R.I.P. Rainbow Rice

After many, many hours of constructive playtime, our beloved rainbow rice bit the dust one day courtesy of a couple of naughty curious children.

It went down something like this....
I was busy vacuuming, happily humming a little tune in my ignorant bliss.
I finished my vacuuming, and turned the vacuum off.
I heard much shrieking and happy laughter that had previously been drown out by said vacuum.
I also heard the distinct sound of grains of rice pelting against floors and walls.
I hurried to investigate and found this....

So naughty. And they've been asking when we can make some more rainbow rice. Ha, fat chance, not gonna happen.....at least not this week.

Last Hurrah

A few days before school started, we had one last hurrah at the park (where I took five million pictures...consider yourself warned).

Lily is a master at the monkey bars.

I'm always talking about how awesome Grace is with Ava, Lily is awesome too and this particular day she took Ava down the slides almost the entire time we were at the park. Ava was in heaven.

For memory's sake, at eighteen months, Ava could scale the rock wall like nobody's business.

Grace took a picture of Lily and I. Next time I'll tell her to take a few steps back. This shot is a little too close for comfort.

I realize all four of these shots look almost exactly alike, but the look on Ava's face was priceless so I'm posting all four.

Grace was there too, she and Emma were taking turns on the scooter so it was easier for them to evade the camera.

Owen's Contributions

Owen only had a couple of requests for the summer bucket list. His requests were bowling and a trip to the whale pool. He's easy to please.

Have I mentioned how awesome Grace is with Ava?

Owen really wanted me to paint a batman logo on his cheek that day, I lack considerably in artistic ability, but once again, he was easy to please and proud as punch of his batman.

Bowling....Owen waited forever to go bowling and every time we were at the bank or the post office and the bowling alley was in sight, he would ask to go bowling. We finally made it happen at the very end of summer. Chris had even started back to school already, but we were able to sneak bowling in one evening.

Owen took bowling very seriously.

Waiting in suspense to see how many pins he would take out....

Sometimes he had to wait a long time for his ball to make it all the way down the lane.

Emma took bowling very seriously as well.

I think that's a "Yes!"

Grace started out on the regular lane, but switched to the bumpers after a few gutter-balls. I was kind of wishing I could bowl on the bumper lane too. I had my share of gutter-balls.

Naturally, Chris smoked us all with strike after strike. He used to bowl in a league and let me tell you, he hasn't lost his touch. Check out that form....Actually, he bowled almost the entire game with the exception of the last two frames with Ava on his hip. So, even without his form and with a baby on his hip, he has a knack for bowling.