I've decided to take -

a SUMMER SABBATICAL.

I will probably continue to post about our Date Nights, but for the most part I'll be doing the following:

Monday:

AM - groceries, library
PM - science project

Tuesday:

AM - pool
PM - neighbor's day camp

Wednesday

AM - themed outing
PM - Little Prince art class, "home date" with Sunshine, possibly a movie afterward

Thursday

AM - playdates
PM - home craft projects

Friday

AM - summer movies at the theater (ten movies for six bucks!)
PM - get a babysitter for the two little ones while they're taking their naps, and have a date with the two older ones

We also have daily time blocked out for reading, math and boredom. I'm a big believer in unstructured time. How will they learn to creatively fill their time if they don't have any time to fill?

And following last year's "Surviving Summer," we have weekly themes. Every theme will include a craft, an activity, a recipe, an outing, and a service project. The kids helped me select themes for this year. We've got:

Dinosaurs
Science
South America
Africa
Asia
United States
Trains
Farm
Cars

I'm still available through email (and I'd be happy to email you my list of the fun things we're doing), and I'm sure I'll float around the blogosphere occasionally. But in the meantime, just know I haven't died or anything. I'm just hangin' with these guys.

Have a great summer, and see you in August!

Last day

... of school!

Is it weird that I might be even more excited than my kids?!

Confession: I did not always feel this way. There was a time when I counted down to kindergarten like Christmas. Except a Christmas I got to open every day.

I think the difference is planning. Before, the summer months represented one big long stretch of emptyboringnothingness.

(That sounds terrifying.)

But now that I've learned about routines and systems and scheduling? Summer ROCKS.

Let the festivities begin!

Summer - Survived

So summer is over.

It's thoroughly depressing.

Did we go to the pool enough? Did we eat enough Otter Pops? Did we play and veg and chill and learn and laugh enough?

Did I prepare Little Prince for the coming school year? Does he know how much I love him? Will his teacher love him? Will he love her more than he loves me? Will he be able to stick up for what's right when all the other first-graders are doing what's wrong?

Will Mr. Squishy and Sunshine miss him? Will they play okay without their leader? Will I survive without my helper and little compadre? Will the NBC look around for his favorite entertainer?

and perhaps most importantly ...

Will my brain ever stop thinking ridiculous, pointless things?

(Photo taken by Little Prince.)

Surviving Summer - Week 7

This week was

ART WEEK

At least, in theory.

We did make play dough, which of course was way fun.

And we did learn about some famous painters, and imitated them.

Monet: Create a picture using only dots.


Picaso: Draw pictures of each other without looking at the paper. (Although I think Little Prince cheated.)

Van Gogh: Paint using long strokes and/or do a self-portrait.

And we were going to paint toast and make mashed potato sculptures.

And we were going to go the Art Museum.

And we were going to make masterpieces to send to my brother on his mission.

But we didn't.

We were busy.

Oh well.

Surviving Summer - Week 7

This week was

DR. SUESS WEEK

First, read:

and visit a nature preserve.

Then, read:

and draw pictures of what you'll be when you grow up. (Little Prince: an artist, a teacher, a cooker, a soccer player, and a DAD. Sunshine: a planedriverpilot. It's one word.)

Then, read:

make Thing cupcakes

and fly kites.

For our service project, I was planning on picking up Kathy's Lego room (ala Cat in the Hat, of course) - but we're in Michigan. Can we do it when we get back, beb?

Surviving Summer - Week 6

This week was

MOVIE WEEK

Because it's summertime, folks. We don't have to learn something every day.

We kicked it off with seeing Toy Story 3. I might have bawled my eyes out. Twice.




We also made TVs out of cardboard boxes and gave news and weather reports. That was hours of fun right there. (Sunshine also liked to give suggested menu plans for the day. He likes chicken and rice. And cookies.)

For the service project this week, we're making a DVD to send to our friends in Brazil. We drove around the neighborhood, waxing eloquent on the differences in traffic. We also showed them Little Prince's school and a typical American grocery store. Our friends are so gonna love this.

And ..... that's it. I had plans to make popcorn, act out movies, and make elaborate craft video cameras, but we didn't. We were too busy playing at the pool and the Children's Museum.

I think that's okay.

Surviving Summer - What week is it now?

This week was

DINOSAUR WEEK

This may have been the favorite so far.

We measured out various dinosaurs in the back yard, marking them with little flags. Find different lengths (along with a whole bunch of different dinosaur activities) here. We were very glad to find out that a brachiosaurus would fit. THANK GOODNESS.

We tried to do a wooden dinosaur puzzle, but it was too dang hard. Oh well.


We bought THE BIG BOOK OF DINOSAURS.


Awesome book. Awesome. We read it approximately 19731984147 times this week.

Can you tell by my face?

(Love that I'm wearing an apron in this picture.)

We also cut out dinosaur footprints and put them all over the house. Then we had a Dinosaur Parade, acting out different kinds of dinosaurs. (Like a COMPSOGNATHUS or a PACHYCEPHALOSAURUS. My kids can totally pronounce their names.)


We made dinosaur eggs. They were pretty tasty. Suspiciously like shortbread cookies. Who knew. (We acted like OVIRAPTORS the whole time. They eat eggs, you know.)

We also made fossils. Quite easy. Just make an impression in damp sand and fill with plaster of paris. (2 cups of plaster to 1 cup of water.) Dig them out once they're dry and dust them off with a paintbrush like real archeologists!

And, um, we also made a fossil of a bus-drivin' alligator.


And of course Dinosaur Week wouldn't be complete without a trip to the Dinosaur Museum!


