Busy Bee's

Life doesn't slow down much around our place, this last week of school has been keeping us busy.

Kendle has been enjoying all of the fun things they have had going on. Earlier in the week they had "Field Day", which is where they get to go around and pick different fun events to do. She told me her favorite was the rope climb. Yesterday was "Fly Up" day where they were able to meet their new teacher and visit their classroom for next year. Today they are taking a field trip to the Pasco library (she was excited to take her library card with her, just in case) and tomorrow they are having an assembly in the morning that I will try and attend. They only have a half-day tomorrow, so we will pick up some lunch and head to the sprinkler park to play with some friends.

Riley is coaching the 14 year old girls premier soccer team this summer and he started their practices this week. I've been trying to prepare him for how different it is to coach girls than boys, there is always a little more drama involved and Riley doesn't do drama so it will be interesting to see what he thinks at the end of the season. Hopefully all goes well. I think it will be fun for Kendle to watch these girls and see how good they are.

Friday night we might try and take the kids and do something fun to celebrate school being out. Saturday we are heading to Oregon to have a big family picnic to celebrate my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. They are the cutest couple and it should be fun. It's also Morgan's birthday on Saturday, so we might do something to celebrate later on that day/evening. I can't believe he will be 2! He's not my baby anymore.

I'm off to go shopping and run errands. New books are in at the library for me, I'm so glad!

*On an unrelated note, I haven't thrown up in a few weeks and then yesterday morning out of nowhere - I upchucked right after breakfast. Go figure. Hope it's a fluke.

11 Things I Love About Summer

*Image via

1.) Flip Flops and Sandals

I'm embarrassed to admit how many pairs of "summer footwear" that I own. I love the ease of just being able to slip them on really fast and go somewhere.

2.) Picnics and BBQ's

I was just telling Kendle the other night about how some of my best memories as a child are of our big family picnics we used to have. There would be tables and tables weighed down with yummy food, lots of cousins to run around and play with, and a shady spot to go lay on a blanket when you needed some rest.

3.) Family Vacations
I love that I can look forward to our family getting away for some bonding time together and making fun memories. I hope our children can look forward to those trips too. It's always an adventure waiting to happen.

4.) Popsicles

There is just something about sitting out in the hot sun eating a popsicle and soaking up some rays. It should be a mandatory snack.

5.) Evening Walks
I love taking the family for a walk while the sun is setting and everything is starting to cool down a bit. It is such a peaceful time and the world seems so relaxed.

6.) Green Grass and the Sound of Lawn Mower's

I love the smell of cut grass and a freshly mowed yard. I wish I could bottle that smell up and save it for a cold winters day.

7.) Relaxed Schedules
There isn't much that can top lazy summer days when we just hang out in the backyard, let the kids run through the sprinklers and listen to them laugh, make late-night treat runs, stay up late, sleep in, and enjoy just taking it easy.

8.) Fireworks

I love the Fourth of July and since we live close to the baseball stadium we get fireworks shows all through out the summer as well. We can sit out on our lawn and see most of them, the kids love it and so do I.

9.) The smell of sunscreen and chlorine

10.) Growing a little garden

Even if it's only a few tomato plants, there is something so satisfying about watching plants grow and produce and then getting to pick a nice juicy tomato off the vine. Yum!

11.) Going to the Fair

There has hardly been a summer since I was little that I have not gone to the Fair. The smells of Elephant Ears, the laughter and screams of people on rides, seeing the animals and the exhibits - it just brings back lots of memories for me and makes me feel like a kid again.

Looking forward to school being out this week, hurray!

Finally some sort of Organization

For the last few months I've been wanting to help Kendle's disaster of a room become more organized, specifically her closet and her mass of clothes that seemed to be spilling from every available space. I am not exagerating in the least when I say it was like a war zone in there. I should have taken some before and after shots. Her dresser was one of Riley's old ones that we had painted and fixed up but the drawers were really hard to open and falling apart. I figured, how can I expect Kendle to keep her room clean when she doesn't even have a good place to put her clothes away? So yesterday I moved out her old dresser from her closet and replaced it with one of these:





















The baskets are way larger than her original drawer space and I think this will be one of the best purchases I've made in a while. I labeled each basket so she can easily see what goes where and made one basket specifically just for play clothes, which in itself will be huge laundry/time saver because if ever there was a little girl who is rough and tough on her clothes it is her. She is old enough now that I've been trying to promote a lot of self responsibility in taking care of her own things and since I just made her up a new chore chart, I wanted her to be able to start off with a clean slate. I found a really cute "responsibility" chart that has a place for weekly chores and daily chores from this article on I'm an organizing Junkie.

Here are the links she provided if you want to print your own off:

Girls Chart
Boys Chart

Kendle's daily chores are:
Make her bed
Tidy up bathroom
Let Bogie (our dog) out to play and make sure he has food
Play with Morgan or read him a story
Put dirty clothes/shoes away
Tidy bedroom before bed

Kendle's weekly chores:
Empty bedroom garbage
Sort laundry
Wash sliding door
Weed/Help pick up yard
Help clean out car
Clean room well (which I told her if she is doing her daily chores like she should this won't be a big job because it will already be clean)

I'm hoping some of these things will just become routine. I may be aiming a little high giving her so many things, but I think she is capable of doing it since she already does a lot of them anyways. Now I just need to get the rest of my house in shape. It seems like every time I get one room under control, the rest of the house decides to look like a tornado came through. :)

Annoyed

Can't sleep.

I've been up since 5:00.

I'm itchy-

Sneezy-

Have sore throat-

Watery eyes-

Stuffed up-

And have an annoying feeling in my ears-

Aren't allergies great?