Quality time with four children

Friday I got out some brown packaging paper, rolled it out and had one child at a time lay their bodies on the paper trace them and move on to the next child. When that was all finished, we held down each roll of paper with whatever we thought would work, mostly cans and then they got the chance to decorate themselves to create what they thought they looked like or really to just have fun and color.
Kacen had fun coloring and took his talents on to the kitchen floor as well

Alona did an amazing job, striped socks, a bracelet and ring. Her portrait of herself was truly beautiful.
Abbi's drawing was more along the lines of what she can do now. She wrote a lot of the letters that she knows how to write along the outer space of herself on the paper and drew a few shapes and other things as well.

Jesse has been having tummy time and really is quite a trooper. He spits up while on his tummy and cries. He doesn't really like it too much but he tolerates it for me. He gets his little bum and legs all the way in the air and lifts his head up. Occasionally he will almost turn over when he gets hysterical.

We went to the Clinton city parade on Saturday. The children got a ton of things. For once it wasn't my children that were having trouble getting the candy and other things that were thrown, it was a lady and her two girls that were next to us. Abbi and Alona were more than willing to share with the little girls. There was a float that had children with some awesome sling shots and were hurdling water balloons at the crowd. Alona did not want to get wet. I thought that their float and the sling shots were pretty neat and made sure to point it out to the girls. I even commented to Alona that she could run after the float to get wet! "No Mom"!!
While playing at the park after the parade, I was feeding Jesse and the children were running around. Alona put her hand in the grass and got stung for the first time. Of course she was more hysterical than ever and we ran them over to the nearest relatives house and Alona got some ice to soothe her finger.
We stopped at my Grandmothers before coming home on Saturday. Jesse just wanted to stare at her. A new unfamiliar face, the first time that she ever held him :)Today playing a board game together. They also had pudding!Currently my other half and three of the four children have set up camp in the back yard! They are all having a blast! laptop is set up out there and they get watch a movie together. They and their daddy will be occupying the tent outside tonight. I will have a quiet house :) Well of course until they come knocking on the door in the morning to use the bathroom and be fed.I made our own version of summer bingo this week for the girls, thanks Emily for posting a link to that idea! They have had many things that they could do and have done.

• Playing an educational computer game
• watching an educational video
• write a thank you note or draw a picture and mail it (we still need to buy stamps!)
  
• paint a picture
• play baseball outside together
• do an extra job for mom
• ride bikes at the church
• learn a new song from the songbook
• pass off a new article of faith
• play play-doh
  
• playing at the park for an hour
• Abbi has had some that include: practicing flash cards, doing three pages in her workbook, read 20 min with mom, practice writing letters
  
• Alona has some specific to her: three pages of math, reading an article in the friend X 2, read a book outside, read scriptures, read your book in a secret place, read little house on the prairie with mom

These were most of the things on their cards, there were a few others. They had 25 spaces and have to get 20 done within the week and then we would go to Chuck E Cheese and use the tokens that we can get with our coupon. Each week I can fill in the bingo spaces with something new and reward them with a new activity! Next week I think Kacen wants a card to play along too!