Well it's almost Friday again. This week has been sort of a roller coaster. Soccer has started, so practices fill up our evenings. Even if their teams aren't practicing, the kids are out in the yard practicing. Drennan and Jude have been sick so our school has been slow this week. They are feeling much better though.

Last Sunday we had a Messy Party at church. It was so much fun! I totally recommend it to anyone wanting to throw a fun kid-friendly party.


We got a few ideas online for how to get messy, but we also came up with a few of our own.

Jude saw the other kids getting shaving cream in their hair so he had the idea of putting handfuls of flour on his hair. When his head got wet he looked like he was ready to go into the oven. ha.


I love this shot of Lila. She had just finished grabbing a powdered doughnut with her mouth.


A Messy Party is right up Micah's alley. He has no problem at all getting messy...unlike Drennan who hates it and was ready early on to get rinsed off.


Fun was had by all, including the adults who decided to get on the slip and slide. Tad flew down it! I tried to take some pictures of him from the other end, but for one thing I wasn't quite tall enough to look down at the slide and for another Tad came down it with such force that as I was leaning onto it to take the picture he nearly knocked me down.


We definitely want to make this an annual event!

We have made it to the end of our first week of school for this year. We technically started last Wednesday, which was our first day of homeschool co-op, but our first full week was this week. It's been great and I'm praying it will continue to be good, although I know we are bound to have some bad days thrown in. Such is life.

Drennan is in 4th grade, Micah is in 2nd, and Lila is doing preschool work.


It's nice to be back on a schedule and routine, but I am certainly going to miss summer break. We've had lots of lazy days, but we are excited to start new grades, new material, new crafts, and spending "structured" time together.

The nighttime cooler weather that we've had has caused Drennan to have a sore throat, Micah to have some sinus problems, and Jude to have a runny nose (last night he had a fever, ugh!) So although we've had a great week, we are thankful that today is Friday and we get to rest for a couple of days.

We have a few things that we do every time we go to the beach. Crab hunting is one of those things. It's so funny to watch the kids run around like mad chasing down little sand crabs with their flashlights shining everywhere.

We have to wait til dusk to go looking since the crabs only come out at that time. And everybody has their own flashlight. Once they find one, they pick it up carefully so as not to get pinched. I don't like to touch the crabs and I'm amazed that Lila didn't seem to mind. haha.
A couple of nights Tad took the boys out in the dark to hunt for crabs and they ended up finding a huge one! (in the pink bucket below)

We always let them go, but this one stayed the night with us (on the porch) before he was released.

Every summer (well except for last summer when there was an oil spill) we go to the beach for vacation. The kids love it and Tad and I do as well. I don't know how someone cannot like the beach. :) It's so amazing to see such a vast amount of water, and the sky is so big it feels like it could swallow you up. A little scary but still amazing.

This was the first time for Jude at the beach and the phrase I kept repeating all week about him was "no fear." Not only was he not afraid of the water, but he would get upset with me if I kept him from getting further and further out into the water.



Lila had recently seen a picture of her cousin Memp at the beach and he was buried in the sand. The day we arrived she said she wanted to be buried. So funny!


Everyone else decided to get in on the fun!



Micah's sand messed up before we got a picture. :(


Micah found this boogie board with a shark on it at the beach house. He kept it all week and got pretty good at surfing on it.


We went out to eat one day and all the kids dressed in beachy attire, except for Drennan who didn't have anything. Instead he was showing off his new belt buckle.


We had our annual Treasure Hunt. Lila found the bottle floating in the water with a message that there was a lost treasure.




Lots of good memories this year. I love going to the beach. Can't wait til next year!

Between vacation, ordering school books, getting ready for our co-op, and planning some stuff for church I haven't had time to breathe! We had a great time at the beach. I am going to post pictures just as soon as Tad pulls them off his card. PLUS, I still need to post pictures from our Fourth of July at Bear Creek!

School isn't going to start for us for a few more days, so hopefully I will get back on here and get up to date very soon. :)

In the meantime, here is a picture Tad was able to get of the kids getting ready to play at the beach.