Camp at Home – the Finale

Well, we made it through the week!  Camp at home was fun, and I’m sure it will be a little easier next year without a newborn.  :-)  However, then I might have a walking toddler…. Hmmm… 

Friday was supposed to be our final day, but we’re sort of stretching it a bit.  I felt like my pace got slower throughout the week as I realized, once again, that I am only 3 weeks postpartum and actually feeling quite exhausted.  It’s taking me some time to get back into the swing of things.  I am not one of those moms who can just BOUNCE right back into life at warp speed.

On Friday the kids wanted to play outside quite a bit, and we did some water activities.  We made Sponge Balls.

The kids played a couple different games with them.

• They set up buckets of water.  A person would dunk the ball into the water and then throw it at the other person to catch who would, obviously, then get quite wet.  The game would continue as the children moved back a little bit each time, trying to catch the sponge ball.
• Each child had a bucket set up for himself – oldest child’s bucket was furthest away and the younger children’s were closer to the starting point.  Using the sponge balls and a couple water-filled buckets, the children would dip the sponge into the water, run to their buckets, and SQUEEZE out as much as possible.  The winner was the person to fill his bucket first. 

TIE  DYE SHIRTS 

I can not remember if and when I made a tie dyed shirt last!  On Saturday we tackled it!  I was glad to have Brian home to help me with this somewhat tedious project, mainly because the dye is so messy.  We made a spiral pattern for the boys and a double spiral pattern for my daughter, per their request.  It went so well, we are thinking about dyeing some shirts for the rest of the household soon.  I am anxious to see how the shirts fare through the washer and dryer – GULP!

The last activity I have planned is to make some homemade (Rocky Road?) ice cream in our ice cream maker.  We only usually pull out the ice cream maker about once a year, so this would be its big debut.

Some of you might want to know what the baby did during camp.  Besides being held, she did

Some of this…

and some of this…

  Back to normal life!