The boys had a blast today. Their Papa Stu kindly sponsored them for Rendezvous for Kids and off they went although I was tempted to not take themafter their behaviour this morning. To top my frustration, we were running late so by the time I gotthe girls dropped off, got to the park, parked, and got the boys to registration, they were 30 minutes late so their first preschool activity was already well advanced. It was a negative image painting. The boys received their bags and then had fun looking for leaves, bark, sticks, etc. Of course, we were so far behind that the other children in the group had already finished thier painting and we were just catching up when it was time to begin the next activity. Bleh, the teacher was sorely unprepared. She didn't have enough supplies to go around so James and Charles wound up just standing there. None of the other children would make room for them. The teacher finally realized what had happened, and sent us off early to the other booths set up. The kids were free to go to any booth with blue awnings. There was everything from snacks to string art to clay, tie dye, general crafts, bubbles, etc. So our first stop was snacks, of course. :D

After the boys had gorged themselves on fruit, cheese sticks and lemonade we set off to see what was available. The first stop was the bubble booth. They had a high old time making huge bubbles. Charles also did a small activity where you took a cup, a straw, some soap & water, a rubberband, and a washcloth to make a rather cute little bubble blower. He was so proud of himself over the large bubble towers he blew out of that thing. Then it was time for the string booth. Large skeins of yarn were being thrown over a tree and bushes. James called it a spider web and both of the boys had fun climbing though it. They both got tangled up and it was a pain getting them out. I saw one boy had to be cut out. LOL Then we were off to the Tie Dye booth. Both boys made a shirt. James chose a V pattern and Charles the spiral. I must admit that Charles will probably come out much better than James. I got distracted with Charles and by the time I got back to James, his was completely drenched with dye. It looks black so it will definitely be interesting to see how it turns out tomorrow when I rinse it out and get it washed.
Then it was time to rejoin the preschool group where the boys did the activity they had previously been unable to do. The teacher was kind enough to leave out the supplies for them.

Then I realized it was time to pick up the girls so I rounded up the boys (the insisted on stopping at one more booth ~ ink stamps) before they consented to being loaded up. I then raced down to get the girls only to find out that I'd just missed Sue walking the girls up to the park so I had to drive around looking for her, which took about 10 minutes. The girls were well behaved for the most part. We headed back to thepark since the registration fee included lunch for the boys and I wasn't going to pass that up. So we sat listened to bag pipes while the boys enjoyed their soft tacos and chocolate milk.

Bleh, now I remember why I never go anywhere by myself with all four kids. I couldn't keep them together. Then I turned around to find the three older one's running across the street. They'd run into some friends that live a block away and took off with them. Sigh...... it would have been nice if they'd at least stopped to ask. Bleh. So I had a nice time with Bindy before dragging the kidlets home for a well deserved siesta. In fact, Kitty was so tired that she was asleep before we got home and she didn't wake up when we got out of the car. She proceeded to sleep two hours. Wow. We enjoyed dinner outside in the cool evening. It was a nice change from the heat wave of last week.

After dinner and bath (the kids decorated the tub and each other with their tub crayons) Deedee and Charles enjoyed a story before bed. They must have been tired since they went to bed with relatively little fuss. James however begged to do his lessons. It's turning into a routine for him to do them after the others are in bed and I'm tempted to keep it that way, at least for now. It gives us valuable one on one time with him. Tonight, he followed my instructions to draw an apple tree. It's his science book but he then insisted on drawing the number six (the number of apples) and writing his name. He really enjoyed it. He also drew on the glass door with the window crayons, play with his modeling wax, we sang The Ants Go Marching again, and he read an article about ants in the National Geographic. He's really enjoying these and I'm really glad. I have also finally been able to get in contact with the local homeschool group so I'll see how that goes too.