Peach Picking

So a while back in the Berry Picking post I mentioned we would be taking the children peach picking this summer.  I have been meaning to tell you all about it and post the adorable pictures of my little ones but so much other stuff has been going on that needed to be blogged about I haven't gotten around to writing about our peach picking trip.

Given how HOT it has been here this summer and how early the really HOT weather began all of the fruits and vegetables have ripened earlier than usual.  Typically peach picking starts in early July and lasts through July and early August.  This year, we went around the middle of July and were there on the last day of peach picking for the year.  Other farms in the area had already run out of peaches.  We went to a farm that was about a 45 minutes drive from our house.  Of course, the trip was made a little longer because we can't go anywhere without someone needing to use the restroom.  On the way there we only stopped once, about 30 minutes from home, for a potty break.  On the way home, we stopped twice, and both of those stops were within 15 minutes of the farm.  Ridiculous!

Anyway, back to our peach picking adventure.  We actually picked the perfect Saturday morning.  We were having a "cold" snap and had actually had a little rain so the skies were overcast which made for delightfully cool, at least cool by Arkansas standards, weather.  We had the orchard all to ourselves and the children had a blast.  They ran around and picked any peach they could reach and started loading them into our bags.  They even picked up ones off the ground and wanted to take those home as well.  We ended up picking over 50 pounds of peaches.  We took home over 23 pounds and my mom took the rest.  I spent the next few days taking the skin off, slicing and bagging them, and putting them in the freezer so we could use them all year round.  Looking forward to peach muffins and peach cobbler all year round.  Yummy!

Here are some shots from our peach picking adventure.

John David inspecting his peaches to ensure they were up to his high standards.

Harrison just couldn't resist having a little taste.  His verdit...Delicious!

Ella posing for the camera in the peach tree.

Getting a little boost from daddy.

Now it's my turn dad.

Tired but happy girl.  She missed her morning nap for our peach picking adventure.

I love this picture.  We thought we were finished picking and were heading back to the farmhouse to pay for our haul.  I think we stopped to pick some more, and visit, and take photos, and John David crouched down to wait for us.  I think he looks adorable.  He wasn't mad or upset and didn't ask us to hurry up or anything.  He just "sat" there and waited for us to come along.  

Monkey see monkey do.  

We tried to get all three of the "big kids" to pose in this position but Harrison would have none of it.  

The three "big kids" hanging out on the porch while we weighed and paid for our peaches.

A small sample of our bounty.

We've been on a fruit picking trend this summer.  I'm hoping to keep it going with apple picking this fall.

Stay tuned!

The Fastest 6 Months of My Life

I'm so very behind...........................BUT

Look who is 6 months old.  Already.  (Actually I am so late in writing this post that she is now 7 months old.  Yikes!)  How did this happen?  And so fast?  It's not fair.  I hoped she would stay a little, tiny newborn baby forever.  My mother in law says I shouldn't want that.  I should want them all to grow up because that is what they are supposed to do.  And while I know this....I want them to stay little.  I want Ava to be a baby forever.  I mean it.  Babies are easier than toddlers or 3 year olds or, I assume, teenagers.  She is cute, cuddly, smiling, doesn't talk back, and thinks her daddy and I are still smart, all knowing, all powerful, and the best people on the face of the earth.  Who wouldn't want that forever.
How did she go from this

To this 

so darn fast.

I know when I turn around she will be walking and talking and my baby won't be a baby anymore.

Part of the reason for the delay in this post was the sheet with Ava's stats from her 6 month check up was "misplaced" in the chaos one day.  At my house, little hands move lots of things that I then find days or weeks later.  Never fear...it has been sucessfully located and hence, I can finally finish her 6-month post.

Weight:     16 lbs. 3 oz  54th percentile
Length:      261/4"  70th percentile
Head Circumference:     16 3/4"  54th percentile

It feels kind of strange, strange in a good way, to have an "average" baby.  All three of the other ones were on one extreme or the other of the weight and height charts.  John David was off the chart big and the twins barely hung on to the bottom end.  Ava actually weighs more now than Ella did when she was over a year old. It feels weird to pull out clothes that belonged to Ella and she wore when she was well over a year old, that Ava can wear now.  And Ava isn't even that big.

