Kent's Birthday!

Here is Kent with the desk! I didn't ever take a "before" picture, but the after looks pretty good. He was a pretty excited. We also got him some paper, a tape dispenser, a stapler and some pencils to go along with the desk and chair. We also got him an alarm clock, because now he will be in first grade and has to make sure he gets up in time for school. It ended up being a fun day even though it was a Sunday and a Fast Sunday at that! He wanted "panacakes" for his special birthday dinner. Kind of a funny request for a break the fast meal, but who cares! We added eggs and bacon and it ended up great!

Rain Forest Cafe & the IMAX

Yesterday, at the last minute, I decided to take my kids to the Arizona Mills Mall to the Rain Forest Cafe and the IMAX theater. I thought that sounded fun and since they had all done the summer reading program at the Library it would be mostly FREE. Which is always a good thing! So I first started looking for all the coupons. We ended up with 6 coupons to the Rain Forest Cafe and only 3 to the IMAX, how did that happen??? Oh well! We always seem to be living right on the edge, mostly okay, but not completely right.

Anyway I decided I couldn't keep all this fun to myself so I called up Diane and MaryAnn (knowing that their kids had also done the reading thing) hoping that someone would join us in our adventure. They (mostly) willingly joined us and we had a nice tidy group of 14!!! As our kids were running (at full speed) down the mall to the Rain Forest Cafe I wondered how our "small" thundering group looked. I can hardly believe how many kids we three adults were responsible for. In fact maybe the kids were wondering that too, because in the movie Kent leaned over to me and asked "Mom how come there are only 3 grown ups with all these kids?" I wanted to say, "I don't know son I think we are CRAZY!", but I just replied in good mother form, "That is just the way it is." I guess the movie was interesting enough to him that he didn't question me and just went back to trying to reach out and touch the whale coming out of the screen.

I guess I should mention that the IMAX was in 3-D and the glasses were a bit funky. We got in a little late (seating and taking care of 14 at the restaurant took a while) and the movie had started. So Lindsay sat down and settled in and put on her glasses and immediately took them off. I came over and talked to her and told her to put them back on and she told me, "No, the movie is too close when they are on!" I was chuckling and thinking...but that is what it is supposed to be like. I finally convinced her to put them on for a while when the dolphins were on the screen (nice and sweet and playful, not like the scary whales!). Well it was quite an adventure to end our summer outings! Thanks to MaryAnn & Diane for joining in on the FUN!

I did it!

Thanks to MaryAnn & Erika, I was able to "cuten" up my blog! Yeah! Thanks a ton!

Enjoying the last days of Summer??!?!

It is always a little bit crazy to me that school down here starts so early in August, especially here in Gilbert. I have tried to figure out if they start school because August is so hot and parents were tired of the heat or exactly what the reasoning is behind the early start. Whatever the reason is we have only until August 6th till we are back on a schedule. In some ways I am happy to have a schedule and in other ways, sad. It has been nice having built in babysitters (not that I really do that much on my own besides shopping, but going to the grocery store is great when I am by myself!).
So we have one full week to fit in all the things that I was going to do and didn't get to the last two months...I think that I can fit it all in...okay maybe not. I am sure that my kids will take advantage of sleeping in the last few days. Lindsay is not excited about going to Kindergarten AT ALL. So on Thursday we all went "school" shopping to buy some clothes for the kids to be all ready for next week. I was hoping that this would help her get excited. She doesn't really like shopping, but she does like having new clothes to wear. Since school doesn't start for another week I told her she can't wear the clothes until school starts. I am hoping that it will just build the excitement for her. We will see!
Last Friday we went with some friends to a public pool in Chandler and had a fun afternoon of swimming. We didn't get in as much swimming as I would have liked this summer...maybe if we had our own???? Is there a pool lottery?

What happened to my Saturday????

