Phew .... life is busy!

Summer time is always busy in our house. Let me tell you about our wonderful weekend!

Saturday morning I got up at 6:00 am. (this is a love story people!) I got up at 6:00 am to make breakfast for my husband and a couple of his friends. These guys get together on Saturday mornings about once per month, usually they go out, but everyone is watching their pennies right now so I offered to make breakfast for them. I made banana crepes, hashbrowns, veggie frittata, sausage, bacon and juice. They showed up at 7:30, and I set them up in our sunroom while the kids and I ate in our kitchen nook. The guys closed the french doors so they could talk without us listening in. It was such a great morning! I really enjoyed myself (ya'll know that deep down I wish I owned a B&B, so that was SO much fun for me!)

Then at 10:00 am we headed to a water park for some friends of ours kids birthday. We stayed there until 1:30 or 2. Came home and napped... we were all beat!

We watched movies that night and just hung out together at home.

Sunday I had some work to do for an attorney that I do contract work for, but I took a break and we went to Dairy Queen for a little treat. It is fun to work at home at my own pace!

This week Mr. Man has the week off. A friend of ours was struggling to find child care for her 10 and 7 year old so Mr. Man offered to keep them. Today he took them to the movies and then gave them each a dollar to go to the Dollar Store - he challenged them to see who could be the most creative with their $1! The kids had a blast! (Not sure how he'll top that tomorrow!)

Thursday night we have baseball tickets and the Friday I think we might go out of town for our long weekend!

When I look at the calendar for the next 3 weeks there is something every day / night -- mostly for the kids. They are SO busy! Since they can't drive themselves I get to drive them all over, sipping my Starbucks.

I just got an email from the school -- I found it funny. It had a count down clock to the First day of school. There are still 35 days left in summer break!

Friday Recipe - Chicken in Wine Sauce

This is a tasty dish that I got from a roommate years and years ago. I love this dish over rice.

Chicken in Wine Sauce
INGREDIENTS:
1 (8 oz) tub of cream cheese with chives
1 can cream of mushroom soup
4 chicken breasts
1/2 soup can full of white wine

Brown chicken breasts. Add cream cheese, soup and wine. Simmer for 30-45 minutes.

Serve with rice or noodles.

Summer Boredom busters

I am always on the look out for things for the kids to do when they can't come up with anything on their own. Mr. Man hates when the kids say they are bored so they try real hard not to use that word, but they still come to us to help them find stuff to do. I like to find things they can do on their own (or things requiring very little supervision) because I have plenty of lists (thanks to the internet and other blogs) of things we can all do together. As a working mom, my time at home needs to be split doing family things and also cleaning, laundry etc. Hence the list of things they can do alone!

Last year I posted 25 Summer Activity Ideas and here are a few more I have written down since last year.

1. Make no-bake cookies

2. Play Wacky Lawn Croquet - I haven't tried this one yet, but it looks fun!

3. Play Dribble, Dribble, Drench - I also found this on the Amazing Mom's website. The older boys played this and had a blast drenching each other! The game is similar to "Duck, Duck, Goose". One person is "it" and they walk around the circle with a cup of water. At each person they say "dribble" and dribble a few drops of water on the persons head. When they say "Drench" that player gets the rest of the water dumped on his head. Then the wet player chases "it" and tries to tag him/her before he/she gets back around the circle to open spot.

4. Play Time Bomb - this is a great one to help little ones cool off! Take a balloon and poke a small hole in it using a safety pin. Then fill the balloon with water and tie it up, this is your time bomb with a slow leak! Now everyone gets in a circle and toss the balloon around. The idea is to NOT be the one holding the balloon when the water all leaks out!

5. Ice Balloons - This is similar to the Balloon Race I posted about last year, but this time take a small trinket or piece of jewelry and put it inside a balloon. Fill the balloon with water and then freeze overnight. Before giving these to the kids, cut away the balloon leaving the ball of ice with the surprise in it. The kids will have fun using these to cool off and watching the ice melt until they get to their special treat inside!

6. We have a new board game we got when we were shopping after-Christmas sales and I stashed it away to use as a gift, but I might let them pull this out and learn how to play it.

7. I found some craft kits on sale at a craft store a few months ago and bought a few of those to have on hand in case we need a craft project. I still have my craft box that is full of scraps and stickers etc for making stuff too.

