Our List This Summer

 It has been my system for the last couple of years to sit down with the whole family and write up a list of things we want to do during the summer.  It serves to give us a bit of direction in what could be a series of long, hot, boring days.  Some of the bigger items need to be planned or scheduled ahead of time while the smaller things can be used to add a little fun when needed.  It's also just a fun activity overall, especially this year when the kids had quite a bit of input.  We ended up with a pretty good list incuding things like roasting marshmallows and learning to swim (Tyler) to visiting the beach and taking a trip to Utah to see the family.

Once we have the list, I type it up and make it all pretty so we can display it and check off the items as we go.  And with the second week of Summer just beginning we already have a great start on the list.  We've had lots and lots of pool time since our neighborhood pool opened.  We met some friends at the zoo for a fun day with the animals.  We fired up the fire pit and roasted giant marshmallows.

And we went berry picking - so fun!  Now there's an activity that gets addicting quickly.  The kids love picking the berries, especially since we go with another family that has become our designated berry picking buddies.  And we're all kind of obsessed :)  Last week we started out bright and early only to discover that we still weren't in time to get a shot at the raspberries (crazy!  they were gone by 7:30AM) so we stocked up on blackberries and blueberries (Kaitlyn's favorite) instead.  And then the true madness kicked in and we made a trip to a second farm where we picked strawberries (the last of the season) and loaded up on a few of the veggies they had for sale (sweet corn, baby potatoes, and green beans!). 

After that is was, of course time, to eat the berries (not that Kaitlyn hadn't been popping berries the entire time :)  ) - and oh how many great things there are to do with berries!  The kids insisted we make fruit smoothies as soon as we got home.  And of course we had the berries fresh with some fruit dip for lunch and dinner.  We had made arrangements to meet up with our berry buddies back at the pool that afternoon (which was of course great fun), then after showers (thus the scraggly hair in the above photo) Kaitlyn and I did some late-evening jam making.

We finished off the last of the berries on Sunday with homemade blackberry ice cream and blueberry crumble for Father's Day.  Now we're left wondering when we can manage to wake up early enough to get a shot at those raspberries...

Speaking of yummy summer food - We spend a good 3-4 afternoons or evenings down at the pool every week and snack food is in high demand right now.  So I got inspired and decided to let the kids mix up their own trail mix with items we had on hand in the pantry.  For that round I pulled out the peanuts, pretzels, sunflower seeds, mini marshmallows, raisins and white chocolate chips.  It was a huge hit with the kids!  It's my favorite type of summer "project."  Simple, quick, inexpensive, and easy to personalize.  I'm already gathering items for the next round of trail mix making - cashews, dried berries, goldfish crackers.  What else would be good in trail mix?

Giant Balloon Flowers

I have a quick and easy party decor tutorial for you today - mostly because I want to remember the process we figured out if I ever need it again :)
Kaitlyn's class did a very short play for part of their end of the year awards program in their classroom.  Her teacher wanted some giant flowers for the "set" (the play was about insects/collecting pollen) and Kaitlyn volunteered me to help out.  Not that I minded.  The teacher probably had no idea what she was getting herself into :)  She wanted a certain amount of flowers, 2 of each color and let me run with the rest of the plans.

Of course I recruited the husband to build the stands.  We did them completely out of scrap wood, painted them green and added big paper leaves.  That was our first installment.  We took these to the school the week before the play so the kids could practice with them. 

Then two days before the play we blew up all the balloons and I put together the flowers.  Thank goodness for husbands and power tools - the air compressor made relatively short work of this big task.

The idea I had been looking at online suggested tying the ends together to form the flower but they didn't keep their shape that way.  So I took discarded cardboard from cereal boxes, etc, cut it into circles (about 6" diameter), then cut 5 slits into the sides and slid the ends of the balloons into the slits.  I punched a hole in the center for the center balloon, then covered all the ends with tape to make sure they stayed in place.

Ta-da!  Giant three foot wide flowers made of balloons.
We carted them all to school (thank goodness I took the stands in earlier as the balloons filled the entire vehicle and I had to recruit helpers from her class to carry them all into the school) and I attached the cardboard to the stands with push pins.

Their little play was a big success.  Kaitlyn had one of the larger speaking parts and did a fantastic job as did the rest of her class.

Summer summer summertime!

As we were folding the laundry earlier this week my husband commented, "you know it's summer when you don't have to fold any socks!"  True, right?  Summer has it's own style and pace.  And the biggest difference between summer and the rest of the year isn't the fact that we spend most of our time in flip flops but the fact that the kids are home All Day, Every Day.  Oh boy.

