solitaire

while waiting for madelyn's class to be finished, i taught the boys how to play solitaire. keeping old school alive. love.

double duty

this is what happens when both boys want to play with mommy but can't agree on what to play. love.

heated game of "surprise slides" (aka "the frozen game")

the boys and i have been playing board games to fill the afternoons. today we played a few rounds of "surprise slides." they like the sliding so much that the game often dissolves into just sliding instead of trying to get to the 'finish.' our last round was very heated though as we kept spinning the same spaces! it really was comical as we shared the same space over and over. love these littles! love.

the white on my lip is something from the flash. i was not drinking milk.

school time normal

we are all trying to get into our new 'normal' during the school year. everyone is still so excited about the buses that we spend some time playing outside waiting for the buses. and waiting equals pictures!

yesterday, i took the little boys back to school shopping. when i told manning what this shirt said, "ready, set, go," he had to have it (it helped a little that it was yellow). we sing a song at church that is called "ready, set, go" and it is manning's favorite song! he sings it all the time. funny enough, the monkey his is holding is from church too. 

mason's first morning bus ride.

i knew that the dynamic would be different with just the two littles at home, but they are a little lost without the bigs. i think that they aren't used to making decisions about what to do, so they want me to make the choices for them. i am going to have to change up my daily routine to still get everything done that needs to happen each day, but it's fun to be wanted all the time again.

a monkey on my back while i try to work at the computer.

maddux and i played games for about an hour while manning took a nap - he even beat me a few times!

next week the littles will be in school too. i am trying to keep that perspective. i can clean later. love.

more board games

today, we broke out connect 4 for the first time - it was a hit!

the aftermath

of course, we kept playing with legos! i got to cleaning up, daddy went out to start some yard work and the kids got busy with all of the legos.

then they decided to try out mason's new game - the joker fun house game. they played for at least three hours all together and mason played at least another hour just on his own! this is a super fun game where you mostly work as a team. not to mention that you get to use "super powers."

here are mason and maddux modeling the superman x-ray vision mask.

what a great ending to a super fun day! now tomorrow madelyn turns 7! yes, another birthday! love.

joust-boxing

sometimes i wonder about our kids... tonight they took the oven mitts and each wore one. then with each starting at one end of the hallway, they ran towards each other with arms outstretched until they collided (the jousting part) before changing to punching each other with the oven mitted hand. there were a few tear shed, but mostly there was a lot of laughter. love.

diy ninjas

the boys have been 'sneaking' around the house like ninjas trying to surprise me and each other. when a friend had this easy 'how to' of a ninja mask from a t-shirt, i knew that we had to give it a try! maddux has been the only one willing to try it yet but all three bigs are anxious to be ninjas and surprise me.

so easy and fun that i had to share (originally from gregredhastings.com). love.