Nothin' Says Summer Like. . .

Sittin' in the Pool

The first week of summer we watched a couple kids while their mom went to Girls' Camp. Since we couldn't go anywhere with 2 extra kids, we had lots of fun here at home.

To avoid too much television and video games, we've tried to do some active activities each day. I also put together binders for each of our kids with journal pages to draw and write on, math pages to keep up their math skills, and other pages with fun activities to do based on the kids' ages. We've also been taking lots of trips to the library to pick out books to read. I've also been keeping up on piano lessons with Jon, Rebecca and now Kirsten, to encourage them to keep practicing everyday. I need to make an incentive chart too.

Peanut Butter Playdough

Hands-on activities are always great, especially in the summer when you can make more messes and have more time to clean them up. Play dough, sand, bubbles, chalk, water, water and more water, are all fun things to play with in the summer.

Playin' with Friends

We've been getting together a lot with some of our friends. One day I sent all the kids outside and told them to come up with a play to perform for me. They came up with "Indiana Jones and the Bubbles of Doom." They picked costumes, came up with a plot (imprisoned princesses and pokemon, a scary monster, stolen treasure, Indiana Jones and Jedi Knights to the rescue), I even provided them with bubbles, which somehow didn't make it into the actual production. Anyway, it was a fun play. Once I get Mike to help me edit it, we'll post it so you can see the fun they had.

We've been very busy with swimming lessons, playing with friends, going to the park, sprinkler park, library and neighborhood pool and hanging out at home. Whew!!! This summer is going to vanish before I can catch my breath.
Happy Summer!

Swings

"Oh what do you do in the summertime, when all the world is green?" CS 245
My kids love to swing outside more than anything else when they play in the backyard. Look at Jon's belly flop. Crazy kid. It looks like he had a soft landing, thank goodness. If you are prone to motion sickness, don't watch. I should have used a tripod to hold the camera steady. I love it when all the kids are playing happily together and having a good time with Daddy.

Alyssa's Tongue Trick

Alyssa has a very cute pointy tongue. She likes to stick it out of one corner of her mouth and then move it over to the other corner. I think she started doing it to feel her new teeth. Or maybe it just felt good to rub her sore gums with her tongue. Whatever the reason, she has a neat trick!

Building My Eternal Family

We had a fun quarterly Primary Activity on Saturday. It was my last big 'hurrah' as Primary President. I was actually released the Sunday before the activity, but the bishopric told me I wasn't off the hook for putting on the activity. The theme that we chose was "Building My Eternal Family." We found the idea through sugardoodle.net.

When the kids arrived they each got a "Building Permit" and a yellow "hard hat." They then went and colored pictures of their families while we waited for everyone to arrive. For our opening I talked about being a local architect. We were in a construction zone and needed to wear our hard hats to protect our heads. I went over our building plans found in D. & C. 88:119.

119 ^aOrganize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a ^bhouse, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;

The kids were then divided into groups and went to 3 stations.

At a House of Learning the kids made houses out of craft sticks and glued the pictures they drew of their families onto them.
I really enjoyed looking at the houses that my kids built.


At a House of Order the kids had a relay race. They had to take care of baby, mow the lawn, fold laundry and pick up blocks. I like how the kids are all lined up and ready to go.

I was in charge of the House of Glory. I likened eternal families to rice crispy treats. The rice crispies are like the members of our family. If I dumped out the entire box, that wouldn't even come close to how many people are in my family if we go back to Adam. The sealing power found in the temples is like the marshmallows and butter. When they are melted together, they become very sticky. When combined with the rice crispies, they make something wonderful. Can we separate the rice crispies from the marshmallows? No! We wouldn't want to. They are sealed and will be together forever. I demonstrated all of this to the kids, then they all got to eat a rice crispy treat. Yum!

We got back together for the closing at the House of Faith. The member of the bishopric over Primary talked about Noah's ark and how Noah's family worked together, lived the gospel and were saved on the ark. After the closing song, "My Eternal Family," and prayer the kids lined up for pictures in the ark. The cubscouts made a nice ark for us.

After their pictures were taken they went to build their own lunch--Hawaiian Haystacks. It was a great activity. I will miss working with my counselor and secretary. They are awesome ladies!!!

FYI-I am now the ward accompanist. I play the organ in sacrament meeting and the piano in primary and for anything else if I'm needed. I now feel like I actually have to practice. . .

Birthday and a Butterfly

We had a fun afternoon at the sprinkler park here in town after Mike was done with work in the middle of the week. The kids had a blast. Even Alyssa thought it was really fun to get her feet wet. She giggled and giggled when Mike stuck her feet in the water.

Rebecca had her Kindergarten graduation. They made it a pretty big deal, which really surprised us. They ordered real graduation caps and gowns for them all with tassels even. Here is a picture of her in her gown.

We had fun celebrating Ethan's 5th birthday this past week. He wanted a Luma (a cartoony star from the game Super Mario Galaxy) birthday cake. We went to Wendy's with the younger kids for his birthday lunch and all got frosties and chicken. Here are some pictures from the big day.

On Saturday we went to the LDS Temple as a family. It is about a 3 hour drive for us, so we generally have to get up early and spend most of the day on the trip. The kids were pretty good, though. Mike took them to the mall to play and Lena took them to a local library while each of us took turns doing temple work and the other watched the kids. On our drive back home we took our time and stopped a few times so Mike could take some pictures. On one of the stops, Lena noticed a big black and yellow butterfly. Mike had his zoom lens on (Sigma 70-300 mm lens for Nikon digital SLR) and was able to get a few nice shots of the butterfly before it flew away. We found out later that it was a Giant Swallowtail. Here are a few of our favorite shots.

We also saw a giant troll on our way down to the temple. Fortunately we were able to get past it before it grabbed our van. We managed to get a picture of it as proof.

We got Wii Fit this past week. It has been a lot of fun. Mike has done really good at actually exercising each day since we got it. Apparently, however, the house repairs that he was doing were pretty good exercise since he lost about 12 pounds in the last month. He had been noting that a lot of his pants were starting to get tight, but now he's back down to his normal weight again. Lena really enjoys Wii Fit as well. The difficulty is doing it without the kids interfering with the balance board. Who would have thought that exercising could be so fun or even somewhat addictive?