I know a lot of schools have let out for the summer already.  Here in North Carolina we are still on our final week of school - and oh what a fun week it is.  Graduations (Tyler's preschool graduations was A-dorable), awards ceremonies, parties and field days, etc etc.  And while I'm just as excited as the kids are for lazy mornings with no schedules/places to be and fun filled afternoons at the pool, I am also dreading the long days that could lead to boredom and sibling arguments. Which means I've been gathering ideas for weeks now on how to combat these issues (and there are tons of great ones out there thanks to the internet, blogs, and Pinterest).  I am spending a good chunk of time today pulling things together - you know I don't tackle anything without a plan and a cute gimmick or two up my sleeve.

This morning found me in need of groceries (and probably one of the few opportunities I have left to go to the grocery store without kids in tow) and while I was out I made sure to stock up on on the summer Must Haves - freezer pops and fruit chillers and drink mixes and pool friendly snacks. I piled all my loot on the craft table and hunted up some of the other things I had stashed for summer use - a new extra large bottle of bubble solution, water balloons, and some water/pool toys (these aren't new, but we haven't used them much and I'm pretty sure the kids don't remember we have them) - and dumped it into a big bucket.  I plan to have the bucket sitting out to surprise the kids with when they get home from the final half-day of school on Friday.  (Plus a new sarong for Kaitlyn and a cap for Ty if I can find one that's cute and in his size.  Easier said than done, I'm finding.)

In addition to the bucket of fun, our plan is to celebrate the last day of school with a popsicle party at our neighborhood pool.  I've already posted an invite to all the neighbors on FB and it looks like we'll have a nice-sized gathering that afternoon.
Now I'm sitting here with notebook at the ready, flipping through all the ideas I have gathered to keep us all busy and happily entertained this summer.  I have a few new items to add to our Summer Fun Ideas Jar (you can see my post from last year here).  I've already pulled it out once already (this weekend when the kids and a couple of their friends just couldn't seem to agree on anything.  Worked like a charm - woohoo!) and I know it will come in handy many times in the next couple of months.  Basically it's a jar full of ideas that the kids can pull out when they are having a rough time.  The catch is that whatever idea they pull out, they MUST do that activity for at least the next 15 minutes, without complaining.
The boredom isn't the only thing I know we might get frustrated with this summer.  We have a fantastic neighborhood and a whole pack of kids that like play with each other as often as possible.  That gets a little hard on the parents when kids are in and out constantly, so I'm already considering a designated No Friends Day or at least a portion of each day when friends aren't here.  I even printed off this great little "Yes we can play/Sorry we can't play door hanger (printable found here).
Also on my mind - daily/weekly routines, learning activities, our Summer To Do List, and a good idea for dealing with bahavioral issues (like the many many arguments!).  I'll save all that for a post tomorrow and leave you with a few photos of the little treat I whipped up for Kaitlyn to give to her bus driver. She has stopped Kaitlyn more than once, and even pulled me aside at the bus stop to say how great/sweet/nice Kaitlyn is.  Love that!  She totally deserves a treat and a thank you.

Ok.  So I just grabbed a big ole' box of Junior Mints.  No idea what the bus driver likes, but this seems a safe bet.

Then I tweaked this printable (found here) to fit the box and printed it off on cardstock.  I would have printed it on yellow if I had known the yellow wouldn't print (printer issue on my end probably? I have since changed both ink cartridges), but instead I just colored in the background with a crayon.  Should have wiped off the icky crayon debris befor taking the photo - oops!  Stick a cute, quick and easy bus driver gift idea, even with the crayon crumbs, right?

Now it's time for me to wrap up my blogging and put my lists aside and go pick up my little guy from one of the few days of preschool he has left.  *sigh*  Oh they grow up so quickly...

Red White and Blue

Long weekend - woohoo!  You don't often hear me say that about the smaller holidays (ie: the ones where I don't plan gifts and activities weeks and weeks in advance) because I usually neglect the long weekends and then end up regretting my lack of planning.  But as luck would have this weekend seems to have fallen into a nice little mix of fun and productivity and mostly happy family members all around.  Plus, I'm on the winning end of a week-long fight with a nasty little cold, and that would put anyone in a good mood :)  However, the combination of the cold then the busy weekend means the blog once again only gets a minimum amount of attention.  So I thought I'd do a quick Show and Tell of the red, white, and blue hairbows I whipped up a few weeks ago.  I've been messing around with the use of denim for hair accessories as well as some of what are proving to be my favorite fabric flower techniques and combinations.  Kind of fun, and like a comfy pair of jeans, I figure a denim hairbow would be pretty versatile and appropriate for almost any kind/color outfit.

I thought the denim and polka dots would be festive without being too over-the-top that it couldn't be worn every day, not just on the red/white/blue holidays.  Appropriate for Memorial Day, and just the tip of the iceburg on the ideas I have for 4th of July.  We'll see how many of those I get around to in the next few weeks.  But for now, it's back to the pool (oh how I'm loving our new neighborhood pool!) and the home improvement projects for one more day :)  Happy Memorial Day everyone!  My many thanks goes out to not only those in the military (including my wonderful husband) past and present but to the family and friends who support them, on Memorial Day and every day.