Saturday's seem like such a precious commodity, but they go by much too fast. It is the one day that Dave is home and can help and we can get a few things done. Today we decided to go for our "regular" run...I can call it that officially because we have been "running" (Dave runs, I jog) for almost one whole year now. After which we were going to just get a little shopping in...some bookshelves for our piano room, look at buying Kent a desk for his birthday. Well, we started out early enough, the alarm went off at 5:30 am and after stretching etc. off we went, by the time we actually got out of the house to go shopping it was about 10:30 (you know...some yard work, showering, cleaning up various messes, giving the kids instructions before leaving). After about 3 stores we were exhausted and no closer to purchasing anything! Throw in a fancy lunch at Arby's, a quick change in the Arby's bathroom into Sunday clothes (easier for me than Dave...I just put on a skirt and Dave had to do the whole Superman presto chango). We headed off to the Temple for a wedding. Since we were in the area we had a few more stores to go to so we quickly...or not...changed in the car while sitting in the Temple parking lot back into our regular Saturday attire and went off to DI. We walked around the whole store before finding our "treasure"! Kent wants a desk...just like he has at school...to have in his room. I have looked for weeks on Craig's list and researched it on the internet. I could buy a desk at online store that sells to schools, but I would have to buy 2 and I could buy chairs, but I had to buy 4 and the shipping cost almost as much as both desks. I just knew I could find something at DI or at a garage sale, but frankly I don't have the energy to go driving all around shopping at multiple garage sales hoping to find what I wanted. So I went with a prayer in my heart and lots of faith knowing that if it was possible it would happen. Now those of you who see us on a regular basis are sworn to secrecy as I tell you what we found. I found the cutest old school desk at DI and then found the perfect chair to go with it, now granted it needs a lot of work, but it cost $3 for the desk and $3 for the chair! I had almost figured that I would have to spend a lot more than that to get what we were looking for. Yeah!! So after all of that other shopping we came home with a find and pulled in the driveway about 4:30 pm. Thank goodness that we had found the desk or I would have had to write off another Saturday full of good intentions, but with little to show for it. I have such high hopes for Saturdays...maybe I will get more done next week!

Time to learn more about fixing my blog

I just checked out some of my friends blogs and they are DARLING!! Watch out because I will be calling you all to help me fix mine up so that I don't just have the standard fare. It is so fun to read what everyone has to say. I need to feel connected to people and blogging seems to be a good way to do that! So thanks to all of you for your inspiration!

Doing things I never thought I could do!

As school ended this year and the summer loomed ahead I was trying to figure out how to best entertain my kids. In the past I have overbooked our days because I needed to get out and hopefully to avoid any contention that might come from being stuck at home with no outlets. I found that while it did accomplish several of the goals that I had in mind (learning to swim, social contacts, less fighting, less TV watching, etc) it also created new problems (more exhausted mom, tired kids from running from one activity to another, not very many opportunities to relax and just enjoy the summertime). So this summer I had the idea that I would not sign my kids up for any outside activities and instead create some of my own for them.

So I came up with a master plan. We will be learning some homemaking skills with me as the teacher. I thought we could learn some simple recipes (since that is all I know), simple sewing, and have some time to just play. Of course part of me always thinks that I will make time to create activities that will help to stimulate their minds and create genius children (I never have and most of them are smart enough to get by, but are not genius by any test that I know of). As simple as I thought I would keep it, I discovered that I even needed to simplify more. In my head I can accomplish so much, but when it comes to the actual physical implementation my estimates are simply way off.

Now my mom and my Aunt Joy always seem to me to have it all together and have the ability to accomplish more, with ease than I can even in my wildest imagination. They were always taking all the cousins with them whenever they did anything and they were always creating new experiences for us when I was a kid. One thing that my mom does with each of her 19 grandkids each year is to make pajama pants with them for Christmas. I have always loved that she does this, but never thought I would have the patience to teach my kids plus others the minimal sewing skills that I have. I guess miracles do happen, because in my enthusiasm for this summer and the activities that I wanted to do with my kids I decided that I needed to include the girl cousins that live here who are old enough for me to handle with a sewing machine. On Wednesday we went shopping to figure out a pattern that would be simple enough to try out but have enough steps to teach some basic skills. We had a ball! It was the beginning of my first attempt to undertake such a monumental (to me) task! We picked out a pattern to make decorative letter pillows. Everyone picked out some material and we made our purchases and set the time and date to get together to begin.

So all day yesterday we went to work. First I had the girls iron their material and then they had to pin the pattern on. Next came cutting, sewing and then turning the letters right side out. I had in mind that we may get to the sewing part, but maybe we would save some of the steps for another day. However those girls were on fire and wanted to just keep going! We had so much fun. I never would have believed it could have turned out so good! The whole day I just kept thinking maybe I can accomplish things and be patient with projects and actually enjoy them...just like my mom!