Week of June 21 - Pirates

 Tuesday

We spent the morning at Peter Pan Park where there's a lovely splash pad AND one of the structures is in the shape of a pirate ship! If there's one thing my area does not lack, it's amazing playgrounds with different themes. We played "pirate" and the baby sea monster (a.k.a. Luke) kept biting me, which Charlotte found hilarious.

When we got home, we got out our pirate treasure chest toys (it's a Learning Resources toy). I love this one because it covers so many bases - counting, colors, motor skills with keys, etc.

Wednesday

We went to the Children's Museum! Then we were all too tired to really do anything else until some friends came over to play!

In the evening after our friends left, we played a new game with Dad. I SUPER recommend it for family play. It's one vs. everyone else and it has a really good amount of strategy while still being easy enough for little ones to play with a bit of help.

Also, Charlotte thought it would be hilarious to put underpants on her head, and it definitely was!

Thursday

I kind of needed to catch up on life a bit, so this morning we ran around doing errands, and then popped into a friend's house to play and have lunch. It was really spur of the moment which isn't like us (especially this last year and a half between COVID-19 and having a new baby) and it was super fun! I hope I can continue to venture out.

The boys napped and Charlotte eagerly started decoding this secret pirate message. Once Clesse was awake, we set up our treasure hunt! I hid 10 coins, and Charlotte had to count and recount periodically to see if she had found them all or not. When she needed help I would improvise some sort of rhyming clue, and honestly was impressed myself. We both struggled to find where I hid the tenth one, which was kind of hilarious since I had hidden them not even 10 minutes before. In a world where I had more time to prep, I would have put a letter on each coin to match with a worksheet, but oh well!

Friday

It was supposed to be a super nice day considering it's the end of June, so I snuck in a trip to the zoo! To be completely honest, it was a tiring trip and Clesse was being a little clingy, which was tiring because it meant holding him while pushing the other two kids in the stroller. But, we rode the merry-go-round and it was super cute to see the kids happy! Despite the picture, Clesse did seem to enjoy going around in a circle while clinging to me and afterwards told me, "again mama!" Two other adults on the merry-go-round picked up on my struggle getting all three kids on the ride and offered to help. People are kind!

We came home to the most wonderful surprise a mom with three little kids could ask for, AN ENORMOUS BOX! We made a pirate ship which was SUPER fun. I actually can fit in it with all three kids. One of the cutest parts was that when Koko woke up from his nap, he was ECSTATIC to see something to climb around in. I cut a hole into the top of the box and stuck in the cardboard roll from a wrapping paper that we finished off a little while ago and Charlotte made an awesome flag to go with our ship.

Saturday

After re-organizing some travel plans, this became our last Saturday to get ready for our big trip to California! We ran a lot of errands, prepared a few things, got Clesse set up in a big boy bed to make traveling a little easier (plus, he was climbing out of his crib and even napped in his sister's bed that day). When things calmed down a bit, we played with some kinetic sand along with shells and pirate printouts to make a pirate scene, and then had a wonderful visit from the missionaries!