My big girl is now crawling all over the place and pulling up.  She is very proud of herself and her newest skills.  She has also discovered her tongue in the past month or so and thinks it is so much fun to stick it out and waggle it at everyone she sees.  It is too cute.  I know all moms brag on their babies and I think I've been pretty lucky in the easy baby category.  None of mine had colic or were overly cranky or fussy and all of them have been good sleepers.  But I have to say Ava is one of the happiest, most easy going babies I've ever seen.  She is definitely more easy going than her siblings.  I think in part this is due to me being more relaxed as a mom, part necessity (she gets dragged around a lot as we do stuff that has to be done for the older three), and part just her personality.  She is a true joy!  Her smile and laughter has made the difficult weeks and stunts pulled by the other three more bearable.  Whenever I have to put myself in a sanity timeout, Ava is always with me smiling and cooing at me.  A smiley, snuggly baby makes every day better.

Happy 6th & 7th Months Ava Katherine.  We love you so much and are so blessed to have you in our life.

When It Rains It Pours..The Final Installment

PART THREE:  LOST THINGS

So here is the long awaited final installment of When It Rains It Pours - Lost Things.
All of the mishaps, shenanigans, and misbehavings I've described in these posts happened in the span of 2 weeks.  No joke.

So I left you with a description of our "horrible Tuesday."  This day will live in infamy around our house.  I hope we never have another day like it.  Ever.  But now on with our Lost Things.

Lost Item #1:
The monkey underwear Harrison flushed down the toilet.  Immediately after Harrison's  ill-fated flush, husband hurried to get the toilet snake and tried, unsuccessfully, to fish them out of the pipe.  The toilet didn't back up or have any trouble flushing so we hoped the underwear would just make their way down through the pipes and into the sewer with no lasting effects.  I mean, he's little.  His bottom is little.  The underwear were little.  It could happen, right?  Wrong!  By Friday morning, as husband was shaving, the toilet in our master bath started making a nice, glug, glug, glug, sound.  I knew immediately this was not good.  We had sewer issues about 18 months ago and had to replace part of the main line and the first sign of those problems then was the same, glugging noise I heard that Friday morning.  At that point we basically stopped using water at our house, except for when absolutely necessary.  We didn't do laundry, we didn't run the dishwasher, and we were exceedingly careful about what went down the toilet.  The plan was that my husband and father in law would get the super long toilet snake my parents own (don't ask me why they have this handy contraption) and try again to see if they could retrieve the underwear.  When we had the sewer line replaced last year, we had a clean out drain installed making it easier to deal with problems, hopefully.  Husband and my father-in-law worked valiantly using the snake down both the clean out valve and down the pipe in our bathroom to no avail.  No underwear could be found and the toilets were still glugging every time we ran the water.  We survived the weekend using minimal amounts of water and the first call Monday morning was to Dale, the plumber who replaced our sewer line last year.  While waiting for him to come, I loaded up the children and headed to my parents house to do laundry.  We had done virtually no laundry since Harrison's ill-fated flush so you can imagine the mountain of dirty clothes we had.  Thankfully Dale arrived Monday afternoon and saved the day.  He wasn't able to retrieve the flushed underwear but he was able to dislodge them and send them on through the line to the sewer.  No more glugging toilets.

Harrison has hopefully learned his lesson from all of this.  Now every time he uses the bathroom we have this conversation
Harrison: "Mom, can I flush?"
Me:  "What is in the toilet?"
Harrison:  "Pee"
Me:  "Anything else?"
Harrison:  "No...just pee."
Me:  "OK then you can flush."
Harrison:  "OK Mom."

Lost Item #2
Harrison's glasses.  These disappeared the day after the underwear were flushed.  There was some concern that he had flushed them too, but I don't think so.  He wasn't wearing his glasses when he flushed the underwear so I am 99% certain they weren't flushed with the underwear.  Where they are though, I have no idea.  I have asked him repeatedly where they are and have gotten a wide array of creative answers.
1.  The wind blew them away.
2.  I put them on the dirty skunk.
3.  Outside with the baby turtle.

