Lazy Sunday

Ok, not really lazy at all.  We wake up bright and early to go to 9am church, then stay an extra hour after church while Scott takes care of church financial matters, then head home.  And there is always plenty for mom and dad to do once we get home.  The kids were having a lot of fights today, so when we found ourselves in a moment when they were all playing quietly I had to stop and document it.  Grant, or household trouble maker #1, was arranging these wooden magnets (from the craft store with magnets added by me) in a certain way.  He is an "arranger" among other things.  He had stolen these from John first, but John got over it and found his way over to something else.

"I'm not NOT playing with Rapunzel."

John found some of Anna's dollies.  He had fun throwing them on the floor and then picking them up again.  Good times.  And Anna didn't mind because...

She was deeply absorbed in playing with these tiny animals...that Grant had originally gotten out, but abandoned when he saw John with the magnets.  But everyone was happy for a while.  And it was good.

Matthew was outside practicing tricks with his new yo-yo.  I started making him go outside away from people 'cause he likes to swing it over his head and all around.  Very scary. 

The peace was short lived, of course.  But life goes on.  Here are Anna and I cutting strawberries for our strawberry shortcake dessert tonight. 

 That is her kid friendly safety knife.  It works well on most things...especially strawberries.

 We had fun finding some oddly shaped berries at the berry patch.

Scott grilled some burgers and hot dogs and we sweated it out eating dinner on the patio.  Our patio here faces west so we get some serious sun there in the evening.  Plus its already hot and humid here.  It was kind of unpleasant.  We tried to make a little shade for ourselves and even brought out a fan to blow on us while we ate.  Still hot.

John and Grant part way in the shade.  The shade disappears as the evening progresses.  So we ate our delicious meal, then headed inside, where it was cool, for strawberry shortcake.  Maybe we should only eat breakfast out there.

BONUS PHOTOS!!
Here are some pictures of the handiwork of Grant the Arranger.
Anna does this kind of thing too.

He arranged his blocks in this formation.  He was very particular about it.  At first he said he wanted to make a circle but then decided on this.

I like that he lines up the watermelon after he takes one bite out of them.  Nice.  He's notorious for taking one bite out of all of something.  Like bananas or strawberries.  :(  The first bite tastes the best apparently.

Arranging his letters and counting animals by color.  He also gets really distressed if one falls down the crack.  There have been many letter rescue missions in our house.