An unexpected sleepover

I'm trying to catch up a little on my blogging today. On Monday we went to my bestfriends house and hung out all day after the boys dentist appt. As usual we had a blast. The kids swam and played outside ALL day. They even played the Hunger Games for a while. We got a lot of laughs out of that one. 

For dinner my friend made sweet and sour chicken. It was sooooo good. When we were packing up to go home my kids and hers all started yelling "sleepover!! Sleepover!!" Even her two year old started jumping up and down with the big kids. They did this for 20 minutes before her husband and both of us caved. So I left them overnight and came to get them in the morning. They had a BLAST!! 

It completely made their month. We are so lucky to have such amazing friends. 

Our 4th of July

It seems like every year I forget how much I truly do love the 4th. I love the festivities, the grilling, everyone running around in red, white and blue. I just love it all. 

We kept it simple during the day. We stayed home and I made red beans and rice and we just lounged about. Towards the evening the kids hit the pool and after it turned dark we bust out the glow sticks and sparklers. Oh and the watermelon. These kids can put away some watermelon. 

At several points throughout the evening the boy exclaimed "This is the best night of my life!" 

Glow sticks!

Happy 4th my friends! Back with more pics tomorrow. Here's my fav pic from tonight so far. 

The kids perler bead business

I always plan to do blog posts and then in the end I go for the easiness of Instagram. Life has been busy and then slow. Stressful and then fun. This summer has been a crazy combo of really good and really bad. Hoping to take more pics this week and then I'll do a big update post. 

A few weeks ago the kids made lots of creations with their Perler bead kit I bought them from Michaels. They decided they wanted to make a business out of them. They made signs and everything. I simply giggled. I was wrong to blow it off. Those 3 kids and their perler bead creations took my mom and aunt collectively for $50!!!!! Well played kids. Well played. 

The boy didn't make as many as his sisters did so he walked away with $10 profit. He considered his buying options carefully and in the end went for (of course) Legos. Ninjago Legos to be exact. 

Please note the signs warning Makayla added to it. *Warning. NOT a toy. I laughed for days over that. 

To the beach!

We had planned to go to the beach with two of my bestfriends. I was so excited to have them both there. Early in the morning I got a text from one of them saying her husbands car had broken down and she didn't know if it would take all day to deal with that and that they might have to cancel. 

I waited around and finally heard the final word. They weren't going to make it. I was so bummed out about it. My other bestie and I continued on with our trip though and the kids had a great time. 

There was lots of stress before we got there. A low tire, kids spilling nacho cheese in the van,etc. I'm glad we went anyway because it was a great time. I took lots of pics but I'm going to try to limit how many I post today. 

Zoo (when it was super hot)

Monday we went to the zoo. It was HOT. Despite the ridiculous heat we had a great time. Makayla was visiting family this week so she wasn't with us. We still had a pretty large group though. The zoo had an awesome Lego animal exhibit which of course we all LOVED. They also had an awesome water park splash pad. The kids really enjoyed cooling off for a bit in the water. 

My feet always burn easily so I put a ton of sunscreen on them and still got burnt. Seriously I am so over this whole fair skin thing. Our visit ended up being way longer than we realized. We brought a cooler with our lunch and then found a nice umbrella table to sit and eat and cool off. At several points throughout our visit I felt like I was going to pass out. 

We woke up super late and had to rush to get out the door to meet our friends and didn't have time for breakfast. Not eating plus the heat was NOT a good combo for me. Thankfully the chimp exhibit is inside and has air conditioning so we hung out in there about 20 minutes and I felt better. The zoo keepers came in and talked to us and the kids loved it all. 

We love the zoo but the temps were making it rough on us all. We all pulled through and had a blast.