Since all three of these answers indicated he left them outside we have combed through our backyard.  Literally.  I have searched.  Husband has searched.  My in-laws have searched.  We even got the rake and raked the grass in the backyard to make sure they weren't hidden somewhere.  The baby turtle was found under the deck so both husband and I have searched under the deck numerous times with no luck.

Other answers to the question where are your glasses include
4.  Up in the sky.
5.  On the frog lamp.
6.  Daddy took them away.
7.  I put them on the roof.
8.  I put them on Spiderman's back and Spiderman took them.

Oh the creativity!

I have been through every toy box in their room and the den, taken all of their clothes out of their dresser, cleaned out their closet, looked through, under, and behind, every couch, chair, and piece of furniture in their room and the den searching for those glasses.  Husband and I are planning one more big push of searching this weekend before we go and buy him another pair.  Cross your fingers that we find them.  They have to be here somewhere.  I know that the second we go buy another pair they will miraculously appear.

And now for the big one...

Lost Items #3 and #4
I lost the TWINS.  I know.  I am a horrible mother.  I lost two of my children.  Don't worry.  I found them safe and sound but I was absolutely panicked for few minutes.  Here is the brief story.  The children were invited to a birthday part at a children's science museum here in town.  The museum is two levels and the rooms where they have the parties are on the bottom level, actually downstairs from the entrance.  As part of the party, employees of the museum brought different animals to the room and taught the children about them.  They brought in lizards, hedgehogs, spiders, snakes, ferrets, and even a baby alligator.  The kids thought it was awesome and even got to pet most of the animals.  After the animals there was cake, ice cream, and presents.  Then all the children were free to go play in the museum.  I had left Ava at home with husband and his parents since the party was during her afternoon nap time so I only had to watch three instead of four children.  We explored the lower level of the museum.  By that point it was close to time to go and I told the children we should head upstairs and towards the exit.  Of course none of them wanted to leave and they all three took off back down one hallway towards where all the animals were.  Ella and Harrison stopped and were looking at the huge snake (boa constrictor or python or some such creature) while John David headed straight for a computer game that had you match sounds with the animals that make that sound.  I stepped over to the computer to get John David.  He had 2 more sounds to match before the game was over so I stood next to him while the twins were looking at the snake, or so I thought.  I turned back around and they were gone.  I panicked and John David and I took off looking for them.  When my sister was a toddler she walked off with another little girl in the mall and my mother was in such a panic she couldn't remember what my sister was wearing.  Remembering that, I kept repeating "Ella is wearing her heart dress.  Harrison has on a bright green polo shirt." in my head so I would be able to describe them.  As I, and the birthday boy's parents, are racing through the museum searching for the twins, a museum employee, actually one who had shown the animals to the kids at the party, came up to me and asked if I was Sarah.  I said yes and he proceeding to tell me the twins were with him and were safe.  They had done exactly what they were supposed to do when they looked up and couldn't find me.  They found an employee and told them they couldn't find their mommy.  They told him my name and they had been paging me over the loudspeaker.  I never head the announcement because I was in such a panic.

Thankfully, they were both absolutely fine.  Ella was very upset with me, and I don't blame her.  She tearfully told me how she looked up and I wasn't there and she wanted to be with me.  Awww!  She later told me they went upstairs because that is where they thought I had gone.  I guess they were listening when I said we should all go upstairs and look around.  I'm truly thankful that Harrison didn't get lost without Ella there.  He is a smart, sweet, loving little boy....but sometimes he is completely out to lunch.  We have drilled all three of the older ones on what husband and I's names are, what their grandparents names are, where we live, where daddy works, etc. just in case something like this happened.  I know Harrison knows my name, I just wonder if he would have thought to tell the museum employee he couldn't find me or actually answer when asked what my name was.  For some reason neither of my boys are very good at actually answering questions. I definitely need to work on that.