8. Make a water bottle holder

9. Decorate cardstock to make a set of notecards to give as a gift (gift for teacher when you go back to school or maybe save it up for a Christmas gift for someone)

10. Work in the Summer Workbook.

11. Clean out the old and broken crayons and make these fun new crayons.

12. Make fresh lemonade - check out this recipe!

13. Home made slime - my boys love this stuff... so does Lady Bug actually! Slime

14. Make a batch of homemade cookies and deliver them to an unsuspecting neighbor.

My thoughts on Father's Day

My husband had to work on Father's Day (boo hoo) but I got up and made him a breakfast he could take with him to work and then had a special dinner waiting for him when he got home.  We were rushing around to eat because we needed to head out early to go meet his father so I didn't have time to take ANY pictures, but does that really matter, probably not because I am horrible about posting pictures anyway!

So for breakfast I made him a breakfast bowl which is layered hashbrowns, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs and topped with cheese, served with salsa and a tortilla on the side.

For dinner I set the table with my good china and folded his napkin like this. We had Chicken, Roasted Lemon Broccoli, rolls and mashed potatoes.

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Some thoughts on fathering, father's day....

My father and I were pretty close growing up, then as I got older (and he did as well) we grew apart. When I got married and started having kids I think he felt pushed out of my life (he wasn't. I tried and tried to include him and he just wouldn't participate in our lives.) so we drifted further apart. It has gotten to the point of me saying to myself that I am not trying anymore. This has been about 5-6 years now.

One of the major breaking points in my life was after I delivered a still born and called him he was drunk and was saying some of the most obnoxious comments. Things I would NEVER think to say to someone grieving the loss of a human life.

One year, about 6 years ago, he was supposed to come for Thanksgiving, as he had done every year since I moved out of the house. The morning of, he called to cancel saying he was sick. I respected that. We had already started the turkey cooking and decided we would load up a plate of food when it was ready and drive the 3 hours to my dad's house to surprise him. When we got there... he was not. He lives in a small town so we drove around and found him. He was leaving his girlfriend's house. I did not meet her. He later told me she was younger than me and had a 2 year old son. WHAT? Anyway.... he was not sick (actually he was a little sick, but not terrible, obviously), he just went to a girlfriends house. That hurt.

Little things like he won't return my phone calls and then when I keep trying and trying and finally reach him he says things like "About time you called."....... what is that supposed to mean?

I just today stuck his Father's Day card in the mail. I have no respect for him and I don't care about our relationship anymore.

Seems weird to think that "daddy's little girl" doesn't care anymore.

ON A HAPPIER NOTE:
The love my husband has for his children is amazing. We were not planning to have children when we got pregnant with our first baby 9 years ago (in fact we fall in that small 1% who get pregnant even when taking birth control...!) so the day my water broke and we went to the hospital to have our first little guy, my husband was as nervous as ever (so was I for that matter), but the second the baby was born I could tell my husband was in love! He carried him and carried him... I honestly don't think he put Spirit down the whole time we were in the hospital. I remember the nurses came to take Spirit to the nursery to do tests (or whatever it was) and Mr. Man toted along right beside them and went into the nursery watching everything they did. He was the same with all the kids. His love is so great and he would give them the world! Makes me wonder if he will ever "lose touch" with his kids like I have lost touch with my dad.

Friday Recipe - A great Father's Day Treat

I saw this recipe a few weeks ago for Homemade Marshmallow Fluff and knew I would need to try it for Mr. Man. He loves banana splits and he likes to put chocolate topping, some of his mom's homemade strawberry jam and marshmallow fluff on top of the ice cream and bananas. So when I saw the recipe I immediately whipped some up for our evening dessert.

When I say I "whipped it up" I mean, I whipped it up in about 20 minutes or so - it was so easy to make! It made a HUGE bowl of it so I filled a container of it and froze some. We ate the rest with banana splits (I think we had banana splits for dessert every evening for a week!) using up what I didn't freeze. I haven't pulled the container out of the freezer yet to know how it worked in the freezer.

If a dad in your life would love a banana split with homemade marshmallow topping for a Father's Day dessert I highly recommend this!

Homemade Marshmallow Fluff
INGREDIENTS:
3 egg whites (if you are nervous about using raw egg whites, powdered ones can be substituted)
2 cups light corn syrup
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups powdered sugar
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

In a large bowl, combine egg whites, corn syrup and salt; beat with mixer in high speed for 10 minutes or until thick. Then add in the powdered sugar a little at a time; beat on low speed until blended. Finally, mix in vanilla until blended. Store in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Like I said, we used this as topping for banana splits, but you can click here for the Homemade Mamas recommended recipe for S'More Cookie Bars from Baked Perfection.

Schools out

With school being out I really thought that I would have more time and not so rushed in the mornings. HA! Who was I kidding. I still had to get the kids ready, breakfast fed and take them to daycare before heading to work! Needless to say I was 10 minutes late to work this morning.

