Our summer has been filled with lots of fun and excitement, and a plethora of meltdowns to boot.  Being pregnant and according to Will, quite crabby has only added fuel to the fire.  I confess I feel the crab snapping at my children. I’m not sure who started what – if it was my crabbiness  instigating the meltdowns or vise-versa, but we are stuck in a spiral and I am sooooo done with it all.  The solution for me was more structure and scheduling.  I enjoy being low-key, letting my kids play and chose the things they want to do, but that me has been suspended for the sake of the household until the end of the summer, in which time the situation will be reevaluated.  I don’t enjoy being the Nazi mom cracking the whip, but sometimes it needs to happen.  Most of the next little while gets to be scheduled.  Yes, we have it down to the minute with piano practice, math, reading, spelling, snack time, chores, games, etc.  So far it has worked like a dream and we have had no fighting.  I can feel the teacher in me sneaking to the surface.  I have repressed her for so long.  Let’s see if it lasts…

Annie:  Mommy, I see the movie fee-ater.

Me:  Good job, Annie.

Hudson:  I see Edward’s Enema too!

Me: It’s cinema… definitely cinema, cinema means movie theater.

In our on going quest for summer entertainment, the kids and I painted, sewed and assembled a make-shift puppet theatre.  That’s right, how many uses can we get out of our dishwasher box before it goes to be with the recycling…permanently?  It already served as a playhouse for about a week and a half.  During this time it under went a washing of sorts, courtesy of the sprinklers.  I know it’s ugly…but it serves it’s purpose and I got to practice a little bit of sewing on something I get to throw away so there is no stressed involved.  I figure one needs to be in the making since Annie is using her doll house as a theatre.  I am not willing to invest in a permanent one unless the kids show interest in this one.  So here is puppet theatre…Take 1.

I quite enjoy sitting on my back porch, curled up under the arbors.  The sweet smell of those pink roses and the soft gurgling of water from the fountain are so soothing.  Looking around at the abundance of greenery, I felt a leaf project coming on for the kids.

We had so much fun today collecting leaf clippings…Hudson being the official cutter, while Annie bobbed along behind him catching his specimens in a little green bowl.  We have quite a plethora.  I think they got at least 30 different types of leaves.  It’s really a shame the magnifying glass broke, but the kids were still very tender with the leaves moving them around and sorting them with tweezers.  The project culminated with cute, little waterfall books full of leaf rubbings.

When I say exactly, there are no dramatics involved.  She was measured and remeasured at every ride.  As a result, we had to start giving her pep talks before each measuring station because she didn’t like the workers trying to get her to stand up straight so she would slouch and curl up.

You may have gathered that we took a little family trip up to Disneyland for a few days and hallelujah!  We don’t need anymore switch passes.  Everyone is tall enough to ride and my kids love going on ALL of the rides.  Talk about great quality, family time.  We have to enjoy it while it lasts.

The second day we were there found us exploring places we don’t often venture…Toontown, the Tikki Room and the parade.  We rode so many rides we started to become a little overloaded so we backed off a little bit and took everything a bit slower.  Since Annie is big enough now, we didn’t have any built in downtime so we think it fizzled us just a bit.

We even stopped to hug and pose with characters…we NEVER do that!

I just had one of those days where I wanted to be with my kids.  I wanted them to know how much I love them and I wanted us to do something together, just the three of us.

I’ve been to a lot of museums and historic sites in my life and I have got to say that the new Mormon Battalion site holds it’s own.  It’s very well done and it even managed to keep my kids engaged the whole time.  The sister who gave us our tour was very sweet.  It actually made me think about my sister Heidi and the tours she gave of the Sacred Grove on her mission.  What great missionaries!

After the tour we panned for gold.  I think the kids enjoyed taking home their chunks of pyrite.

We were the first tour of the morning, not to mention the only people in our tour so Annie got the be the soldier.  I finally had to throw in a comment about Will being a ward missionary because she kept alluding to missionaries coming to our house so we could learn more.  I’ll blame the pink hair.

Who would have thought the kids would even enjoy playing with bricks?

Annie was determined to pump that water.  I think she would have made a great pioneer.  She’s a feisty one!

Both of my kids love to paint.  They are always begging me to let them paint. Suffice it to say I usually let them.  This particular day I wasn’t feeling the clean-up vibe of it all so we headed off to a Pottery Shop.  The kids got to paint.  We got out of the house and I didn’t have anything to clean up when we were done.  I think I’m starting to get the hang of the whole mommy business.

I think Hudson has really enjoyed his Spring Break.  We were needing to get out of the house so we took a little trip to the beach.  I can’t complain about the sunny 80 degree day we had.  Talk about the beach at it’s finest – great friends, great food and a great place.

We stayed and played for several hours; finally forced to go home to wait for the internet people to come set everything up in the new house.

It’s that time of year again when strawberries are on sale for 69 cents and that final jam jar from last season sits lonely on the fridge shelf wondering when that last sandwich will be made and it services will no longer need rendering.

My kids had full participation this time around.  It was so wonderful to christen my new kitchen with this activity.  All that chopping, blending and mixing was wonderful with the warm sun peaking in the windows to remind us once again why we love San Diego so much.  We only made 5 jars so I imagine I see another afternoon like this in the near future if we are hoping for jam that will last the rest of the year.

Have you ever wondered why a PBJ made by someone else is always so much better than when you make one for yourself?  After making Hudson a PBJ with his own jam he says this to me, “Mom, this is the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  The strawberry jam tickles the peanut butter and makes is so delicious.”  There you have it!  You can stop wondering.