As a result of losing the twins, I am now in the market for some sort of "leash."  I cringe at the work too.  They are children not animals...but the panic of losing two of my children was something I can't even describe.  I'm not sure if you can even understand the panic and anguish of losing a child until you are a parent.  Becoming a parent transforms you in so many ways, most of them unseen.  I really want one of those ropes with the handholds you see in preschools where each child has a hand hold and there is a teacher at each end.  I think it would be perfect for us.  Each child could have a handhold and husband and I can be at either end.  That way, hopefully, we never lose anyone again.

Everyone is safe, happy, and since all the drama I've recounted for you, pretty well behaved.  We are all looking forward to pre-school starting after labor day.  For the past two weeks, the children have asked me almost daily if they get to go to school today.  So obviously they are ready.  And mommy is definitely ready.  I love having them home and I hate them growing up, but they really love school and I love to see them learning and having so much fun.  It has been a long hot summer.  Maybe them going back to school will bring us some cooler weather.

When it Rains It Pours

PART 2 CHILDREN MISBEHAVING

Lately with all the stories of misbehaving child drama we have had around our house, people keep telling me I should write a book.  I'm considering the idea.  Why not turn our crazy, chaotic, sometimes very funny life into a book.  Husband and I are mulling over the idea.

In the meantime, here is the next chapter of our When It Rains It Pours drama.

Last week, after we got the car back and Vacation Bible School was over, it was back to our regular routine.  Since we had missed a week with VBS there were lots of chores that got neglected while we were all living it up at VBS each morning.  In order to catch up we put Mommy School on hold, I thought for a day or two, while we caught up on our To Do list.

Monday was CHORE day.  We cleaned, tried to catch up on laundry, and cleaned some more.  We didn't even run any errands, although we really needed to make a grocery store run.  We worked hard.  All of us.  The children pitched in helping clean their room and put their clothes away.  John David did some vacuuming (he loves to vacuum) and even helped me sweep and mop the kitchen floor.  Monday as a GOOD day.  We got a decent amount accomplished.  We weren't all caught up by any means, but at least we had made a dent in the work.  And then Tuesday happened.  Tuesday had to be one of the worst, hardest, most trying days of my motherhood experience.  

Mishap #1
The trouble started with Ella breaking husband's collectible, Saks Fifth Avenue Tulsa snow globe.  For those of you who aren't aware (and I wasn't before I met husband and we lived in Tulsa) but Saks used to create a collectible snow globe depicting the skyline and highlights of each city where they had a Saks store.  They no longer do this but while we lived in Tulsa we acquired a Tulsa snow globe.  On Monday afternoon the children had been admiring the snow globe and we had a discussion about how it was breakable and they weren't to play with it, etc.  Tuesday morning Ella comes to me in tears telling me how the ball broke.  When I asked her what ball, she told me the glitter ball.  I knew exactly what she meant and raced downstairs to find the snow globe in pieces in the middle of the den floor.  This resulted in the first call of the day to husband.  Since it was husband's snow globe I made Ella tell him what happened and apologize.


Mishap #2
A huge mess made by none other than, you guessed it, Ella & Harrison.  The twins were supposed to be in their room playing with puzzles while I was making homemade applesauce, per their request.  John David had decided to go play outside in the backyard.  A good decision on his part.  I had checked on the twins multiple times since they aren't completely trustworthy.  Obviously I didn't check on them often enough.  Harrison's contribution to the huge mess was to empty out drawers full of dvd's, cd's, miscellaneous cable cords, spare change, etc. Ella had found the bottle of liquid Vitamin D that we give to Ava since she is breast fed rather than formula fed.  Apparently breast milk doesn't have as much or enough Vitamin D so our pediatrician recommends the supplement.  Anyway, Ella had poured almost the entire bottle of brown, foul smelling Vitamin D all over the carpet in my bedroom and then chewed on the dropper attached to the lid.  There was a big, sticky, brown disgusting mess all over my bedroom.  This isn't the first time Ella has gotten into Ava's vitamins.  Ella found and drank the entire first bottle we had.  Don't worry.  I called poison control and since there was no iron in the vitamins they said not to worry.  They said she might have an upset stomach but other than that she would be fine.  And wouldn't you know, Ella with her iron stomach was fine.  No ill effects what so ever.

