Today was Water Baseball day. It actually went off better than I thought it would, even when I was putting it together. The boys loved it! I'm glad it was a total success, because parts of it were not easy to get together. But, we'll get to that.
This morning we did school work. I'm noting this especially today because a few days ago, Peyton started working on Algebra (you know, solve for X type things). This is significant for a lot of reasons. First all, two years ago this is the kid who still struggled with addition. What a difference home school has made for him. He struggled so much in Public School, and he thrives so well at home. Calib and Hayden of course do great work too, but the most noticeable, and biggest difference is in Peyton. Whats even crazier? He LIKES it. Yea, Peyton likes doing Algebra. Craziness.
So after school work and lunch (we had some really good 'Alaska Salads'), I went outside to get things set up for water baseball. I wanted to do a different take on a slip in slide, you know that cool water bed type thing you see all over Pinterest, and people are like 'it was SO easy to do, just some drop cloth and duct tape, and the kids had hours of fun.
I've seen it for at least a year now, convinced some day we would try our hand at it. As I was outside in the intense Florida heat, sweat dripping in my eyes, with the slight wind blowing the drop cloth all around, and the duct tape sticking to places it shouldn't, I was convinced this was going to be something that would be featured on the Pinterest fail blog. The duct tape would stick to it when I didn't want it to, then I'd try and pull it off, but it'd rip, and I'd have to duct tape the repairs. Ugh, so frustrating. I know I probably could have duct taped it together inside, except, I have dogs and cats, who would have wanted to walk on it, lay on it, and rip holes in it, so that wasn't really an option.
Once I got the hose in there, I stood back and watched it actually fill up. Minor leaks, nothing to major, and we had like this mini water bed slip n slide. Success! (Although it still didn't look as pretty as those ones on Pinterest)
But Hayden loved it. I had him test it out first to see if it would withstand his weight, and it did! I was pleased.
Then, two kids-- and it still held!
Now that we had a place for the 'sliding' part of baseball, we needed some baseballs. So then we started working on filling up water balloons.
Ok, do any of ya'll watch Shark Tank? This little gadget was featured on there. It is the one and only thing I've ever purchased that we've seen on Shark Tank, and it was worth every bit of the $6 we paid for it on amazon. Now, it fills up the balloons- just attach it to the hose, and press the yellow button down to fill it up. But, you see that stick thing there? It ties the balloon for you. It's INSANITY. And, the best invention ever. Once the balloon is filled you just wrap it once around the yellow stick, then you take the end and slide in the through the slot at the end, and then pull the balloon off. I can't really explain it all that well, but it was SUPER easy. We hardly ever do water balloons, because I feel like I spend FOREVER filling them up and tying them and the kids go through them in 30 seconds. But, I would have done this all day. So easy.
Then we got to the water baseball, the boys took turns pitching to each other, they would then slide down the drop cloth to the pool, which was base.
They actually all had way more fun outside than I thought they would. The heat index topped out somewhere around 105 today, but they were out there for hours this afternoon.
Asa came out on break and hit a few too.
When we ran out of balloons, Asa started throwing buckets of water, and Calib attempted to hit those.
We had to fill up the baby pool with more and more water to keep it from getting too hot (I don't want to see the water bill this month- the hose was on forever)
But they were having so much fun, and decided to have races with the beach ball to see how fast they could get it to the finish line spraying it with the hose.
And then they decided to play baseball with the beach ball.
All while they tried to distract each other with being sprayed by the hose.
It took me at least 15 minutes to convince them to drink out of the hose. They kept telling me it was gross, but I told them I did it my whole childhood. I drank some first and told them 'it tastes like summer', before they each did it. They still said it was gross though.
They had so much fun though, way more than I thought they would. To get them to spend a whole afternoon in the backyard in the summer is not an easy task.
I went inside for a little, and I caught them all just hanging out on the water slip n slide. (Still running the hose- we're going to have to take timed showers the rest of the month or something)
I brought them out some Popsicles, and they enjoyed those before finally coming inside. (I said it was either time to re-apply sunscreen for a second time or time to come in)
When Asa got out of work we headed down to the pool. A couple of the boys friends were down there, and Justin eventually met us down there too. Despite our limited space, we were able to play the football game the boys love so much (They run and jump in the pool and try and catch the football from me mid-jump). Today they got fancy though, and would try and catch it AND throw it back before they entered the water-- all while in the air.
A couple of weeks ago, before Hayden had his ear infection (and we couldn't go to the pool for a week), we had lost Peyton's goggles. We looked in the lost and found the last couple of times we were there, but to no avail. But, great news, a little girl, Brianna, who we play with at the pool had noticed we left them one day and her grandma took them home figuring they would see us again later. We finally saw them again today, and they gave them back to us. As soon as we came in the gate, Brianna came running to us and was like "We have Peyton's googles!" She was excited to give them back, and we we're happy to have them back.
Asa made a tortilla soup for dinner, and since Justin was with us at the pool, he came over for dinner too. He's still here playing some WiiU with Asa and the boys. I'm distracted with the blog writing right now, but whatever is happening seems very exciting. There's lots of yelling.
Also, one of my favorite events of the whole year is coming up this week. Any guesses?
Oh hey, and Dipper has found quite the buddy in Sophs and Grace. I don't think I've ever seen a cat like dogs this much.
Next Up: It's $1 movie day!
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