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.

Strawberry Picking

It's strawberry picking time at our favorite place - Eckert's Farm.  So, we got up bright and early (ish) this morning to beat the heat and pick some berries.  Yes, it is already hot here.  Here are Matthew and I out at the strawberry fields.  There were plenty of nice, ripe berries to be had there.

 

Everyone jumped right in and picked...and ate.

Grant had a pretty red face by the end.   It seemed like for each berry he found he would stop and ask me if it was a good one.  

 He found lots of good ones.

 We ended up with about 12 pounds of berries.  It didn't seem like that much in our big baskets.  But it was plenty.

 Matthew sampling some of his berries on the tractor ride back

 They look so thrilled to stop and pose for a picture.  :)

 Later in the day we made jam.  Scott did most of the work.

9 1/2 jars of jam.  And still lots of berries left.  I think we'll have strawberry shortcake tomorrow.  We always have fun going to Eckert's and its nice that things are growing again.

Anna's Kindergarten Program

Well, the end of the school year is almost here.  Where did the time go?  And Anna is about to graduate from kindergarten.  Today the school had a kindergarten program and Scott had the day off work so we all got to go see Anna in her program.  They showed a slideshow while we were waiting of each kindergartener with a sign saying what they wanted to be when they grew up.  You may remember last year Matthew said he wanted to be an eye doctor.  He has since changed to farmer, due in large part to our move to Illinois and our many visits to Eckert's farm and Grant's Farm.  Anna also has had many career ambitions.  The one she wrote for her end of the year picture is teacher.  She very much loves her kindergarten teacher and that might have something to do with it.

Here is Anna up on the bleachers getting ready for the program.  We had to wave wildly at her until she saw us, of course.  Like all the other parents were doing.  The program was cute.  They sang several songs and recited some different things as a group.  It was short and sweet.  I volunteered to take chairs down after the program.  This was before I realized Scott would be able to come with me.  It's very hard to put chairs away if you are a woman with small children in a room full of military men.  Every time I folded up a chair some dad came over to ask if he could carry it over for me.  Chivalry is not dead.  And Scott also put many, many chairs away.  I did try to put some away, but kept having kind people come take them for me.  So, all the chairs got put away and I think I got off easy on that one.

After the program and chair clean up we went and had donuts with Anna.  She nibbled at the donut but was more excited for us to visit with her.

Grant got to have a donut too (he is not pictured here) but was a little mad that he didn't get to pick up the donut from the donut table himself.  It's always something.

We got to visit with Anna's teacher, the beloved Ms. Taylor.  She also told us that Anna is going to be student of the month for her class for May, so more on that to come.  Anna has wanted to be student of the month since Matthew got selected for it in January.  They have a not so healthy competition going about EVERYTHING.  But that's another story for another day.  But the long and short of it is Anna is very excited.

Anna was also happy because Ms. Taylor told us she may be teaching 1st grade next year (or kindergarten...TBD).  Anna's dearest wish is to have Ms. Taylor (or Ms. Niemeyer, Matthew's current teacher) for 1st grade.  I think there are five or so 1st grade teachers, so we'll see how it shakes out.

We even got to take Anna home from school a little early.  She usually rides the bus so she was excited to be "parent pick up" if only for a day.  I picked her up from school every day last year and she didn't seem that thrilled about it then.  It's the novelty now I guess.  We did have to wait another twenty minutes or so for Matthew to be done with school.  So we technically didn't get to leave school early.  But Matthew and Anna were both excited to be picked up.  And Matthew was very excited for Anna to be student of the month.  Especially since he gets to go to her little donut ceremony and eat a donut.  Hooray Anna for making it through kindergarten.  Only a week and a half left of school!

Humans of the Guptill House

Seen and heard around our house today:

"I'm mad 'cause John ate my V.

I told Anna she could wipe it with a paper towel."

 "Did you know a hippo can run faster than a person

An ostrich has a very small brain"

 "Did you know little itty bitty plants are almost like vampires

This was in a book of dracula fish

They go in the bigger fishes gills

They suck the bigger fishes blood

AND THEN THEY GO OUT!"

Fathers and Sons Outing

The boys went on the Fathers and Sons camp out last weekend with our church and had a great time.  John stayed home since he can't walk that well yet.  Here are Matthew and Grant all ready to go.

 

The camp out was at a park nearby so they were able to get there while it was still daylight.  Here are the boys checking out the tent of one of their friends.

 And starting to put up their own tent.

 There's the tent (the one on the right) and the boys heading over there with their gear.

 Grant having fun!!

 

 And back at the tent.  They had a little program in the evening and then bedtime.

Scott toke this picture with the flash on in the dark - so they were completely in the dark before the picture was taken.  Maybe that's why Grant looks so surprised!!

 Here's Matthew settling down to sleep.

 And happy Grant

And here they are the next morning.  They had breakfast burritos for breakfast and got all cleaned up pretty fast.  They had a great time camping with Dad!

Mommy Anna Day

This weekend was the Fathers and Sons Camp Out for our church.  The boys were excited to go, but most excited of all was Anna.  She has been looking forward to it with eager anticipation since the boys went on their camp out last year. We planned a special Mommy and Anna night and she's been counting down to it for some time now.  First we went to Target to buy special snacks and finger nail polish.  Anna told the checker at Target all about our special girl day.  Then we went to dinner at the St. Louis Bread Company (aka Panera Bread).  Anna was excited to get the buttered noodles she likes there.

 

 And we got some pastries

We ended up taking these home 'cause we got way too much food!

 About to eat

 Smoothies!  See, way too much food.

That's how we roll on Mommy Anna Day

 And after dinner we went to Cold Stone for some ice cream.  There's always room for ice cream.  We ate most of our ice cream but neither of us could finish.  Such a shame.

 John was with us.  Next year when he is walking better he can go on the campout

He did enjoy the ice cream.

And then we headed home with our special snacks and watched Frozen.  We put John to bed before the movie.  Pay no attention to the mess in the background.  :) Anna was excited 'cause she got to watch the movie on the TV in mom and dad's bedroom...and eat snacks in there.  Special perks.
Anna and I had a great time and Anna is already asking if the boys can go on another campout...soon!