2.for.Tuesday

We have this amazing couple in our ward. She is from the Ukraine and he is from somewhere in South America. We love them. *B* loves to share fresh garden stuff with them. The other day they came by with a box of apricots for us. Someone let them come and pick apricots so they decided to share some with us. I've been wanting apricots and I even volunteered my swollen feet to work in the cannery last week hoping that they would have some overripe ones so I could make jam. No luck. But hey, there are always good neighbors and today my mom brought a 5 gallon bucket full from her good neighbors. Now I'm thinking not just jam, but fruit leather also. one: apricot fruit leather [or any fruit for that matter]. It looks yummy. It sounds easy enough. And I do have a convection oven to speed up the process. two: Molly's summer book. I love the idea. The boys have been doing their index card journaling and I'm trying to take photos. I wanted to make a book anyway. This photo is from a postcard swap that Hula Seventy did. I've had it flagged for quite a while now, but haven't really had a reason to use it. Today I like it as dividers in a summer book. After I saw Molly's book I was thinking, "why not do the colors of summer?" Throw in all of the colors of the rainbow or go and grab paint swatches of summer to me colors + add white [for *I*s baptism and Baby's blessing among possible other things]. Plus all of the great colors of things that come out of the garden. Anyway, I think it's brilliant. Go and check it out. She's got some really great ideas for working it on the go and not making it difficult. I love the fill in the blank journaling pages that she gives. It's downloadable so grab it. Use it. I really think you should. on the same train, but a slightly different track... when I went to grab the link to Hula's blog I noticed that she's participating in a summer color week this week. I thought that was quite appropriate. Maybe I should join in. Maybe you should too!

2.for.Tuesday

the absolute truth of it all is that I am really just trying to stay sane and keep putting one foot in front of another [and catch a quick nap if the stars all align]. one: this great quote... two: tickets. I know I promised a scripture bag tutorial. It's still in the works. I'm mostly focusing on the big summer plans I had. They're working. They're making me work. It's exhausting. I keep thinking it will get easier. That I won't have to nag and push and yell to get the boys to complete their jobs. *I* has been very motivated. He gets up at 7:00'ish and immediately makes his bed and starts on his extra job. I added one more item on the summer list just for him. I stole the "caught being good" idea from his school and made up these tickets to hand out for random things. Like the night *I* was the only person who took care of his dinner dishes. Really, the only one. That was the night I decided he needed to be rewarded for his efforts. It's nothing really spectacular, but if you're interested the tickets link will take you to the box for a download. There are eight per sheet.

2.for.Tuesday

Last night for FHE we went to the "rock climbing park" to observe the growth of recently discovered pollywogs. We were there on a play date with various kindergarten boys last week and they were enthralled. We decided to go back tonight to check their progress. Last week we saw eggs/spawn + various sizes of "tadapoles" as *A* calls them. Tonight there was no spawn to be found, but we did see a couple of XL guys with little leg sprouts. We're hoping to get back there to see even more with legs next week.

one: The Magnifying Glass. A really great blog about things like frog spawn, butterflies, and animal skulls. Among other things.

two: An Index Card Summer. I have had this one in my files for a long time. I may have even shared it last year with all of my good intentions. But I mean it. We will do this. I'm going to be realistic and say that we will do one card a week. One of our days will be journal day. That should be doable. Right? So far we have art day [where we'll paint/put together horses] and now journal day [where we'll do our index card journal pages]. I'm thinking 4x6 because they're more manageable for small hands and they will go nicely into a 2 up album or something similar.

If I tell you that up next week is the scripture bag tutorial do you think I'll have it ready in time?

I Think I Might Be Damaging My Children

[She said as she watched her oldest son put a grasshopper in a bag and bash it with his fist a few times]. And just an hour ago I paid him $.10 for every snail he gathered up in the garden. After I counted them I told him to bash the bag on the sidewalk and then put it in the trash. He also gets paid $.10 for every dead grasshopper. Just in case you were wondering. Stinking things eat the plants. The can live in someone else's yard if they want to live.

2.for.Tuesday

I am considering this the first official day of summer since the weekend doesn't count and the holiday is, well... a holiday. Today was the first day *I* should have been in school but he wasn't because it's summer. Craziness. It's summer.

