SuMmEr TiMe..!

Our Sun Cake we always bake to start off summer. We make it different every year. Mmmm...organic marble cake with lemon frosting.

For summer, I always make lesson plans and have activities planned to keep the kids busy. Probably more for my sanity than what's best for the kids! Noe is gone all summer long so I try to make the most out of my time with the children.
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Here is a list of some things we do in the summer time:
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~ Free movies at the park (Different parks host movie time at dusk)
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~ Free movies at the movie theater (One of our local movie cinemas, sponsors free movie days on Tues, Wed, and Thurs with kids movies- such as Kung Fu Panda is on the agenda this summer.)
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~We go to Pump It Up (They have Mommy-n-me time, where it's $7. It is a building with inflatable slides and bounce houses, etc.)
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~Water parks (These are actual parks here in town, where they built fountains and sprinklers and water toys for everyone to cool down.)

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~Summer reading programs at the local libraries (We do this every single year since the kids were tiny. They read so many books and get prizes, good prizes too like tickets to a hockey game.)

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~Vacation Bible School

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~Farmers Market (In June, our local Farmers Market comes back into town on Wednesdays and we go get fresh produce. They sometimes have sunflowers and peanuts, various things. We play in the downtown fountain afterwards.)

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~Our local zoo is called CALM (every last Saturday of the month, the kids get free admission into the zoo.)

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~The Museums in town also have special days (The Kern County Museum hosts a Book Blast which is July 11th this year. The kids write and illustrate books, listen to authors read, make crafts.)

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~We do lesson plans and crafts all summer as well!

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~When Daddy gets home from a fire, we usually take at least one vacation (out of town to an amusement park or new place) plus go to the beach.

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Have FUN that's what summer is really about!

If you start off with a plan and talk to your kids about it for their input and establish rules, then your summer should go a little more smoothly.

Kicking Off Summer With {Camping!}

I thought we would start our summer by doing a Camping Theme.

Noe is on call right now because it's fire season, so we decided to camp out in our own backyard.

Everyone roasted their own hotdogs for dinner..!

{Sorry about the dead grass, yuck!}

The kids love the BBQ and fire... just like their Papa.

Once it got dark, we roasted marshmallows for s'mores!

Some variants of s'mores: using chocolate chip cookies instead of graham crackers, using peanut butter cups instead of chocolate bars, using a peppermint patty instead of chocolate bars, adding a slice of pineapple and using white chocolate instead of milk chocolate bars.

Can you tell we love our s'mores?!

We were getting ready to play freeze tag in the dark with our light sticks.

Maelyn in the tent listening to campfire stories and songs!

We also discussed the stars outside.

He is SO into Daddy's story.

I thought this would be a fun theme to start with.
I'm going to post some of our favorite foods and crafts for camping in the next few days.

Have a wonderful summer everyone!

{Letter Ee Week}

{The girls made these Letter Ee ELEPHANTS}
 All the kids helped in making these EGG CARTON spiders, lady bugs, and caterpillars.

Patience made ELEPHANTS out of her handprints. I told her to draw something around them with marker like plants and she said they needed presents because it was their birthdays.

The kids made ESKIMOS out of paper plates and cotton balls.
First, I had to explain and show them pictures of what eskimos are.
Their paper plate ELEPHANTS turned out darling..!
These were the books we read this week:

Unplug Your Kids {Dark Theme}

For our Unplugged Project this week- we OBVIOUSLY, well you can tell from the picture what we did. There's no need to explain! :)

It's really hard to take pictures in the dark while running!

Our family played freeze tag in our backyard with glo-sticks that I picked up from the $1 store.

It was so much fun!

Plus, I got such a great workout. The kids made me sweat- they're faster than I imagined. I thought I would out run them no problem. I'm getting old!
We had a fun night!

The Last Day of School {2009}

Their last day of school lunch bags.

To quote Maelyn "Everyday the kids love my bags. They say Dad's an artist!"

We made some more jars of strawberry jelly for their Principal, Secretary and Teachers.

I didn't really think about what to do for the students in their classes until last minute.
After dinner last night, I made some cookies and wrote "You're 1 Smart Cookie!" on the bags.

We had the students in their classes sign their school shirts.

Maelyn and her friend from Kindergarten.

Noah and his wonderful teacher.

{I didn't crop pictures}

We got some ice cream after school. It is so HOT here!

When we returned home, I had them run through this sign {after I opened the door!}
It's officially summer vacation and I officially have a 4th grader and a 1st grader now. Time sure does fly!

Proper Letter Writing Technique

A couple weeks ago, my daughter came out of her room with a handful of envelopes and asked if we could go to the Post Office to mail her letters. The envelopes said things like "To Jeffrey Love Maelyn" on them. I explained that we couldn't mail the letters in those envelopes because it wasn't the proper way to mail letters. I didn't think she really understood what I meant.

Today I decided to show the kids the proper way of writing a letter and then they learned the proper way to fill out an envelope.

