*pat,pat,pat* Anyone out there?

Sorry, but like I said this is a crazy month. Hopefully soon I can post some pictures. One is of a purse Holly made herself. I'm quite proud of her creativity. Then as soon as it's finished a dress I'm working on. My first piece of clothing to ever sew! And then as long as I remember to do it before she leaves for her mom's, the bag I made Holly for her summer fun kit.

Summer vacation officially started for us this week. And so far it's been great. First we enjoyed Memorial Weekend with my fabulous friend Charisse coming into town with her family for a few days. They are gone now leaving the house feeling very empty!

Then we spent a fun evening at my friend Tina's enjoying her apartment's pool (that is one of the few things I miss about living in apartments).

And then just various other activities.

Sorry this is short, but Larry is headed back into town and we are going to take Holly to see Up before she leaves with her stepdad to spend the first half of summer with her mom and that side of the family.

But here is a picture of her from last night at her now former school at Movies with Mom night in the gym.

Crazy Busy

This week I am cramming a weeks worth of chores into two days. And I have had success! As we speak I am waiting to finish my last chore (well not including folding laundry, but I plan to do that while watching Wall-E tonight. that makes it less of a chore). Over half our house is tiled, so I am waiting for the first half to dry so I can move the furniture and mop the other half.
Why am I doing all of this so quickly. Main reason: Charisse is coming to town with her family!!!!! They arrive Thursday morning. I will spend the day with Lorelli so Charisse and Rob can get some sleep after driving all night.
So why do I have to have my chores finished by today? Well got an e-mail from Lori needing some help this week with Lucas. So tomorrow I am watching him for the day. YAY! Two days in a row with two of my favorite little ones!!
Hopefully tonight I will be able to finish or almost finish Holly's bag for her summer activity kit I am surprising her with. Then tomorrow during Lucas naps and tomorrow evening I can hopefully get a couple chew blankets made for Holly to give as an end of the year gift to her teacher. She is expecting this coming fall. This way it can be an original, useful, and cheap gift since I already have all the supplies. If not Ucreate had a link to a cute idea of a colored pencil bouquet. Something That won't cost me too much either.
OK, better go check my floor and finish it up before Holly gets here so don't have to worry about dirty feet and wet floors. Hopefully I will have some time soon to AGAIN get caught up on reading my long list of blogs I enjoy.

Check it out!

Click on the banner to the right to find out details to try to win the quilt!! It's gorgous!

Where do you go?

For crafty or other ideas for entertainment for your kids for the summer?

My mom turned me on the the magazine Family Fun a few years ago.

I am going to be pulling out my stack of issues within the next few days and going through them for ideas.

When we were kids, my mom gave my brother and I our summer entertainment kits each year on the first day of summer. What I can remember it containing was a skein of yarn for making our crochet ropes (basicly the same idea as the knifty knitter looms just on a MUCH smaller scale. I guess that's why I enjoy the k.k.'s so much), a new spiral note book for a summer journal, and film for our camera. There were more things, but I can't remember them. I am going to make my own version for Holly this year especially since there is a good chance she will spend the majority of her summer at her mom's since I will hopefully have a job. She normally spends only 4-6 weeks at her mom's. And there isn't a lot for her to do while she is there due to the heat and not having many toys there. So she ends up watching a lot of T.V. I'm hoping this might give her more things to do while she's there.

But I am looking for more ideas of things for her to do while she is here or there. We spend a majority of the summer at the library here, but that is not an easy option for her there. So please send ideas of activities for kids. Especially ones to keep them entertained on their own. (I don't know where her younger sisters will be during the summer. She is closest to the one just younger than her, but I think she may be with her dad or in daycare most of the summer. And her older sister and brother usually hang out together and exclude her when they are together :( ) Or let me know where you go to find ideas for your kids.

Thanks and good luck to all the moms about to be back on steady full time entertainment duty. Especially to those who have to deal with the heat like we do here in Texas.

How do you encourage and still get something you want?

I pulled my youngest out of school for a couple days with all this Swine Flu junk. I'm not overly worried about it, but being without health insurance I have to take a few extra precautions. I can get insurance for her no problem, but Larry and I would be the ones with huge bills. Holly also hasn't had time alone with Larry in a while, so I decided it was a good reason to pack her up and send her for a long weekend with just him. I figure the stuff has been around, but if it was going to show up, it would during this time. I ended up being right. She had Monday scheduled off from school. We were getting her ready that night for field and track day the next day when I got the call the school would be closed for the rest of the week. Thankfully the Health Department has realized they have gone a bit overboard with things and she will be returning to school tomorrow instead of next week. No worries now of being in school for another week into summer.
Anyway, yesterday at lunch time she asked if she could fix my lunch. She wanted to make her specialty special. I was planning on just eating some leftover chili from the other night so it didn't get wasted, so I told her we would see about her making lunch tomorrow.
So a little while ago she asks if I am hungry for lunch yet.
Conversation:
Me - yeah
Holly - Do you want me to make you my Specialty Special?
M - Well that depends on what it is.
H - Well it has chips on it, and a pickle and turkey or ham. And do you like mayonnaise or mustard?
M- What do you mean it has chips and a pickle on it? Is it a sandwich with Turkey, chips and a pickle? And do we have all of these things?
Finally I get her to explain properly she is going to make me a sandwich however I like with what we have here and she planned to put a pickle and chips on the side.
So then she proceeds to make me one the way I request or so I thought. The sandwich ends up with the wrong stuff on it. She made fabulous effort and did it all neatly, but was so excited she miss heard most of what I wanted on it and then what to do with the mess ups so we didn't waste.
Encouraging and still getting something edible when you are really trying to eat better can be hard!
*Noticed last layout made it a bit hard to read the post, lets see how this one works for now.*

Ready for some Changes

With Larry gone a great deal of the time I'm able to keep the house clean. Not a lot to cleaning up after 2 people. Especially when I can still make one clean up after herself with just a look, hehe.
But with all this cleanness, it's got me itching to make changes. We have paint here for the bedrooms, but I can't do that. I'm bad at painting and end up wasting a lot. Larry's an expert at it, so it will have to wait for him to come home. I would love to do some rearranging of furniture, but for some rooms I just can't figure out a better way to place stuff, or for others some of the furniture has been anchored to the wall. And then there is all the stuff that is way to heavy for me. So for now I will stick to changing up the pictures I have out and making a few decorative things. I also decided I would get my fix by changing up my blog. The background, layout, and title. I don't know if I like it all yet, so more changing may come.
There was some drama here this weekend. And some fun too, but it is late and I need to head off to get some rest. I will have to post about it another day. Hopefully though, I can get back to more regular posting soon though. It's that crazy time of year, the end of school quickly coming and tons of activities revolving around that, so don't be upset if it stays rare for a while.