Blueberry Picking

Summer Fun

The cousins came for a visit, and we found an easy way for 2 adults to take a walk with 4 2yr-olds and a 5yr-old.
We then went to a water park that's a half-hour south of us. Everyone had a great time!

New Haircuts!

We took the girls out for new summer haircuts, and got them ice cream afterwards.

Arthur got ice cream too, but he won't be getting another haircut for a few more weeks.

Market Day

On Market Day, we like walking down to the livestock market and watching the cows and goats. We always buy a few fresh peaches to eat on the walk home.

And on the way back home, we found a crawfish in a stream.

The Children's Museum (Again)

Since we purchased a year-long pass, and since the kids enjoyed it so much yesterday, we returned to the Children's Museum today for some more fun.

Children's Museum

We then went to Richmond, and checked out the new branch of their Children's Museum. Arthur loved the pirate exhibit, and the girls especially loved the art projects.


Afterwards, we played with our bikes again.

The National Zoo

We took everyone to the zoo today, and had fun watching the elephants.

Visiting the Cousins

Last night we drove up to Maryland to visit the triplets' cousins. Today we had fun getting out everyone's bikes for some practice at a playground.



And Aunt Emily stopped by for a quick visit as well!

Jonie and Mayo

For months now, Betty and Coraline have had secret names for themselves. When playing, they often use them to refer to each other. Jonie (Betty) and Mayo (Coraline), have lots of adventures. We often ask Arthur what his pretend name is, and he says firmly that he's "Arthur!"

Sadly we know these names will eventually go by the wayside. Already Betty has stopped calling Arthur "Ayah," and she only rarely refers to Coraline as "Conga."

At the Duck Pond

We took the kids to the duck pond today, and they had fun feeding the ducks.

Afterwards, we found our favorite tree branch for some fun portraits.

Another Hot Day

It's been hot here, so we brought out a spraying ball for the kids to play with. They seemed to enjoy treating it like a water fountain.

And then we had the big bad wolf show up at our new playhouse:

Riding Our Bikes

Now that Arthur has mastered the tricycle, we've upgraded him to a balance bike. We hope that we'll eventually be able to skip training wheels this way.


While Betty is still struggling with the tricycle, Coraline (in her boots) seems to have figured it out!

A Rainy Day

Snoopy Snow-Cones

We had fun today playing with a Snoopy Snow-Cone maker. Though it wasn't as easy as I remembered, the kids loved it.

Monkeying Around

Preschool Graduation

The kids had their last day of preschool before summer today. They had been going since January, for half-days on Wednesdays and Fridays. Today they were excited to wear their new t-shirts, and were ready to sing a song at the graduation ceremony for the bigger kids.

Of course, Betty was the only one of her class who had to be carried outside, and instead of singing, she silently sobbed to herself. But she stayed with the group, and didn't run to Erin, so we were quite proud of her. Arthur did great with the song, and Coraline had fun jumping along in the background.

Practicing Our Songs

In anticipation of the kids singing a song at their preschool graduation tomorrow, we thought we'd have them practice singing for an audience. They picked these songs themselves.

Triple Slide!

Aunt Allison and Play-Doh

Tent Caterpillars

The kids were excited today by finding tent caterpillars in Pop Pop's tree. We cut the branch down so that they could see all of them crawling around on the leaves.