The daycare is really a teacher from Lady Bug's school that is watching my kids in her home for June & July. August isn't covered yet. The teacher has 2 girls so my boys were concerned this morning about being "bored" with all the girls. So they took some balls and games to play together, my hope is that they will all be able to play together. I know Lorie is planning to do some crafts and walk to the park and things like that also. If we can survive the next 7 weeks we will be ok!
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Our weekend here was full of rain, rain and thunderstorms and flooding and more rain. I am ready for the sunshine again.

Because of the weather we were pretty lazy and didn't do much! Weekends like that are so fun!
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I have been working on some crafty things that I hope to be able to post about soon.

Friday Recipe - Smokey Bacon Wraps

I got this recipe from here. These are always such a huge hit whenever I make them. I take them to parties, and serve them at my house often too! People are always asking for the recipe. They are SUPER easy to make!

Smokey Bacon Wraps
INGREDIENTS:
1 lb sliced bacon
1 package(16oz) miniature sausage links
1 cup brown sugar

Cut each bacon strip in thirds. Wrap one piece of bacon around each sausage. Place in a foil-lined 15 in x 10 in x 1 in baking pan. Sprinkle with brown sugar. Bake, uncovered at 400 for 30-40 minutes or until bacon is crisp and sausage is heated through.

Summer Activity Book

We don't homeschool our children (and boy do I wish we did somedays... but that is a post for another day!), so maybe this is mean or maybe it isn't I don't know, but I want my kids to keep learning all summer long. So every year at the end of school I put together some pages for the kids to work on throughout the summer. This is different than the activity book we use for road trips. This is a collection of worksheets of things they learned already in school and a touch of things they will be learning next year.

I put things in this notebook like mazes, color by number math sheets, crossword puzzles, word finds, etc. I like to use these sites for printables.

TLSBooks.com

Education.com

SuperTeacherWorksheets.com

edhelper.com

The kids have all summer break to work on the sheets and most years I have found they complete them and ask for more sheets. We also journal our summer vacation and we do Reading Bingo for summer too.

My kids really enjoy the notebooks and always show it to their teacher when school starts back up. We often times will all sit down together and I help them journal their events. This book often goes with us places when we might need to fill some "down-time". It works great. The boys will sometimes pull a few pages out to work on while in a restaurant.

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Lately we have had some issues with fighting over the computer with conversations like:

Kid 1: "But mom, he got to be on it for an hour this morning and I haven't had a turn all day."
Kid 2: "I didn't get it a whole hour, only a little bit because we had to go to the store."

OR

Kid 1: "Can I use the computer now and then again after we eat?"
Kid 2: "If HE uses it now AND after dinner then when do I get to use it?"

With 3 kids those conversations usually end with one of them saying "Then when do I get to use the computer? You never let me have a turn."

So, we decided for the summer (and maybe even beyond) that the kids have to earn tickets in order to be able to use the computer. We actually had a roll of tickets from some event we participated in and somehow managed to bring home the whole roll of tickets. We came up with a list of things they can do to earn 1 ticket, 2 tickets and 5 tickets. Each ticket earns them 10 minutes of computer time.

When Mr. Man and I were coming up with the list, we made two lists, one for the boys and one for Lady Bug since she is younger.

Items on the list for 1 ticket:
BOYS
* Dust and vacuum bedroom
* Complete 2 worksheets out of the summer workbook
* Read to Lady Bug for 10 minutes
* Write in your journal for 10 minutes
* Practice guitar/piano for 20 extra minutes
LADY BUG
* Dust and vacuum bedroom
* Work on reading for 10 minutes
* Write or draw in your journal for 10 minutes
* Help sort & fold socks

Items on the list for 2 tickets:
BOYS
* Dust and vacuum one room the house (other than your bedroom)
* Memorize 2 Bible verses
* Memorize 5 state capitals
* Help with yard work
LADY BUG
* Feed & water dog
* Memorize 2 Bible verses
* Clean the trash out of mom or dad's car
* Help clean the bathrooms

Items on the list for 5 tickets:
BOYS
* Read a chapter book then write a 1-page summary of the book
* Complete your Reading Bingo
* Write out 1 entire chapter from 1 John
* Complete and pass the state capital test
* Memorize the books of the Bible
LADY BUG
* Complete Reading Bingo
* Memorize the books of the Bible
* Write out one story from your kids Bible

There are also ways they can lose tickets, such as back-talking or arguing when asked to do something (2 issues in our house right now).

We talked to them about how they can save up their tickets and "cash" them in in one hunk or use them as they get them. It is totally up to them.

Summer has just started so who knows where this will go.

