Start of August

 Things have been...basically the same as ever.  😊. Lots of pool swimming (other than the delightfully cool weather we had last week), sandbox play, and legos have been our jam lately.  Kellan is holding strong with his interest in dinosaurs, construction vehicles, and all things Halloween (his first love), but this week he added a new minor obsession:  the animals from Aunt Renee's house.  See below.

My cousin Erin and her son Will gave Kellan a super kind donation of construction vehicles that Will has outgrown, including this fire fighter costume.  Kellan is a big fan!

The Horsmans were on vacation last week so they came over for a nice time of outside pizza and Settlers.  

Kellan enjoys a bath with water beads and dinosaurs.

 

Everything is canceled this summer, of course, but one thing we were able to do was a Dinosaur Adventure Drive-Thru at the MN State Fair grounds.  Kellan is way into dinosaurs still, so this was mostly for him, but the other kids also highly enjoyed it.  Jon and Henry came along with us, as Henry is ALSO a big dino fan like Kellan.  Jon has the pictures because I was driving, but I snapped a few as well...

We were only able to drive 5 mph so I let all the kids unbuckle and Kellan sat on Uncle Jon's lap for half the time, talking ALL. THE. TIME about what he was seeing.  He was able to accurately identify about 70% of the dinosaurs, haha.

My brother Eric stopped by this past weekend on his way out to Lake Tahoe for his new teaching job (driving from Boston where he finished up his Harvard degree...have to name-drop that any chance you can get...).  We had a little family goodbye party for him in the Horsman's backyard, and while there Kellan got to play with all of Henry's animals from therapy.  He fell in love with lining them all up. and naming them.  

Then we went home.  The next day it was ALL he could talk about.  The only thing.  That's it.  Nothing else.  At all.  Every.  By 3:00 I was over it.  I couldn't handle any more of Kellan's incredibly persistent "I wanna go to Aunt Na-Nay's house!" X300.  So we went...I took him by myself and he spent a good hour lining them up on the two separate tables in the Horsman's backyard.  He was finally content.  Aunt Renee graciously agreed to lend them to us for a while until his animal-lining-up fascination is spent.

He wore me down.  100%.  Kellan is the Persistent Widow personified.  

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE.  

Persist and all shall be given to ye, 4th child.

The dinosaurs still get some lining-up love too. 

The past 3 days have been HUMID.  (Thank you Jesus for my AC...still!). We enjoyed some pool and popsicle time yesterday.

Legos are ALWAYS a hit toy around here, but they have had a resurgence lately.  Layla spear-headed an extensive reorganization effort by color and size, and that has led to a solid week of 3+ hours daily being spent quiet in their shared room while they sort and listen to audio books.  Some days it has been 6+ hours.  Haha.  Older kids are the BEST.  😂

Finn always enjoys helping Jonas in the basement, but a big part of that is he likes to take breaks and eat snacks during his breaks.  

On a walk with Jonas a few days ago, they ended up at the splash pad...