At this point pretty much every local school has headed back for a new school year but we are still enjoying our remaining summer days. It has been feeling more like fall than summer but we are trying not to the weather stop us from having some summer fun. The biggest news around here is that my husband finally fired up his forge and the boys have been enjoying learning a new skill.
The boys and I finished cleaning the house on
Friday. They worked a bit in their math books and did some reading too. We were having friends over on Saturday and Alec began making an Oreo ice cream cake; crumbling up Oreo cookies and mixing them with melted butter to make a crust. Spreading softened cookies and cream ice cream over it and topping it all with hot fudge. The boys played some ping pong ball and we ran a few errands.
Saturday morning Ian headed off to work with his grandfather and Alec finished up his cake. He added a layer of cool whip and topped the whole cake off withe some more crushed Oreos. Ian came home around noon and my husband had gotten his forge fired up. The boys wandered over to check it out and both Ian and Evan helped him work on making a new fireplace poker. Once our company arrived we shut down the forge and enjoyed a nice day by the lake swimming, boating, tubing, and visiting.
Ian was having some friends over on
Sunday and the boys all spent a lot of time out on the lake. They got a fire going in the fire pit and went tubing as often as they could. In the afternoon my husband fired up the forge and Ian, Evan and both of Ian's friends worked on make two rough knives for Ian's friends to take home. After dinner Alec baked up some snickerdoodle cupcakes and the whole house smelled amazing!
Monday we headed out early to meet up with my mom, my two sisters, and their kids for a fun family hike. We had great weather and a wonderful time checking out the trails together. We then spent the afternoon picnicking by the pond and a few of the more daring kids went swimming. The water was cold! After dinner Alec mixed up some frosting and finished up his cupcakes.
|
Evan combined an Oreo cookie and a Nutter Butter bar for the perfect dessert |
We had a pool party we were heading to on
Tuesday and we brought our snickerdoodle cupcakes with us. The weather did not get the memo that it was pool party day and with temps in the upper 60's and cloudy skies most of the kids elected not to go swimming. Two of mine were crazy enough to take a dip but mostly the kids just had fun playing in the yard and with each other. We had a good dozen or so kids ranging in age from 2-13 and they all got along great! My boys didn't want to leave and we ended up staying for over 5 hours! After dinner Ian spent the evening in the forge with my husband working on his own project.
|
A frog we rescued from their pool |
|
Jumping in, Evan discovers it's freezing |
|
Alec started by reading a bit of his book at the party before heading out to play |
Wednesday we had plans to head to the Ecotarium. We had heard that they had a new baby otter and we wanted to go see her. We didn't get to see the otters but we did have a good time walking around the museum and checking out all the exhibits. Once home Alec asked if we could try out our new game called
World Monuments. It was a lot of fun!
Our plans to head to the beach on
Thursday fell through and as sad as we were to miss seeing out friends, I was kind of glad as it finally gave us time this week to run errands. We began our day with Alec's annual physical and then the boys did a bit of schoolwork. They each worked on math and reading and then we played another new game called
Famous Landmarks Bingo. Ian and Alec asked to play World Monuments again and then we all had lunch. After lunch we went to the library, bank, post office, and pharmacy. I bought Alec a new book called
Artful Animals Dot to Dot and he settled down to work in it when we got home. The other two boys headed outside to visit with their grandmother; they were hoping to head out on a jet ski ride but it hasn't been working much lately. Once inside all three boys got 30 minutes of exercise; Ian and Alec played a very long and intense game of ping pong while Evan used the elliptical.
I always love seeing your outdoor explorations. Snickerdoodle cupcakes sound good!
ReplyDeleteThank you! The cupcakes were sooo good! In making those we stumbled upon my new favorite frosting!
DeleteWhat a week! My kids and I love to see that show Forged in Fire..it is fascinating!
ReplyDeleteWe LOVE that show!
DeleteWhat a fantastic week. That board game looks great and the forge...what a learning opportunity.
ReplyDeleteBlessings, Dawn
It has been wonderful!
DeleteOh wow, who has a forge as a homeschool project?! What a fantastic learning opportunity! Love the picture of the turtle, by the way. :-) Thanks for linking up!
ReplyDeleteIt has been awesome! That turtle was cracking us up.
DeleteI got stuck at Oreo Ice Cream cake, that sounds amazing!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your week, it looks like so much fun and learning.
Thank you also for linking up with us on #FabFridayPost
I can see how you would; it was amazing and so darn simple! It had an oreo crumb and melted butter crust. Then we softened two 1/2 gallons of cookies and cream ice cream to spread out over the crust (though we only used about 1 1/2 of the containers). We heated up a jar of hot fudge and poured that over the ice cream. After freezing those three layers all night we spread a thick layer of cool whip on and sprinkled some Oreo crumbles on top in the morning before popping it right back in the freezer. That afternoon we let it sit out for 15 minutes before cutting into it and with the 13x9 size it was just perfect for the crowd we were entertaining!
Delete