UPDATED - Take a Tour of My Home - Lady Bug's room

As promised, here are some pictures of Lady Bug's rearranged room, but first you might need to click here to visit the first "Home Tour" pictures of her room.

Over Memorial Day weekend my goal was really deep clean my house, but knew for sure I wanted to move the furniture in the kids' rooms to vacuum under it. While I was doing that realized since it was being moved, why not re-arrange it? So I did. (Click here to see how I re-arranged Lefty's room)

Moving on to what the room looks like after I re-arranged furniture in there.

Picture taken from the doorway looking towards her window (Just remember I am a terrible photographer, but I took one picture with her curtains closed and another with them open - couldn't decide which one looked better because frankly I didn't like either one...). You can see that I moved her bed so it isn't up against the wall and then moved her dresser/armoire under the window:

This is taken from over by her window looking towards the door:

This is taken from the closet looking towards the built-in corner shelves. You can see that I moved the bookcase from where it was by the door (which is where the kitchen set is sitting now) and put the bookcase at the end of her bed (it is sitting where her dresser/armoire was before):

This is taken from in front of the corner shelves looking towards the closet. That little kitchen set used to be tucked under the corner shelves. I tried to get Lady Bug to let me sell it at the garage we are having soon but she refused. Her room is so small that all that stuff in there makes it feel more cramped. But I like the kitchen set where I have it now. It fits nicely and allows her to play with it easier.

I think overall I am very pleased with how the room came out! She really likes it too, but the first night she rolled out of bed. She told me the next morning how she is so used to having a wall there that she just rolled right out of bed "But mom, I laughed and didn't cry about it!"

Meal Plan for June 5 - 11

SATURDAY:
Breakfast - Biscuits / sausage / fruit
Lunch - Homemade pizza
Dinner - Red beans & Rice / cajun pork chops / corn

SUNDAY:
Breakfast - Cereal
Lunch - Tuna Noodle Casserole / peas
Dinner - Lasagna Roll ups

MONDAY:
Breakfast - Cinnamon toast
Lunch - Turkey wrap / chips/ fruit / homemade granola bar
Dinner - Pancakes / Bacon / Fruit

TUESDAY:
Breakfast - Cereal
Lunch - Burritos / fruit / carrot sticks
Dinner - Spaghetti / salad / rolls

WEDNESDAY:
Breakfast - Cereal
Lunch - Pita pocket sandwich / chips / fruit / jello cup
Dinner - Tator Tot Casserole with green beans / applesauce

THURSDAY:
Breakfast - Raisin bread french toast /bacon
Lunch - Parmesan noodles / carrot stick s/ fruit / cookie
Dinner - Burritos / Rice

FRIDAY:
Breakfast - Cereal
Lunch - Pizza rolls / fruit / pudding cup / cucumber slices
Dinner - Mac-n-cheese / peas

Friday Recipe - Cheddar Baked Chicken

Often requested in my home!

Cheddar Baked Chicken
INGREDIENTS:
1/4 c butter, melted
1/2 c flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1 egg
1 Tbls milk
1 c shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 c Italian seasoned bread crumbs
1 c crispy rice cereal
3 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut in half again
2 Tbls butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place a medium baking dish in the oven while it preheats with butter (this will melt the butter while the oven preheats). Coat dish with melted butter.

In a bowl, mix flour, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. In a separate bowl, beat together egg and milk. In a third bowl, mix cheese, bread crumbs and cereal. Dredge chicken pieces in the flour mixture, dip in egg mixture and then press in the breadcrumbs to coat. Arrange in the prepared baking dish. Drizzle 2 Tbls of melted butter evenly over chicken. Bake 35 minutes in the preheated oven or until coating is golden brown and chicken juices run clear.

UPDATED - Take a tour of my house - Lefty's Room

Last year I took you on a tour of my home, click here to look at Lefty's room last year.

This past weekend I spent the whole weekend deep cleaning my house and I re-arranged furniture in both Lefty and Lady Bug's rooms. It started out because I needed to move stuff and really vacuum and clean under/behind things. I decided their rooms could use a new look as long as I was moving stuff to vacuum under it.

Next week I will show you pictures of the updated Lady Bug's room.

Lefty's room tends to be the hottest room in the summer (and I don't really understand why) but by moving his bed under the window I am hoping to be able to pull in more cool air with the attic fan. We had a couple hot nights this weekend and so far this theory seems to be working.

Here is how it looks today (taken from the doorway):

Here is a view looking towards the closet (in the "before" pictures this is taken from where his bed was and now his desk is there):

These are taken from the closet looking towards the desk/bookcase/doorway (in the "before" pictures this is where his bed and bookcase were):