Mishap #3
Then came rest time.  If you will note, so far all the trouble had been caused by either Ella or Harrison.  John David had been an angel that day.  Until now.  He wouldn't calm down and be still or quiet during rest time and was keeping the other two keyed up.  I sent him into the guest room to sleep/rest.  Instead of resting he pulled part of the veneer off the bed and a small cedar chest.  I was not pleased and this resulted in the second call of the day to husband.  I just needed to vent a little.  I mean, John David knows not to do stuff like this.  Obviously he wasn't tired and didn't want to take a rest.  After finding the veneer pulled off the bed I made him lie down on the couch in the den while he "rested" so I could keep an eye on him.

Mishap #4
After naptime was when things really got bad...or at least mommy got to the point where she couldn't handle anymore.  I am lucky....very lucky.  I have it "scheduled" out so that most days all four, yes all FOUR, children are napping AT THE SAME TIME.  It is amazing, I know.  It truly is a life saver.  It gives me a little quiet time each day where I can get things accomplished without any help or interruptions.  I try to get dinner all prepped during this time of day, or clean the bathrooms, or write my blog.  Some days, I will admit, I am on pinterest looking for new projects to start, or on facebook catching up on what everyone is doing, or sometimes just surfing the web.  It is ME time and I love it.  I know John David is pretty much to the point where he won't keep napping every day and I am ok with that.  Even if he doesn't sleep I am going to encourage quiet time where he can read books of play with puzzles ON his bed.  Anyway, back to the after naptime drama.  Everyone had woken up and was downstairs in the den playing.  I was feeding Ava when first the twins and then John David disappeared upstairs.  They have started doing this when they want to watch television and they will go into my bedroom, shut the door, and turn on the TV, usually PBS kids.  I called upstairs and asked them to come back down and got no response.  I figured they were just watching television and wasn't too concerned.  BIG MISTAKE.  When I finished feeding Ava and still had gotten no response from upstairs I went to investigate.  I found the three 'big kids' had gotten into the box of cleaning supplies stashed in the linen closet and were spraying the walls, the floor, and themselves with furniture polish, hardwood floor cleaner, and a spray bottle of a mixture of a surface cleaner (like pine sol or lysol) and water.  Thankfully they hadn't touched the bathroom mildew cleaners.  Thanks to the furniture polish the upstairs hallway was like an ice rink it was so slippery and the children's hair, particularly the twins, was all clumped up and greasy.  This prompted the third call of the day to husband with the demand that he come home immediately.  I put all three children outside on the screen porch and called my mother, bawling, that I had done something wrong because my children didn't know how to behave.  My mom's words of wisdom..."Sarah, you haven't done anything wrong.  They aren't horrible.  They are three.  You can't let them out of your sight."  So very true.

Mishap #5
While outside on the screened porch Harrison had a little accident in his pants.  I guess he didn't want to tell me he needed to go to the bathroom so he just went in his pants.  And he wasn't just wet, which we discovered when husband got home a few minutes later and we called all three of them inside to have a little chat about their behavior.  Husband was not too pleased about the "present" in Harrison's pants and sent him upstairs to the bathroom to clean them out in the toilet.  HUGE mistake.  Harrison, being three and not really understanding what husband meant by cleaning the underwear out, instead just flushed them down the toilet.  Ooops!

Five mishaps in one day.  I told you it was one of the hardest days of my motherhood career.

Stay tuned for the last installment of When It Rains It Pours -  Lost Things

When it Rains...It Pours

PART 1  CAR DRAMA

Whew!  Glad the last two...ok, maybe three weeks, are over.  It has been one thing after another around our house, and none of it good.

