Making the Most of Summer

I'll do a sappy end-of-summer blog post next week when I'm sad that the boys are back at school (and also have slightly more time to blog because they are back at school).  But we are definitely making the most of our summer days with lots of fun and friends.  I just love our days together enjoying this city and our community.  

On Monday it was super hot (a trend as of late in the North East) and so we hit the pool for the second day in a row (post-church pool time was great on Sunday).  It's hard to take pics when you have 4 young boys at the pool on your own, but I did have to snap this one of my little pool baby.  So happy...always.  Such a water baby.  He just loves being in the pool with me and the brothers.  Here he is, smiling, as I dry him off.

On Tuesday, we hosted a playdate at the Carnegie Science Center.  It was supposed to be an outdoor playdate at The Water Steps on the North Shore, but it was a cloudy, breezy day with a slight chance of showers and storms and cooler temps than originally forecasted.  Honestly, I didn't mind the excuse to be indoors.  One less day of sunscreening 4 children and myself and a break from the heat and sun.  We had a blast.  I think we all needed the indoor break of doing something different.  Here are the few pictures I got...

Spaceship exhibit.  Koen and Tavin were all over the gadgets.  Penn saw a place to lay down and pretend to sleep, so that's what he did.

Jansen just hung out as usual.  He's amazing and so much fun to have along on our adventures.

Koen spotted another test robot exhibit.  This time the little robot ran around on the floor on wheels/rollers and he controlled it from an iPad.  Again, he was a complete natural, quickly picking up on how to make the gadget work.  He was thrilled!

Some friends, my friend, Allison, and her 3 girls, we had been trying to spend time with all summer got to join us on the playdate.  Mary Boyd, who goes to school with Koen, adored Jansen.  He was pretty keen about her too as you can see!

My boys spent a lot of time on the fourth floor occupying themselves with various hands-on activities.  It was fun to watch them work together and use their imaginations with some new and different toys and friends.  Here's Tav and Penn in the water area.  In the background, you can catch a glimpse of Koen in the ball area.  He and an older girl were running a factory or something and were so serious.  They stayed busy for about 45 minutes.  It was great!

More Mary Boyd and Jansen!!

Libby and Charlotte enjoyed palling around with Tav and Penn too.  Here they are admiring a robot's basketball shot.

We had other friends at the museum too, but that's all the pictures.  The time just flies when I've got my hands full with all four boys and having to stop and feed Jansen, etc., not to mention how much I enjoy the chats here and there with the other moms.

On Wednesday, we had our usual playdate with Adrianne and her four kids.  It was our last Wednesday meetup of the summer though as her kids start school next Monday and Koen and Tav head back on Wednesday.  I snapped a few pics of the buddies.  They've so enjoyed seeing each other weekly this summer.  We'll have to find a way to see each other here and there throughout the school year!

Oh, and here's three of my four.  They were all on the picnic blanket and I just had to get a pic.  I tried to get Penn to come over, but he was having a blast on the swing. =)

On Thursday we had our "usual" meetup with my friend, Deborah, and her kids.  This summer has been very hit or miss though, so I think this was only the 3rd time we've been able to really make it happen.  The heat and mugginess was still intense and there were threats of storms moving in throughout the morning, so we decided to play it safe and go to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the main Carnegie Library next door.  Big hit with the kids!  (And isn't it such a blessing to live in the city?  Two museums in one week with a playground visit nestled in between!).  Here are the kids checking out the dinosaurs.

Then listening attentively to the staff person at the digging area.  

Our little archaeologists....

There was a super fun exhibit with lots of hands on activities outside the digging area.  We hung there awhile and checked out lots of things (even some live animals were brought out for the kids to touch, like a snake and alligator!).

Next we headed up to the 3rd floor where they had another super kid-friendly, hands-on exhibit.  I was pretty busy feeding Jansen the solid food portion of his lunch, but I just had to try and get a picture of the boys dressed up as chipmunks, filling the tree trunk with acorns.  At one point 3 or 4 of the kids all had the chipmunk coats on and were scurrying around gathering acorns.  Too cute!  Here's just Penn Rye, the chipmunk.

We sat outside for lunch and then headed over to the library to get some fresh books, return a bunch and get caught up on turning in the boys' reading program progress.  While there, Penn totally had a very rare accident with #2, so my hands were quite full with that and fussy Jansen, so no pics of the library portion of our playdate.  But, it was great.  We just love our friends and our fun city!