*I made the hairbows primarily for my own entertainment and because I like to play dress up with Kate, but I did list the red/white/blue one in my etsy shop.

A Little Show and Tell

I had the urge to blog today, but no idea what I wanted to blog about.  Does that happen to anyone else, or am I just a nut? :)

Anyway.  I realized that I probably haven't shared some of my more recent crochet projects.  I'm building up quite a collection of favorite patterns and ideas and it's getting hard to narrow it down to just a few to take to craft shows (well I haven't done any of those yet but I'm totally thinking about it!) or list on Etsy.  These are a few of not only my fav, but also some I think would still work well for summer wear.

Crochet cowboy hat and boots - cute right?  I came up with the boots pattern all by myself.  (insert big self-satisfied grin here)

My other monster hat is by far the most popular, so I came up with a double pom pom version.

And a fun lacey-type version of a cloche hat.  I like that you can change the look of it by switching out the flower for a different color or type or a bow or a hair fascinator or...

There - just like Show and Tell in Kindergarten I'm keeping it short and simple :)  Happy Friday! Linking to:

Teacher Appreciation 2012

Teacher appreciation week starts Monday.  Did it sneak up on you too?  Actually I knew it was coming as I've seen lots of fun ideas popping up on Pinterest :)  I just put off throwing everything together until this week.  Which is actually fine, as our PTO isn't the best at getting notifications out ahead of time and we only received the note requesting participation this week.  Luckily they did the same thing last year, so I knew what I was in for.  The PTO requested that the kids bring in a card for their teachers on Monday.  I decided to use this printable (found here) as I love anything that seems a little bit more personal.

Tuesday's assignment was chocolate so I grabbed chocolate bars that looked pretty decadent and added a tag.

Wednesday the PTO will provide breakfast.  Thursday we are supposed to send in a flower.  I found that a hard one last year as our town isn't big on cut flowers and I didn't have any in my yard.  So this year I grabbed some flower seed packets and prettied them up a bit.  The tag reads "If teachers were flowers, I'd pick you!"

The PTO's plan is to give the teachers a larger gift on Friday, one that doesn't require contribution from the parents.  So I figured that's my chance to go out on my own a bit and send in something that wasn't "assigned."  I picked up a bunch of yummy smelling anti-bacterial (in pocket sizes) and holders at one of Bath and Body Works big sales knowing it would come in handy for something like this.  The tag says "you are scent-sational."  The printables for this one and the chocolate came from the Eighteen25 blog and can be found here.

And while I was on a roll (and because the italian ices looked interesting when I was at the dollar store), I duplicated the "stay cool this summer" idea I used for end of the year gifts last year.

I have to say, it's a relief to have all of that put together and ready to go so I don't have to rush around at the last minute.

31 Days of Photos

I love photos.  Always have.  I love looking at them, taking them, admiring other's work.  I take a lot of photos and I end up with quite a few good ones.  But it frustrates me (and has for quite a while) that I don't have the skills to take the quality of photo I'd really love to be taking.  So this month I decided to stop saying things like "I need to practice" or "that photo session turned out okay but I could do better if I knew more."  No more procrastination, or waiting for a calmer month or more time or better photo subjects.  I decided I was going to take the 31 days in May and use it to follow along with the 31 Days to Better Photos (which I discovered at least a year ago!) at My3boybarians.  And since I always do better at following through if someone else knows about my goals, I thought I'd share what I've done so far.
Day 1 has a really great motivational message and is all about simply Taking the Photo.  So that's what I did.  I read that blog post then I grabbed the camera and found the closest subject - my 5 year old, who happened to be doing somersaults in the living room :) 

He would stand up tall. Do the roll.  Then lay sprawled on the floor for a second before getting up to try it again.

This one (below) is my favorite as I think it's a fun, unique perspective.

Day 2 told me to get out the camera manual, make sure I know some basic functions/symbols (I did - phew!), then find something I didn't know/hadn't tried before.  I had a bit of a panic when I couldn't find my camera manual in not one but two places it could have been stored, but eventually tracked it down in my scrap/craft cupboard.  As I was paging through it, I was struck by the section on shooting close-ups as I'm usually drawn to most close-ups and detail photographs.  One of the tips was "if you have a zoom lens, using the telephoto end will make the subject look larger."  So out the door I went to try out this theory.

The picture above is with the lens at it furthest setting, the one below is from the same location but zoomed in as close as I could get.

It totally works!  I need a little sharper focus on some of the photos, but I'm pretty happy with the results of my 5 minute experiment.  I think this little project is going to be fun.  I wonder what today's lesson will be...