Happy birthday to the sweetest, most loving, funny and smart 65 pound 6 year old boy, Trey Cameron! You are AWESOME!

Another year, another Rotary Auction come and gone. I passed on the “running of the bulls” type entrance and opted for the late, casual entrance. There was nothing I needed, which was a good thing. I came home with everything I never knew I always wanted:
3 lacrosse sticks, badminton rackets, banana hanger/fruit basket, Fletcher reading sets vol 7-10, educational computer games, workbooks, intercom system, signed Dwight Howard shoe and…Carlos’ baby crib set to use for the foster babies!

I always love to see what others came back with, so I asked my Facebook friends….here’s a sampling of their finds:

– a great mt bike, and girls filled their bags with Polly pockets, barbie accessories, playmobil, fairy stuff, Jessie from toy story, and a build a bear koala bear complete with fancy dress. Nothing we needed, except the bike and a fun morning!

– A sweet TREK hybrid for Jack. We got there at 6:30 am and waited….it was mayhem, but worth it.

– Loved it! Won a bid on a lovely little sailboat, and of course bags full of totally unnecessary stuffed animals, Barbies, and action figures.

– We came home with a bag of books for the girls, three Breyer horses for Abby, a stuffed Teddy bear that we donated and had to buy back, and four soccer balls for the dog to chase around the yard.

– Books, a mint condition set of dvds for hubby’s b-day, two vases and a framed ’17th century Nun’s Poem’ for the church, two bags of baby clothes. That was such a feel-good score that it makes up for the fact that I didn’t get the popcorn machine I wanted. Maybe it will be back next year and I’ll have another chance at it!

–Four-drawer filing cabinet, swing hit batting practice thingy, skateboards, lacrosse stick, golf bags, chess set, dominos, food dehydrator, Harry Potter grab bag, big train whistle, painted wooden eggs… We ♥ the Rotary Auction. Next year it’s all going back. Except the filing cabinet.

– American Girl doll clothes and book set, doll bed, pug Beanie, Nerf gun, Super Soaker, Garfield and Far Side books, Silver Palate cookbook, Frank McCourt books, magazines, and a troll doll that our dog promptly ate. (Whoops. Guess we won’t have to take THAT back next year!)

– 2 lacrosse sticks, a rebounder, a lacrosse goalie helmet, 2 sets of K2 skis, a spinning bike, and a computer monitor…and a bunch of stuff that should never have come home (note: don’t leave your kids unsupervised while you run for the big ticket items!).

– Hockey helmet, elbow pads, mason jars, badminton net, toaster, tennis balls, sombrero, unicorn hat.

The one great thing about the auction is that if you don’t get something this year, chances are it will be back next year!
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We have a new baby in the house, Baby “C”. He’s absolutely adorable and we are blessed that he is happy, eats well and sleeps through the night (all but twice). As always, we’re not too sure how long he’ll be with us but baby time is always fun.
We still have Baby “A” and he’s rolling around everywhere and really getting a funny personality. Looks like he’ll be moving to his forever home here soon and will be truly missed.
Five boys in the house is quite an adventure!

Hope you had a wonderful celebration, Papa. We love you!

Carlos got stung by a bee yesterday afternoon, in the hand. It did the usual hurting and swelling that came down with Benadryl and ice. Around 4:30 this morning, though, he was miserable. It was itching, hot and very swollen.
We had speech therapy this morning at Harrison in Silverdale, and dropped down to the ER to have it looked at. With his past history with bee stings (click here for that story) I was worried. The doctor said it was getting infected and put him on antibiotics. Seems like we’ve done this with Carlos not so long ago. I don’t tend to trust the Harrison ER so we made an appt with our pediatrician’s office for this afternoon. Second opinion was that it was an allergic reaction, to continue with the Benadryl, ice and elevation and see how it is tomorrow.
Fingers are crossed that poor Carlos gets a break!

Nana always comes up with great projects and this one didn’t disappoint. Kick the can ice cream! It did take a total of 20 minutes of kicking coffee cans around, and we didn’t quite have enough ice to make the ice cream firm but it was tasty and fun to do. Hoping to get the recipe posted here soon.

The kids weren’t all that happy to hear that I would be their teacher for the summer. An hour per day on weekdays, doing workbook pages and reading. It’s not too much to ask, hoping we can avoid the summer slide. They are all doing their work, though, with few complaints!

Levi’s class celebrated the end of the year with a bowling party. We could only be at half of the party because we had to get to the last half of Carlos’ class picnic but our guys love to bowl. Bumpers on, they did pretty well. I love Levi’s form where he kicks his back leg up just like my dad did when we used to go bowling.

It was Fishing Derby Day at Island Lake yesterday so I took Levi, Carlos, Trey and Alice out for some fun. It was the coolest set up, each of the kids got a tshirt and new fishing pole to use and keep! They had a seasoned fisherman helping out so each child caught their limit (2 fish), then another volunteer cleaned the fish for the kids to take home. It was a perfect morning. The kids can’t wait to go fishing again and we had trout for dinner.