Six kids in my house means big messes, but six kids can clean messes up pretty quickly actually.
Inspired by one of his current favorite picture books Trapped by Ice, about Shackleton’s Antarctic adventure, Mr. TOF and I set out to learn about Elephant Island. We found lots of interesting pictures of the island, and some really interesting historical photographs of the explorers as well.
I have learned a lot of fun Latvian words from the girls we are hosting. There are a couple of sounds in the Latvian language that I can’t make no matter what I do. In fact, I can’t even hear what I’m doing wrong, and the girls think it’s absolutely hilarious.
Having a lock box for food that I don’t want my kids to eat has been a game changer around here. I actually have two lock boxes for food! One is made to go inside the fridge. It holds my jam (which people were eating by the cupful, I think), some special cheese, and ingredients I need to cook with for the week. I also have a lock box for food
I learned that you can’t open the backseat door in a police car! OK, so I might have actually learned this today, which is August 1, but I’m including it in July anyway. On the first Tuesday of each August in our city, neighborhoods have picnics to get to know each other better, and police and fire workers come to visit with kids and show them their vehicles. I actually missed our picnic because I was teaching, and the rest of our family was only able to be there for a few minutes before rushing off to a soccer game, but as luck would have it, the police also missed our party, and happened to drive by our house as the sun was setting. Three of my kidlets were out riding bikes, and they stopped them to give out stickers (my wide eyed kids thought they might have been in trouble at first, which was kind of funny!) When they found out about our Latvian host kids, they showed them all about their car and how everything worked. The officers were so great and so kind, and I can’t even express to you HOW excited my little Latvians were to see all the buttons, lights and sirens in a police car. They even insisted I climb in the backseat, which they thought was absolutely hysterical, since I was then stuck there when the door closed.
A slice of lemon in a water bottle makes all the difference.
A bit of mango in a smoothie is just plain delicious. I’ve been buying a mango each week at the grocery store, and we have all been enjoying some amazing smoothies and amazing smoothie popsicles. A smoothie popsicle is the perfect summer afternoon treat.
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