^^I asked Amaya what I should name this blog entry.

This week we started the transition from full time nanny care to after-camp/ after-school care and welcome Gabby to the care giving team. As a welcome, Amaya worked on a picture of an alien for her.

On Tuesday morning I headed off for another business trip (Charlotte, NC) but not before breakfast with the crew. A happy crew!

Happy until I had to leave, that is. Poor Bubba had a rough goodbye. 🙁

While I was away, Grandma Sunshine came to pick up Steven for his sleepover!

He stayed up late, played with new toys and had lunch out with Grandma, complete with pie. He even brought back necklaces he made for everyone in the family. <3

Pre-camp “Sunscreen by Daddy” is a special treat to witness.

After work on Thursday I had two boys eager to play games with me. They both came to their “Don’t Break the Ice” wins honestly.

Amaya is constantly doing art. For hours at a time. I can’t get over her focus.

This week, she spent time creating a family of birds.

I picked up the kids from camp on Friday afternoon and had 1 happy camper (Amaya), one camper who made a run for the hills (Sammy) and 1 sad camper (Steven). Steven was sad because his favorite counselors (CITs, not his actual group counselors) are moving on to a new assignment. It turns out they’re triplets! He was so bummed he won’t see them anymore but told me they gave him a piece of paper with their information so he could have a play date with them.

Later, at home, I looked at the paper labeled “Babysitters” at the top. I asked Steven if he wanted these girls to babysit and he said, “Babysit!?!? I thought we were going to have a play date.” Sweet boy.

Sammy, Steven and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon playing Connect 4. The did not come to most of their wins honestly lol.

Amaya and her dimensional artwork. She said she was making a museum.

Bobes and Morminer. BFFs.

On Saturday we went to meet May May, Mikey, Taco and Rainbow Heart at Tiny Town. It was a long overdue play date and everyone was excited. The kids wore tie dye shirts they made at camp the day prior.

Taco is in a dress of Amaya’s that was originally a dress of Charlie’s. 🙂

SSA and I went out for lunch afterward. It was an older crowd at the restaurant and many, many people stopped by our table to talk to the kids. Here, Steven was explaining to someone that he works on an apple orchard and a pear orchard and takes care of two hundred thousand million trees. (Poor person didn’t know what to make of it and certainly didn’t know he was pretending to be the pony Apple Jack but kindly encourage his story.)

This guys stopped us on our way out to say hi to Steven, Sammy and Amaya and to tell them to be careful eating their lollipops.

A “quiet” Saturday. (Seriously. It’s so loud in our house. The noise level is off the charts.)

EMT Steven

I am modifying some food so that one of the kids will eat it. Similar to how I washed red sauce of ravioli tonight so the kids would eat it.

Amaya got a little pink in her hair.

FaceTime with Nana. <3

Today the kids went to their second ever movie and our first as a whole family – The Lion King!

We were home from the movies by 12:30pm which made for another lazy weekend afternoon.

Building Marble Runs.

Artwork

Asking Daddy not to sing “Circle of Life”. 🙂

Watching the Cliff Diving World Series. Incredible.

Bedtime story books

Finally, here’s Amaya doing some rhythmic gymnastics with the hoop. We watched some videos together and she we ready for her own interpretation. (After multiple utterances of “How do they do that?!?!”).

This week SSA start taking the bus to camp. I have another work trip (Orlando). Sammy has his turn for a sleepover with Grandma Sunshine.

Have a great one!