It all started back the weekend of husband's birthday with car trouble....MAJOR car trouble.  We have a volvo SUV and I love it.  It is our only car that can hold all six of us, including car seats, at the same time.  That being said, when something goes wrong or we have to have maintenance done on the volvo, it means the kids and I are pretty much stranded at home while it is in the shop. So basically, some part broke.  Not even a really expensive part.  Some kind of pulley broke, and a ball bearing in the broken pulley in turn did MAJOR damage to the "housing" of the engine (I think) which is an expensive fix.  Naturally.  And when did this part break?  Of course it was at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning as we were all packed up and headed out of town.  Nothing is open at 7 on a Saturday morning except the donut shop.  The only stroke of good luck in the car breaking down saga was that the part broke as we pulled up to my parents' house here in town to drop off Phoebe for the weekend.  We were able to coast down the hill to the service station that is about a block or so from my parents and leave the car there to be dealt with Monday morning.

Because my mother-in-law had planned a cookout in Snowball (husband's hometown) to celebrate both my husband's and father-in-law's birthdays we called all over town to find a rental car at the last minute.  Of course rental car agencies don't open until 9:00 am at the earliest and most of those places don't have mini-vans or large SUV's for rent on a moment's notice.  There was only ONE mini-van available anywhere in town and only ONE large SUV available.  We went with the mini-van because we got a better rate.  Here is husband looking oh so happy with our rental, the "Mom-mobile."

On a side note, this is the second time this summer we have had a rental mini-van.  The first was while the volvo was at the body shop after an unfortunate small run in with a concrete pole.  Ooops!  Anyway, based on my two recent experiences with the mini-van I have a few comments, concerns, revelations to share.

1.  I will admit that yes...the mini-van has more storage room than my SUV.  And I will also admit that I like the fact that it has more storage room.  We cart lots of stuff around and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

2.  I will also admit that yes...the mini-van has more leg (cabin) room than my SUV.  And I like the extra leg room in the van.  I was able to walk through to re-buckle Ella's car seat straps after she unbuckled herself while driving down the road.

3.  Our first rented mini-van had automatic open and close side doors.  Very convenient; however, they made me nervous.  Nervous that little fingers would get caught in them and nervous that they weren't closed securely.  Automatic doors don't make that good "thud" noise so you know they are good and closed.  I will say the big kids LOVED the automatic doors. 

4.  Our second mini-van was a more basic model than the first and had one MAJOR flaw in my eyes.  Such a major flaw I would never buy this type of van because of it.  This flaw....you can take the car out of park without  your foot being on the break.  How did we discover this?  At church Sunday morning while husband and I unbuckling Ella, Harrison and Ava, John David reached through to the front seat and pulled on the gear shift, shifting the car out of park and into neutral.  The parking brake was ON; however this did not stop the car from rolling down the slight incline, almost taking me out in the process.  Thankfully, the van rolled into the curb which stopped it before it could really roll away, cause an accident, or seriously hurt anyone.  I was left with a very bruised arm from being hit as the van started rolling.  I probably wouldn't have thought this was a big deal until I had children.  Now I will NEVER own a car that can be shifted out of park without having your foot on the brake.   

5.  The biggest revelation....although the van did have more room storage and otherwise, I really love my volvo and feel much less like the soccer mom with too many kids driving it than I did driving the van around.  That being said, my guess is there is almost zero chance that I will never own a mini-van.  With four children, we are going to need the room.  

Anyhow, back to the car drama.  The car was in the shop for an entire week leaving us to figure out how to get husband to and from work, run errands, etc. with only one car that couldn't fit all of us.  Of course, the week we were without the big car was also the week of Vacation Bible School at church.  The three big kids were signed up for VBS and I was signed up to volunteer.  Some very good friends helped me shuttle the children back and forth each day.  Two in her large SUV with her son, that was the boy car, and the two girls with me in husband's car.  My parents also loaned us their station wagon for husband to get himself to and from work.  

After a week of shuttling children around in multiple cars, they finally had the volvo fixed, except, at the very last minute they called and said they thought we had a coolant leak.  They didn't know where it was coming from and didn't have an estimate on how long it would take to find or what it would cost to fix.  They said they would have to tear the whole car apart AGAIN to find it.  Since it wasn't a major leak and we really needed our big car back husband told the dealership to just top off the coolant and we would take it somewhere else to have the leaked repaired.  He was pretty fed up with the dealership by then.  

