Summer slips past

 but Mom is not allowed to get by-

 unless she pay a toll

 then she can pass.

 Jennifer finds the flash a bit slow or bright,

 but my, isn't she cute when she's blinking!  (If I could catch a sneeze, that's even cuter!)

Melanie is busy in her room, surrounded by her brothers

 they are probably planning a game that involves lots of toys (and no cleanup if they can get away with it).

 Daniel stays to watch.  He usually plays along nicely with any new game for a while, and then once he's tired of it, wreaks havoc on the game.  Then a fight usually breaks out and we need

a funny clown!

 Haha!  I laughed very loudly when Matthew came upstairs from the playroom with his duplo squirt guns and told me "Look Mommy, I'm a funny clown!" 

Melanie designed his outfit, down to the mismatching shoes.  Why squirt guns?  Because that's what some people at camp did when they were being silly!

Dear Jennifer is such a sweet girl. 
Sometimes.
But
she is also a very demanding girl.  Today she climbed up onto this bucket in her room, yelled for help: "Uhhhh!" and since I didn't arrive in 30 seconds she started in to scream!

 "Mommy get me off this bucket now!"
She gets angry very quickly lately, and also, after not having screeched shrilly in a while, is back to the high pitched screaming again. 
We hadn't missed it. 
At all.
Bring earplugs if you come visit anytime soon.

Sometimes the playset gets neglected for weeks, and other times it looks well worth the effort of making it. Nathan and Matthew are being dogs, though they are distracted by Jennifer, curious to see how far she can make it up.  Melanie and Matthew are playing a version of house that involves a baby.  Melanie loves being a Mom in her games, and is very pleased to find that Daniel is very good at playing house, if it's just the two of them.

Jennifer wishes she could get up too!  And I am so very glad she can not.  I still remember Daniel falling off the top!