This is a photo of his last day of school. The large poster he is holding is his life sized emu he wanted to make. Did you know emu was pronounced ee-myou?

Because it's summer I'm going to ignore the backlog of great ideas I have to share with you and share some of my own [and there will be more than two this time]. I'm going to attempt keeping my kids mentally engaged this summer while still keeping it fun. I know you're laughing and thinking "good luck with that one..." But hey, I can dream right? And besides, they're still young...

One: summer book club idea/photo from BH&G magazine. I first read this article a few years ago and now that *I* is turning into a voracious reader I think he'll really enjoy it. After a little search I've discovered a few different lists for kids book clubs. Oprah's and Great School's + the article link also give suggestiong for choosing books. I'm sure there are even more out there...

I talked to him today about the idea and he loved it. He already has his friends list and knows which book he wants to start with. He wants to read Fablehaven but I just checked library availablility and though there are 20 copies there are also 12 requests. I'll check back on that and encourage him to choose another book. Maybe something like Peter and the Starchatchers. Except the library only has 2 copies of that one. Hmmm... Sorry, I will stop boring you with my search of books to read...

Two: what I did this summer books. I'm having him/them journal write and he chose Mon/Fri to write. I'm making a conscious effort to make sure they get all of their pegs done before they can play and *B* wants to have them help buy their school clothes with the money they earn from that [the photo above is of the peg charts I made last year]. I'm planning on going on official outings once a week [don't think this will be anything huge. Probably just a trip to the splash park or something like that]. I will let him use my camera to take some pictures and I will take some pictures and he will write about it in his journal. We will also be making projects like embroidering pictures they draw [since he wants to learn to sew and I told him he has to learn to handle a needle + thread before he can use my sewing machine] and we will be traveling the world. He insists that his class went to Australia the last day of school and he loved it. The whole last week they learned things about Australia and wrote a report about something they liked that was unique to the country/surrounding area. We discussed it and he would like to visit one country every two weeks. I'm cool with that. I think it will be fun. We'll read and cook and search the net and in the end he will think he's traveled the world. Love it! In the end we will make a book at Blurb and he will be able to remember what he did this summer. He loves the idea.

So, these things paired with lots of roaming the neighborhood + playing with friends + our standard camping/fishing trips + growing/eating our garden fare = one pretty eventful summer. Hopefully we'll be able to spend some time swimming too. It would be a tragedy if my kids didn't learn to swim.

enjoy the journey!

The Winner?

I still didn't love any of those ones. I had to play with it more. I love b/w photos and think I tend to use them way too much so I wanted to stay with the color but I also didn't love the color block. This is what I came up with (Erin gave me a good photoshop tip to get the photo lighter): I had also planned to put this as a two page spread in a 11 x 8.5 mypublisher book, but now I'm thinking that I will do the paper back option and it's measures 7.75 x 5.75... it's lots cheaper and I will be able to give it to the little guys and not have to worry if they trash the thing. I can always get a new one and it won't break the bank to do it.

One more thing... I thought that you could click on the page to see it larger and be able to read the journaling, but I've since realized that isn't true. So, here it is (sorry about the bullets. Somehow I've gotten into double spacing if I hit enter so I had to use the bullets to keep it all together):

• made a coloring book
• designed and built
• very cool paper airplane
• created a menu of
• things you can cook
• and opened the
• “yummy:food:restaurant”
• wrestled with Ammon
• bent the paper airplane
• came unglued and
• destroyed paper airplane
• proceeded to recreate
• said paper airplane
• played in the sink until chased
• from the bathroom
• played outside
• played t-ball

It was a very eventful day and he was totally cracking me up the whole time. Please note the way "yummy:food:restaurant" is written. He has trouble remembering to leave space between his words and has started to put the colon's there instead. I think it is very cute.

Enjoy the Journey!

What I Did This Summer

I'm thinking about doing a book about summer for *I* and probably one for *A* too. Here is a sample page:

I'm not sure how much I love the orange. I think I do like the layout though and that's a huge step for me. I'm also not sure if I'll leave the picture in color or change it to b/w:

and here's a full-bleed option:

Anyway, this was basically our day. I may have to add some stuff to the list (since the day isn't quite over) but I wanted to give it a go. What is your vote? Enjoy the Journey