Thankfully we have our car back.  We can all ride together anywhere we want or need to go.  Best of all, the children and I are stuck at the house all day every day with no way to go anywhere.  We also were able to make it to husband's birthday cookout which made his mother EXTREMELY happy.  

Stay tuned for Part 2 ....Children Misbehaving

Splash Down!

We have a new favorite activity around our house these days.  The new Splash Pad at War Memorial Park.  It is an awesome way to keep cool during these dog days of summer and run off some excess energy in the process.  Plus...it is free.  And with all the water spraying around, not so dreadfully hot.  The kids love it.  The parents love it.  It's a win win situation any way you look at it.  We've made two trips already and I can see we will be making another very soon. 

Uh Oh!  I think these two may be conspiring against us.

Climbing the rope ladder in the playground portion of the splash pad.

Up I go

This is awesome!

It's more fun if you lay down.

See, then it sprays you right in the face

Loving it!

Where did the water go?

Yes....the water is back

Cheesing it up for the camera

Taking a moment to plot his next move

Making the climb up to the summit before a trip down the slide.

Peek-A-Boo!!

Ava got some time in the swing.  Wheeee!

We finished up our splash pad adventure with a dinner of ice cream sundaes, complete with homemade waffle cones provided by my mother-in-law.  This is not something we do often...promise.  We typically eat healthy, well balanced meals.  But every once in a while, in the middle of a summer of 100+ degree weather day after day, a dinner of ice cream sundaes is just what the mommy ordered.  

So...see you at the splash pad.  We'll bring the ice cream!!

Under the Sea

One week this summer Mommy School went Under the Sea for inspiration for our craft and food projects.  There are so many cute ideas out there on pinterest. I also found some great ideas on funfamilycrafts.com  Our "Under the Sea" week included making jellyfish, which are currently decorating the breakfast bar area in our kitchen as well as making starfish smores.  Yum!  The week also included our weekly trip to the library and a fun outing to the new War Memorial splash pad and ice cream for dinner night.

Making jellyfish was so much fun and so easy.  My three really liked this project and were very proud of their creations.  And the supplies needed were inexpensive and things, with the exception of the eyes, I already had on hand.

Step 1
We used simple and cheap paper bowls and the kids painted them using water colors.  They actually painted two bowls the outside of one and the inside of the other.

Step 2
Glue goggly eyes on the outside of the painted bowl

Step 3
Glue lengths of sheer ribbon in "oceany" colors to the underside of the bowl and then glue the two bowls together.

Step 4
Punch a hole through the jelly fish and thread with yarn or fishing line.  Now they are ready to display.

I told you...inexpensive, easy, and really fun and cute.

Hard at work

Working hard

Working too hard to actually look at the camera but at least I'm smiling

Also concentrating too hard to look at the camera

This is fun mom

Displaying the top of his jelly fish

Harrison has to show off his too.

As you can see Harrison also painted the counter while working on his jelly fish.  Thank goodness it was just water colors and came off no problem.

And here are the finished masterpieces.  Sorry they aren't good pictures.  

Our cooking activity for the week was Starfish Smores.  Yum!  Now I am not a big smores fan.  I love the components individually but somehow put together they just aren't my thing.  I think it is because there is too much chocolate and not enough marshmallow.  That being said I loved the starfish smores. In my humble opinion they were much better than regular smores.  Again I think it had to do with the chocolate to marshmallow ratio.  In the starfish smores there was more marshmallow and less chocolate and for a marshmallow lover like me this was a definite plus.  They were so delicious they disappeared too fast for me to get any pictures.  But here is the link to the instructions/recipes I used to make them. Starfish Smores Recipe  Thanks funfamilycrafts.com.

Our Under the Sea week also included a trip to the new splash park at War Memorial with a special ice cream for dinner night,  but I'll have to blog about that fun later.  I better get back to work.  Dinner and laundry beckon.  have a good night everyone.