Summer plans

Welcome summer!  School is officially out, and summer is officially in!!!!  I am a list person.  Post-it notes with lists on them are my friends.  I have been working on some summer lists.  Here are some things we have planned. . .

1.  Read lots of books!
2.  Make lots of lemonade
3.  Eat lots of popsicles and ice cream (DQ visits are a must)
4.  Star gaze
5.  Stay up late (occasionally)
6.  Sleep in late (often)
7.  Have picnic lunches
8.  Go to the park lots
9.  Have the kids organize their rooms (which you know they are soooo excited about--not)
10.  Count box tops (I collect these for the school, and I have thousands that need to be counted and sorted, so I am going to put the 4 extra bodies to work counting this summer)
11.  Make birthday cards (I like to have a stash of homemade birthday cards ready, and my stash is low, and my kids make great cards!)
12. Scrapbook my kids' school year
13.  Cook with my kids, try some new recipes
14.  Count my blessings each day and enjoy the summer with my kids!!!!  Realize the amazing blessing it is to have them and to be able to have this time with them because you know sometimes when they are fighting and screaming I forget that. . .

and of course there are lots more things to do, but we are only one day into this, so we are just getting started!  Let the fun begin!

Happy Summer!!!

Blue Jeans Week 18

School is out, summer is here, well maybe not totally here (June 21 Mr J keeps telling me), but at least school is out.  Here is our last week.

Sunday:  My mom went to the International Reading Association Conference in Orlando.  She came back with a library worth of books that we got to choose from.  It was like Christmas--the kids loved it!

Monday:  Miss E with her awesome 3rd grade teacher!

Tuesday:  Miss A had her end of school choir concert.  She sang a solo of "Give my regards to Broadway" and did beautiful!  It was an outside concert, and they did a great job.

Wednesday:  At the end-of-school awards assembly Miss O was honored by being selected as one of the 2 5th graders to receive a $500 scholarship to be put in an education saving account for college.  So awesome!!!  Way to go Miss O!!!

Thursday:  Our Toyota jump!  School's out for the summer!!!

Friday:  Great way to start summer vacation off with playing at the park.

Saturday:  Miss O and Miss A went to a learning magic workshop this afternoon, and then that evening we all went to the magic show of Mark Toland.  It was really good.  The kids got to demonstrate a trick before Mark started, so Miss O is on stage doing the string in the straw trick :) 

Our hearts go out to the people of Joplin, MO.  We have been blessed and spared from the many storms around us, but pray for those affected by these terrible storms.

 

Summer

Summer is hot here and in full swing. Just some pictures of what summer looks like here.

Miss O investigating at the library story hour. What is really in a drop of water? Kind of scary to see :)
Slip and slide!

Miss E decided she wanted to have a picnic all by herself. Ta-da! She had a basket of napkins and everything.

One of our favorite summer things--putting the sprinkler under the trampoline.

Driving the trains--our neighbor down the street has a whole building in his backyard that is full of trains and train tracks. He is recreating in miniature the Rio Grande Denver to Salt Lake Rail Road line. It is amazing! As you can probably guess, it is one of Mr J's favorite things to go over and visit them. He gets to drive the trains. Super cool!