Day 3 of Summer Break

It's been three whole days since the last "day" of school. I say "day" because they only went for a couple of hours.

We have all kept busy these past few days. Nick has been enjoying his freedom (he's been out since last Friday). Bella has been having play dates and riding her bike around. I was trying to trim the bushes out front. I say trying because I kept getting interrupted. They are almost completely trimmed. I have all summer to finish, right?  

And then there's Alex. He has been running around the neighborhood with all of his friends. Between the sandlot (have you seen that movie?  That's what the boys here call the baseball fields by us), Speedway and friends houses he hasn't been home very much. Every night has been a sleepover. In fact one night he said he was sleeping at a friends house and I guess the mom backed out and four boys wound up in our basement that night. (I was told only one boy was coming over, apparently Alex called RT and asked if the others can stay over, too)  Alex will be in eighth grade this fall (the big shots of the school) and I think this is his summer of fun.  I think I have seen Alex a total of twenty minutes in the last three days (not counting tonight's baseball game).  

I believe our summer break is off to a good start.  

My Most Favorite Thing to Do

Well, hanging with my kids.  That's a given. 

Anything family related.  Again, a given. 

Since Alex was a year and a half, he has loved throwing a ball.  We used to play catch when he was little.  Well, I would catch.  At that age, he was still learning how to catch.  :)  He would always throw the ball to me using his left hand.  It was fun playing "catch" with him. 

Alex has always had a love for sports.  He has played basketball, baseball, soccer and even tried football for a couple of years.  He took a couple years off from baseball (I was pretty disappointed) and played (a lot of) basketball. 

This year, he decided to play baseball (yay!).  Once again, I get to watch him play baseball.  My most favorite thing to do.

practice pitching before the next inning

Pitching

pitching

My pictures are mostlyAlex pitching.  He does play first base, too.  It's hard to get a good picture of him on first.  I need a better camera.  Oh, and, it's not like he will look at me when I'm trying to take his picture.  Why make it easy for me? 

I really can't complain.  These last couple of months (and a few more weeks) I have been able to sit and do my most favorite thing.  Watch Alex play baseball.

Garbage Picking

Yea. It's come down to that.

Well, that sounds a lot more interesting than the real story.

Okay, Okay, I'll let you decide.  Here it goes:

There I was, at the park with Bella. Bella was climbing all over the monkey bars, then decides to climb the two pine trees. Of course she can't climb them at the same time.  She takes them on one at a time.  She does have her favorite tree, tho.

I decided to walk over to the trees.  She's a good climber, but I still get nervous.  Not sure what I could do.  Catch her?  She likes to climb to the top of these pine trees.  Yes, pine trees.  Pine needles.  Ouch.  They are probably twenty five feet tall.  Here's a close up of her up the tree.

can you see her up there? 

It's a phone picture.  Not very clear.  Let me see if there is a better one.

 

looks a little blurry from my side, but, I think you can see a pink blur.  The pink blur is Bella (I zoomed in for these shots so you can see her)

 

Well, when I walked over to watch Bella, I passed the garbage can.  It's an open can that usually has (bagged) dog poop and other miscellaneous things that you would need to throw away while at a park.  I look inside because I saw a bunch of pink and I saw a train case.  I'm not one to garbage pick, but, this was placed nicely in the can, like they might come back for it or maybe they were hoping someone would take it off their hands?  (or maybe I was on camera?)

 

Being the nosey person that I am (I'm really not that nosey) I took it out of the garbage (no dog poo was on it or other gross stuff) and opened it up.  I figured there must be something wrong with it.  I open it and find that it is full of little girl make up (LOTS of lip gloss, eye shadow, glittery stuff, etc.).  There are no dents, it's not broken.  It just needs to be cleaned up from the makeup. 

 

Bella thought it was cool and needed a place for her growing eraser collection (that's a whole story in itself).  We dumped out the used make up, took it home and disinfected cleaned it up.

 

it does close.  This shot makes like it doesn't close, but, trust me, it does close.

 So, which story do you like better?  Me?  The garbage picker?  Or, me....well, a garbage picker?  I think both stories portray me as a garbage picker, but, the second one gives more details.

 

Let me know what you think.

Last Day of School

Today is the last day of school. The district had to extend the school year an extra two days because of the big snow storm in March and the flood we had in April.

Last day of First Grade. 

 

Bella brought fresh cut Lilacs (from our Lilac bushes) for her First Grade teacher

 

Schools out for the summer!  Hooray!

Naughty Puppy

I think I must have the naughtiest puppy ever!  I really don't remember Newton being this naughty.  Pippen REALLY likes to get into EVERYTHING!  I know.  He's just a puppy and everything is new and exciting to him. Well, somethings are new and he is afraid of them, but, that's a different story for a different day.

When Newton was a puppy, he chewed through the wood on our front gate so he could pop his head through and see who was at the front door (or in front of our house).  RT had to board up some of it because he was working his way to trying to climb through the hole.  There was still a little hole left.  It was not big enough to get a head through.  Pippen decided that it was time for a change.  He chewed and chewed until...

Now he can see who is at the front door

He can also look down the driveway

 

Since I have taken these pictures, Pippen has made the hole a little bigger so he could be more comfortable when looking out.

Wedding

We had a wedding to go to today. It was an early wedding. I got dressed and ready. The entire time I was getting ready, RT was on the phone, chatting away.  I finished getting ready, looked at the clock and realized the wedding starts in 30 minutes. Luckily, the church isn't too far from our house. I tell RT that we have to leave now and he starts to end his call (at this point, he has been talking the entire time and not getting ready). Right before he ends the call he says, "My pants are at the dry cleaners!"  I just burst out laughing. 

His plan:  He will drive to the cleaners so I can jump out and get his pants. Meanwhile, he will slide into the passenger seat, take off his pants and be ready for me.  Yea, I had a smile on my face and, as usual had to make my smart comment comeback. 

 I said, why go to the dry cleaners when we can just stay home and do that? :)

Believe it or not, we barely made it to the wedding(even though the dry cleaners was in the opposite direction).

Teacher (Coach) Appreciation Gift

Another easy way to say Thank you to a teacher or coach. 

Using a cellophane bag, fill with some candy.  I used a box of Altoids, some lifesavers and peppermint candies.  Other suggestions to throw in your bag:  Hershey Kisses, miniature candy bars.  You can also find the teacher's (or coach's) favorite candy to add.

Cut out a shape from some construction paper.  I used a star to show that the teacher is a Super Star!  Because I used a lot of mints in my bag, I said, "Thank you for your commit "mint" to our children."
Punch a hole into the star and tie the bag with some pretty ribbon and you're done!

Yes, it's that easy.

Another teacher/coach gift.....done!

***Looking for other ideas for Teacher Appreciation gifts?  Check these out:

 Thank you for making me a Sharpie
Thank you for being my M & M
Thank you for making me a Big Smartie