Kids (not baby goats)

 Kelly looked at Josh one evening and realized he suddenly grew taller than all the girls. :)

 Lilly

 Never seen a preying mantis in our yard before.

 Maggie's red kool-aid hair.

Lilly really wanted to kool-aid dye her hair.

It's not going to hurt anything so I let her.  

She and Maggie had fun doing that.

They mixed kool-aid powder with conditioner and applied it.

I thought for sure that the pool would make it come out sooner...no.

The one thing that made the kool-aid come out was actual shampoo!

I guess for the week and a half they had red in their hair, they conditioned in the shower, but not shampoo.  Ewwwww.

 Lilly's hair actually looked like a natural red hair color, and not a kool-aid red.

Maggie's looked like a food dye color.

 Anthony with one of his "claimed" big brothers at a play date last week.  

 Freezing on the bench, while Kelly just plays with her ipod.

 I had to go to Wenatchee for a CPR/First Aid training class.  

It was in the Library's downstairs.

When Andy came to pick me up, he and Anthony and Maggie were in the other part of the downstairs.

In the brand new childrens' section.

Anthony was LOVING it and not trying to escape!

(his bolting is why I'm nervous for him to start school this fall, without an aide)

 Climbing in the containers, just like at Nana's.

 Magnetic alphabet!

 Our church family had a potluck a few weeks ago.

After eating, we all went out to the field and did water fun.

Anthony "made" the older boys play football with him and not so much with each other.  ;)

There was a slip 'n slide and water balloon games.

I told Josh to "get" Andy with a water balloon, and he did...a lot harder than Andy's leg could take, I guess.

It didn't bruise, but caused Andy so much pain for 2 weeks.

Andy normally grits his teeth when he's been hurt, and just works through it.

This time though, he had so much pain, he was limping and complaining a LOT.

We took him to the doctor, and he had no idea what could be wrong.

An x-ray showed no break.

It was weird because it wouldn't hurt when Andy was moving around, but if he sat down for a while, it would hurt even more when he'd get up.  Or, the pain would wake him up in the night.

It's finally better now, over 2 weeks later. 

 Daniel needed some papers for college.

So, I decided to attack the 18-inch stack of papers needing to be filed.

They were from the past 1 1/2 years.

It took 6 hours to do, but I got it done!

The first stack is all Anthony stuff.  He has his own file cabinet drawer, not just a couple files.

The middle stack was the other childrens' school papers, medical stuff, and bank account stuff.

Third pile was old bills.

 We watched our friend's youngers the other day, and Andy had fun with the Minecraft mask.

 The past 2 weeks have been CRAZY hectic around our house!

We've been getting ready to send everyone back to school and in sports.

So, when we got physicals done yesterday, the nurses were commenting that Lilly and Kelly looked like twins.

 Andy made cookies.  :)

Anthony's big words right now are princess, scumbag, and cookie.

Aren't they all important words?!

Kelly's friend always snapchats "scumbag" and Anthony is always imitating it.  :)

(ish-coo-mi)

My baby girl is all growed up!

So, I posted the picture above, of the bouquet, and below, of the ring on FaceBook.

Everyone freaked out, thinking that my 16-year-old got married! 

hehe

I guess I shouldn't tease like that.

Kelly's friend needed a bride for a photo shoot.

Kelly and her friend, Ben, had a lot of fun.  :)

You can see the pictures here.

Wedding dress all packaged back up.  

It was a fun time, and we didn't even go with them!

Monopoly Party! *read through for giveaway details*

Back when Andy and I were dating (2 decades ago!), one of our favorite activities was playing Monopoly with each other, and with one or more of my siblings.  Most often, my brother, Abe, would play with us.  We'd play for several hours and I would be a really obnoxious winner, but probably more often I was a really sore loser.....some of the best memories!  I think I loved being the car token because I was a new driver and loved being reminded of my newfound ability and self-importance because of it.  hehe

Skip ahead to now, and my children have so much fun playing Monopoly!  Every once in a while, they'll spontaneously break out in a Monopoly marathon and play several games in a week or two period of time.  They had fun when we bought the electronic debit version.  They had fun with cousins once or twice with the Monopoly Deal card game.  They had fun playing Monopoly a few times in the year we were at the Ronald McDonald House.  And, they still have fun with the regular, traditional version.

We usually always play with the non-endorsed Free Parking rules--the bank puts one of each bill ($100, $50, etc.) into the center of the board, plus whenever you have to pay a tax or fee it goes into the center.  When a player lands on Free Parking, they win all that extra cash!  This has extended many a game in our family.  :)

A year or two ago, we purchased another new Monopoly game since pieces disappear or the board gets so battered loved.  With the new game, it told how to play a speed version, to help players get their fix without having to spend hours and hours playing.

So when the opportunity came up to host a Monopoly party, to feature the new cat token, I jumped at it!

The Party Pack sent by HouseParty.com was so awesome!  It had several games, key chains, Monopoly paper cups, and a Monopoly pet food bowl.  Plus, coupons!  If you'd like a coupon to save $3 on your next Monopoly game, post a comment below with your email, and I'll get you a coupon.

We invited a few families, but with the crazy summer, we didn't invite a whole lot. I had planned to have a game night when the cousins came to visit a few days later, but their visit was postponed a couple weeks.  So, we might be doing that soon.

 Party Pack!

 Connect4 was REALLY popular with the youngers.

 The teenagers got to play Monopoly.

 

 

 

 Some of the youngers had fun with Legos.

 Serious business!

 He won the Monopoly game (speed version)!

The prize:  a baggie of chocolates and a key chain.  He chose the dog chain.  :)

 

 I won!!

 Then Maggie won!

 Later on, Anthony had fun playing with us, and he actually did beat one of us!

And no, we weren't letting him win, we just weren't paying much attention.

 It takes such concentration to use fine motor skills.

What is YOUR favorite Monopoly memory?  Share in comments below, and I'll pick a random winner on Friday, August 23 at 10pm Pacific Time for a few goodies to enjoy a family game night.  Perfect way to celebrate Anthony's birthday!

**I received a free Party Pack to try and share with friends and family.  

No other payment was received for me to review these products.

Giveaway products are provided from my own funds.**