Summer Bucket List- New York City and The Best Day Ever

Yesterday, my husband took 5 of our older children to New York City. This was their first time in NY.  My husband has been a couple of times.  I have never visited the city (well, I went to the Bronx zoo once and changed buses there on a trip once-neither were pleasant experiences).   I stayed home with 4 of the younger kids.  We didn't think they were ready for that and it's hard to keep track on 9 kids..not to mention expensive!  (Our oldest daughter lives on her own now.)

Here are a couple of shots taken in NY:

Ryan (12), Katie(15), Emma (9), Erin (18), Rachel (16)

Erin, Katie, Emma and Rachel at the m&m store

Back at home we had a full day.  In the morning, I took the kids to the craft store so I could get the remaining supplies I needed for VBS and some beads for my knitting.  Sadie ended up popping the top off of the beads and we spent about 10 minutes crawling around on the floor picking them up...yes, we did.  Then we stopped at Trader Joe's.  Both stores are about 35 minutes from home.  We got home about 11:30 and I made the kids peanut butter and jelly pizza for lunch. After lunch, I got some paintbrushes out and some cups of water and gave them to the girls to "paint" the walkway and driveway.  They had a blast.  This was on our summer bucket list (as was the NY city trip).

Later in the day, I made the little girls pocketbooks from green felt and read The Big Green Pocketbook (a favorite) to the kids and we did the lapbook from Homeschool Share to go along with it.

Jenna told me, "Today was the best day ever!" at the end of the day.
Look at her beaming. I'm glad she enjoyed the day.

It was a great day for the entire family even though we did different things.