the weekend

The arboretum wore us out, especially the pregnant among us ;), so we decided to have a more easy going Friday. 

The day started out slow and I got a few pictures of Ella hanging out with Emry. She is a baby lover for sure. 

 It was Emry's 6 month "birthday" so I took some pictures of her. My timing was impeccable, she was hungry and tired. But I a managed to get a couple of okay ones.

 Her eyes are so blue outside!

 We took the kids to a park in the morning. It was a neat park but it was pretty busy and it was very windy! Still, fun was had by all. Plus Grandma brought some eggs for an egg hunt. :)

 These two have been known to fight...well, a lot. But I am happy to report that they did quite well this trip. I can only think of two significant disagreements between them. That's pretty good for a whole week living in the same house!

 Ella and Declan held a little race.

 And Ella got a bug down her shirt. :)

 I couldn't get enough of the weather and Mara's beautiful, huge back yard.

 The afternoon was crafting time. For everyone. Grandma sure knows how to keep us all entertained.

 We take so many pictures of the kids when we get together but we aren't so good at the rest of us. I think this is the only one of Mara.

 And the only one of me.

 Ella wanted to show off one of her crafts of the afternoon, a monkey bracelet.

 Declan seems to always do his own thing. Often by choice and often because he is the only boy so if there aren't enough of something he is usually the one to get something else. Here he is working on his painting craft since there weren't enough eggs for all the kids to paint. He was devastated at first but Grandma can sell anything. haha

 Story time with Grandma.

 Some gymnastics.

 The kids did so well playing together. I'm loving looking back at all the pictures of the fun.

 Backyard shenanigans.

 Friday night is movie night in the Gardner house so that's what we did. The popcorn was fantastic, the movie not so much. We watched The Little Prince, a Netflix original. I would not recommend it. The kids were enthralled as you can see, but it was kind of strange and attempted to be very deep.

We had a slow start on Saturday and we started our adventures off with a scavenger hunt at Target. Grandma lost Ella a few minutes after this picture was taken. Don't worry, she was found quickly. :)

 The kids were thrilled with their Paw Patrol coloring sets and their Shimmer and Shine figures. The hunt itself wasn't all that impressive.

When we were done there we headed to a little hike/walk.

 It was another gorgeous day.

I have no more pictures from Saturday. I have a hard time remembering without pictures to help haha. But I'm guessing the rest of the day involved playing in the backyard, dinner, showers and baths, and playing games after the kids went to bed.

On Sunday we went to church, after Mara introduced us to the yumminess of sourdough waffles. I even came home with a sourdough start and have made them myself!

 After church we played a little adults vs. kids soccer game. The kids won. :) Oh dear, this reminds me, Mara had my mom and I workout with her Saturday morning. She has a bunch of equipment in her garage. Mom had a hard time taking it seriously and had a serious case of the giggles. Mara had us doing four different "stations" one of which was stepping onto this box ten times with each leg. Well long story short when I was stepping onto this box a weighted ball rolled to where I had been standing so when I stepped off I stepped right on the ball and rolled my ankle...and the proceeded to fall in slow motion and hit about fifty things on my way down. Mom immediately laughed, I guess that's my pay back for all the times I've laughed when she has fallen. Mara was terrified I had broken my ankle. Luckily it wasn't that bad. I have sort of a bum knee and it got tweaked in the incident so it kind of hurt, my ankle had a little bit of swelling and I was hobbling for a few days. My hip was bruised and my tail bone was SO sore.  The soccer game reminded me because I volunteered to be goalie since I couldn't really run. But turns out I couldn't really block shots either. The kids legitimately won.

 After dinner we headed to a nearby park on the water.

 You'll have to forgive me for all the blurry pictures. I'm posting them because they are so close to being good! And if anyone is reading this who knows something about photography and can tell me what I'm doing wrong I would be so grateful!

 Love this little face she is pulling.

 Hey, another picture of adults!

 Cute little Lucy.

 Tatum took quite a fall at the park and basically ended up with some bad looking road rash on her thigh. To be honest I thought she handled it quite well. But I wanted to take a picture of the wound so I could show Brennan (it really was impressive) and that really set her off. So instead I took a picture of her throwing a fit.

Sunday night involved games again, of course. When Mara went to check on the kids before she went to bed (either Saturday or Sunday, I can't rememeber which) she passed the guest room where my mom was already in bed, but she was laughing. When Mara passed again after her check mom was still laughing. So she decided to go in and see what was going on. Oh, nothing really, she was just cracking up over my fall. Apparently the look on my face was hysterical. She was really sure to get as much pleasure out of that as possible haha.