This summer ROCKS.

Surviving Summer - Week 4

This week we learned about

SCIENCE

I was really excited about this week. I had a ton of things to learn about and do, and we only got about half of them done. We might have to have a second edition of science week in the near future.

First off, when introducing our new theme, we discussed what "science" means.

To us, it means learning how things work.

It led to some awesome discussions, and got my kids thinking about the whys and wherefores of the world. (Which really mean the same thing, did you know that?) It also led to lots of googling. Because I've taught my children well: that the internet knows all.

We learned about our solar system. There's some great interactive websites out there (my kids liked this one) and I quizzed them on astronomy facts all week. They all like Mars. It's red, you know.

(Observed at the neighborhood pool: Little Prince to stranger kid: "Did you know the sun is actually a star?) Awesome.

We built our own little solar system, and hung it above the kitchen sink. It looks like a deranged spider. (Though I love Saturn's rings.)

And you'll observe that Pluto is there. It's still on the website, and therefore must be included.

(Little Prince to My Man: Yeah, the science people got together and said Pluto couldn't be a planet anymore. We don't know why.)

Poor Pluto.

We also built a crystal garden - a kit from Grandma. So cool. You could actually watch the crystals grow.

My favorite was building a volcano. Mason jar. Cardboard. Paper mache.

Little Prince didn't think it looked much like a volcano at first.

And I would prove to you with a picture that it did INDEED look like a volcano when we were done, but when it came time to explode it, I couldn't find the camera. Turns out it was actually PUT AWAY, not on the computer desk, my bedside stand, or on the kitchen counter where it USUALLY is.

Anyway, the kids loooooooooved exploding the volcano (red food dye, lemon juice and baking soda) and we went through an entire box of baking soda in one day. They kept exploding it over and over again for their friends.

We're so cool.

We also went to the Science Musuem in Phoenix, which was completely crowded and gave me a pretty nasty anxiety attack the whole time. I wrote my phone number on all my children's arms.

Still, they had fun -



The NBC just chilled. He's really good at that.

Surviving Summer - Week 3

This week was
Father's Week

Because one day simply isn't enough to celebrate My Man.

Seriously.

We made "Come Home Dad" blocks for his desk at work. Work is thoroughly overrated, is it not? I would totally be a hermit if it meant My Man could just be with us all the time. Who needs electricity and clothes and food and? ....

I wanted to decorate the blocks with pictures of the kids and stickers and little sayings, but I was told that would look "weird." Okay then.

We also visited My Man at work. Where they ate popcorn and candy and stared at the fish and played with the toys.

Work is AWESOME.

(And Little Prince is in the I-hate-having-my-picture-taken-stage.)

Racing back to the car is FUN.

Dad won.

Speaking of cars, we washed his. Anything involving nakedness is approved by the That Girl Boys.

For Father's Day lunch we had BBQ pork pizzas. Pulled pork. Barbecue sauce. Cheese. Cilantro. Delish.

Dinner was summer stuff - burgers, ribs, corn on the cob, chips, watermelon, pop.

That-Girl's-Last-Name Dessert for afters. Cuz nobody knows the original name.

It is pure fluffy sweetness. REALLY sweetness.

Recipe:

The top and bottom "crusts" are just chocolate cookie crumbs. There's a certain kind of cookie that is preferred, but I can only find them in Utah. In Arizona, I use Oreos.

Tough luck.

For the filling, bring 2 cups of milk to a boil, and stir in one bag of marshmallows. Take off the heat, cover, and cool for a few hours, stirring occasionally. (You want all the marshmallows to melt - no lumps!)

Once thoroughly melted and cool, whip up a pint of cream with a 1/4 cup of sugar, and mix it in the marshmallow/milk stuff. Pour it in between the cookie crumb layers, and refrigerate overnight.

Fluffy. Sweet. My Man laps this stuff up.

So this year I did a "Five Love Languages" theme for Father's Day.

Service - washed the car and did the dinner dishes as often as he would let me
Words of Affirmation - love letters and "I Love Daddy" books from the kids
Presents - the blocks and General Conference on CD
Touch - a book to teach me how to massage (he might have to read it, too...)
Quality Time - we're going jet-skiing this week!

Yeah. I love My Man.

More than any language known or un.

Surviving Summer - Week 2

PIONEER WEEK

We started out by washing our "boos" by hand. The kids thought it was awesome, and want to do it every week. We'll see.


Our Boos are special. Very, very special. And they smelled super good afterward.

We also made ice cream. Mint. Because that's the flavor we had on hand.

(The neighbor kid was over. He's always over.)

(And we're always half naked around here. Deal.)

(I love the look on Sunshine's face.)

(I also, apparently, love parentheses.)

It was incredibly delicious. Especially with homemade hot fudge sauce.

(Sunshine is the Incredible Hulk. Obviously.)

We made homemade butter. I'm probably more proud of it than anything I've ever done in the kitchen. Which is stupid, since it's also the easiest thing I've ever done in the kitchen.

We used the buttermilk to make bread, and ate it with the butter. (Two loaves, one to give away.)

Oh.

My.

Yum.

We used the cream cartons to make log cabins. No picture, because I forgot to take one, and I'm already typing up the dang blog and I'm not about to stop.

They were cute though.

We also visited the town's Historical Museum, which was the highlight of the week. Little Prince says he wished he lived in the olden days.

Probably because of the tractor.

We were going to make hand dipped candles, but instead we all got super sick and laid around, reading books and letting My Man take care of us.

It was very nice.

Maybe we'll make the candles next week.

Happy Pioneer Week!