Five kids at the park

Today was a gorgeous day. Finally sunny out, so I decided to head to the park. I loaded up my boys, picked up 3 extra kids on the way, and arranged to meet a friend there with her son. I got to the park to find the gates were closed. There were quite a few people there, but they weren't allowing anyone to park down there yet. Not a clue why, and I almost went somewhere else but decided to stick with the plan since it's my favorite park. The walk is good for us all anyway. It's actually a long windy driveway, downhill on the way down, but getting back up can be tough. I figured the kids could use the exercise anyway. I had thought of putting the double stroller in the van, but decided it wouldn't be needed. Oops! It went well though.

Unfortunately my friend couldn't join us. She couldn't find parking, then her rear brake hose blew out and she barely made it home. Her brakes were so hot that it melted the hubcap! So after we brought the kids home, Dan and I went and brought her car back to our place so he could fix it.

Gabriel wasn't really big on playing today. He decided to hang out in the stroller and have a snack. He liked watching the girls swing and run around.

 Managed to get them all to stand in 1 spot for a pic.

 Gabriel was super excited to watch the ducks and the kids playing by the river

 The girls hadn't been here before, they were pretty impressed. They started out by throwing rocks into the river.

 Then they decided to stand on a rock

 We watched some ducks

 Dawson loved the rocks. He did slip and fall totally on his butt once though! The water is very shallow there.

 The rock stepping ended up with wet shoes, so we ended up taking off the shoes and hiking up everyone's pants so they could wade in the water.

 Thankfully everyone listened very well and followed the rules of not going past the rocks.

Even more surprising, I had no complaints when we had to leave the park! I was seriously shocked. There's usually whining, crying and screaming, but they were hungry and wet. So we climbed the long hill back up to the road. I ended up pushing the stroller and carrying the 2 year old, so I got my workout for the day! We went home, changed into shorts, put the pants and shoes on the balcony to dry while they played for a few hours. I hadn't planned on bringing them back to our place, but I wasn't about to send them home super dirty. We even made some cookies for their mom. The girls loved helping with that.

We brought the girls home and I even got to hold the baby again. I showed the baby to Dawson and he got so excited and all mooshy. "Girls have a baby!"  He even had that face that moms get when they see a new baby. It was so cute. Then he asked to hold the baby, even had his arms all ready for him. So I gave him the baby and he started cooing at him and shooing my hands away. Thankfully he allowed he to support the head still. He even gave him a kiss. So adorable!