Play Dates in June

Now that I'm out of school for the summer (I won't say "on vacation", since I'm still going to school board meetings and other union meetings and fielding emails and phone calls), I have more time for play dates with the kiddos.

Last Saturday, Uncle Kelly and I took them out to the playground to meet up with two other families from the Parents of Multiples group.  While the other families were meeting on the big teeter totter (see-saw),

Here are the other families meeting

we were exploring the sandbox:

 Then it was off to explore the big pirate ship structure, including a slide.

Caroline is getting so tall!

"Look over here!"

The pirate ship has a long ramp that leads up to the top level and a slide to come down the other side.  I was quite impressed that Caroline ran around, went up the ramp, ran over to the top of the slide, and slid down all by herself.  Uncle Kelly was impressed that the next time around she decided to climb the little hill at the side of the ramp to cut down on her travel time, identifying that the shortest distance between herself and the top was that straight line.

On Sunday, Joe had to work at the US Open the whole day and our friend Junior's dad was working all day, too, so we got together to go shopping.  Junior's mom is such a fan of the Salvateenies that she actually bought a second hand double stroller so the two of us can take the four of them out easily:

Caroline and Junior

Sam kept commenting on how difficult it is to steer the double stroller and make it through the stores.  He he he...

To avoid a complete meltdown, we let the kids out to run around the play area outside of Target.  It was a sea of kids and Sam and I kept scanning and making sure we had an eye on all four - I would count to myself, "1, 2, 3...4 - whew!", while Sam focused on the color of their clothing, "dark blue (Jr.), light blue (Daniel), green (Max), pink (Caroline)".  This worked well, except for the two times Max bolted.  The first time, I was looking at the other end of the play area for Daniel when a nice dad came up and said, "um...excuse me, I think one of your kids got away", and sure enough, there was Max sitting right outside the entrance.  The second time I saw him and called, "I'm on it!" as I noticed the same dad nervously start to get up to follow him.

Because Tanforan shopping center used to be a racetrack, the climby/tunnely things are all racing-themed, including a jockey's hat, a winner's garland, a pace truck (I guess), binoculars, and horses.

Max and Daniel emerge from the jockey's cap while Caroline meets a horse

Caroline was really jealous of the big kids who could climb on top of the car.

Max stuck to the flowers after being caught the first time

I stuck him on a horse after the second time

Caroline sat on the saddle and announced it was time to go.

A handful of other cute pictures from the past week:

Caroline reading on the couch

Striking a pose

Max in his cool Linus shirt (we have since gotten a Charlie Brown for Daniel and are working on Caroline's Lucy shirt)

Daddy's caption was "How we roll"

We had to hide the boys' rain boots from Caroline