Because it's not always a party at our house

After looking through my last few posts I thought many might get the impression that all we do is vacation and play around here. OK, it is summer, but that is still far from the truth. I am a schedule maniac. If my kids are on a schedule I am one happy mom. And they seem to be happier as well. Summer is a much more relaxed schedule, which we all look forward too. But I find that we have to keep some structure, if only for my own sanity. And in order to do that I have to have some activities to keep the kids engaged in, or else it is always a free for all. Here are a few of the things we have been up to this summer.
Amanda and Maren are both learning some cooking skills. They can pick one thing every weekend, but they have to alternate between a dessert and a main or side dish.
Amanda was ambitious with her first pick and wanted to make a razzleberry pie (this used to be one of my dads favorite treats from Marie Calenders and now is one of our favorites at our house). It is actually pretty easy, but she had to have the lattice top...I had never done one, but we worked through it, not too bad for a first try!
Amanda has also been taking some art lessons, taking care of a friends garden and cat for a few weeks, and busy reading as much as she can fit in everyday between playing with her friends and making clothing with scrap pieces of fabric for her stuffed animals. She recently won her moms approval by learning to swallow pills...one down three to go.

And her claim to fame this week was catching this huge bull frog that the neighborhood kids all played with for hours, including making a treadmill up a slide for exercise (wish I would have gotten a video, it was so funny).
And Maren made a scrumptious fathers day dinner for Dave last weekend. It was from a kids cookbook, and she was SO excited about it.

Yes this is the entire dinner (luckily we had had a rather large lunch at church that afternoon)...
Tic-Tac-Toe Sandwiches. (Yes we even played the game before eating;) The recipe called for olives sliced into circles for the O's and slices placed as X's but Maren does not like olives, and for that matter neither does Dave. So blueberries and carrots were the substitutes.
Aside from her cooking concoctions, Maren has been practicing her reading skills with Mom everyday, and is trying really hard to earn all the prizes the library is offering for the summer reading program.

She recently earned this ball...loving her decorations;)
Maren is also getting good at making new friends on our new street, and playing with her fur real dog "Christy" that goes everywhere with her. She has also taken over Amanda's role of filling the house with blanket tents, and stuffed animal creations, but not craft and art creations, Amanda still has a hold on that one.

And Jacob, what does an 11 month old do when all this is going on you ask...

He is at that stage! Build it up...knock it down...put it away...pull it out.
He has also mastered clapping, can now say "mama"and "dada", climb up and go down stairs, and is almost running to keep up with Spencer outside.

And Jacob's favorite toys these days...any ball he can get his hands on, the puddle come in a close second.

Spencer has been busy playing in a huge dirt pile with his trucks, getting crazy fast and independent on his bike (he rides about a mile in the mornings with me while I walk these days), playing with his new favorite Buzz Lightyear toy, and getting in on the cooking action by helping stir and set the table for lunch. He also has found that the fire ants gravitate toward him this year and has been bitten a ton. He is now paranoid of the grass, and rightly so, (which you know if you have ever been bitten.) So these may be the only pictures I get of him on the slip 'n' slide this summer, love the tongue.

He is also plotting most everyday on any way to keep Jacob out of his toys. I had to laugh at the blankets he had piled up today so no one could get into the playroom.