they look like Aladdin's lamp? Their whole apartment is fantastic.

The kids played with all of their fun toys while the adults played board games. I looked over, and they had arranged the dinosaurs to eat the color coordinated m+m's, haha.