They did pretty good on the letter writing part. The envelope part stumped them. They all got the answers wrong. We made a few envelopes to go with the letters and sent them off.

I would show a picture but they have addresses on them.

I am glad that I covered this subject though. We write plenty of letters and cards. Usually if they decorate an envelope, I end up putting it inside a bigger envelope and sending them.

Now they understand the proper technique. I am leaving these papers up on the wall so they have for future reference.

Lunch Bags...!

For the last week of school, we decided on making the kids these lunch bags.

Noe drew on one side of them and I wrote things like "1 more day until 3rd grade is over" on the other side of the bag.

The kids loved them when they saw them this morning.

I put hamburgers in there, leftover from last night.

Noah and Maelyn were excited to show everyone at school their lunches!

Muffin Tin Monday

This week over at Her Cup Overfloweth, there was no theme for our muffin tins.

We had a BBQ in honor of Memorial Day today. It was such a beautiful day out!

We had: Ketchup, Grapes, Corn on the Cob, Hamburgers (normally I only give them half, but they insisted that they were starving!), Strawberry Shortcake, and French Fries.

Simple Summer Supper

In the 100+ weather, it's hard to find an appetite.

A nice, cold, fresh salad is the way to go for a simple summer meal.

Just throw some lettuce greens onto a platter and put your favorite salad fixin's on top.

Sometimes we'll put crumbled bacon or turkey meat or croutons on it as well.

Put your salad dressing on the table with some crusty bread and your meal is complete..!

Fabric Sandals...!

What to do with sandals that are starting to look yucky?

Make them fabulous!

Get your old sandals or even new ones.

I used fleece for this project. I've also done it with regular fabric, whatever you have handy.

Cut the fabric 1 inch wide and 4 1/2 inches long.
*If using fabric, use pinking shears- or even use them with the fleece for a decorative touch.


Go around the straps of the sandal and just tie the fleece strip.
Tie it tight, with many strips and just keep pushing them together.

*With fabric, I usually double knot it because the knots come out easier.

{Fabulous} sandals!
The fleece washes really easy too..!

Patience Turned {4}

Happy Birthday to our Sunshine.

She lights up our life...!

Muffin Tin Pizza Style.

For their muffin tins today, we decided to make personal pizzas.

We picked up some whole wheat dough at Fresh and Easy the other day.

Each of the 4 kids, rolled their own dough and put on their own toppings.

I put some strawberry yogurt in plastic muffin cups and pizza sauce in another muffin cup for them to dip. Yum-o!

The best $1.29 you can pick up, is fresh pizza dough.

Flower Structure

When I went into my daughters classroom for Open House, I saw that they made flowers that looked similar to these.

I thought they were terrific!

The kids have been growing their own flowers here at home. I wanted them to learn more about the structure of the flower. I used laymen's terms and not the proper scientific terms.

The roots are made from handprints. The stem is made from green ribbon (her teacher used green yarn). The leaf is made from green felt (her teacher used paper). The flowers are made from cupcake wrappers. I just took my circle hole punch and cut the middle of the flower out from scrapbook paper.

We talked about the things that plants need to survive!

Unplugged...!

This week's Unplugged theme was Magic!

I pictured myself doing a ton of magic tricks and the kids all laughing- but in reality I don't know any magic tricks...!

I'm pretty good at art though.

I showed the kids how to "magically" make shapes out of tape.

Carm wanted to make a "fower."

Patience needed help making her butterfly out of masking tape.

They colored over the tape and picture as hard as their little hands could!

"It's messy Mom!"

We removed the tape and....

Ta-Da!

Our pretty pictures appeared like "magic!"

Mother's Day {2009}

I love Mother's Day!

It's really the one time of year that focuses on Moms!

All the other days year round, I try to make everyone else's days special.

It was my day- well, my day with my family. I couldn't spend it without them.

They woke me up with my favorite breakfast foods singing "There is someone that we love and Mommy is her name-o! M-O-M-M-Y" (the tune of BINGO)

I ate my breakfast with the kiddos wanting to make sure I have everything I need of course, then I opened my gifts on our table.

We decided to go to the beach for the day. We got an early start and headed out.

I always feel so guilty when I miss church. It gives me little butterflies of guilt.

Carmendee is ready to go to Pismo Beach.

My family just relaxed and had fun in the sun!
There were tons and tons of ladybugs everywhere!
It was a nice peaceful Mother's Day.
We played on the beach awhile and then walked around the beach shops.
We've been wanting to get each family member a good, sturdy pair of sandals. The ones at the beach are the best. So, we shopped around for some.
The last place we went before we left was the candy shop. We picked up a sampler pack of candy that we saved for after dinner tonight. It was tasty. Patience didn't touch her dinner, so she didn't get any- but Noe and I saw a piece missing out of the container and low and behold sneaky hands got into it!

I hope all you fabulous Mom's out there had a wonderful day!