lazy days of summer?

Well, I'm not sure if our summer has been lazy yet....

on second thought... I'm not sure if my summer has been lazy yet!

The teenagers, on the other hand, seem to have taken the phrase, "lazy days" to heart, and love to sleep in...

But the little ones are up with the sun.  Even if we put them to bed late, they are still up with the sun, bright and early. 

Waaah!

I've been doing a morning Z*mba class with some friends and I haven't once set my alarm clock.

Sarah is my alarm clock, every morning.  Around 6:30 a.m.  Yesterday she wanted to know if we could practice writing her name at 6:30.

I sighed, moaned and asked her ever so sweetly if she would go do a puzzle in the family room or go see if Jason was awake yet!  ;) 

But I digress...    lots going on around here right now.   Jason, Logan, and Evan are all playing baseball, which basically means we are at the ball park almost every night of the week.   Sometimes this is good, and sometimes this is not so much fun.   Dinner time is definitely a challenge.

In other news, Sarah has been doing lots of new things lately. 

She danced in her second dance recital.  Her group did a very cute dance to "The Farmer in the Dell."  This child just lights up when she's on stage.  Seeing her so full of joy just makes my heart sing. 

And a little girl in our neighborhood invited Sarah to her birthday party.  I was teary eyed over her going to a birthday party.  
A little weird, right? 
But it just really got to me--- how fast she's growing up and far we've come together as a family.  
More on that in another post!

Summer 101

Prerequisites:  three kiddos, lots of water balloons, one trampoline, and a sunny afternoon

Objective:  play hard and get wet

Hello, little knees (it's been awhile)

Completely tuckered out at the end of the day   (a rare photo of Sarah sleeping.)

Message in a Bottle

Jason and Sarah got two special delivery "packages" this week from Tiffany, our amazing and much loved day care provider.  (I teach a half day session of K, so the "littles" spend the morning with Tiffany (or at preschool)... but now we are all home for the summer!)   It was such a cute idea that I had to take pictures and post about it. 

These are 2 liter pop bottles filled with all sorts of summer treasures like squirt guns, swim goggles, silly putty and candy.   It was fun to try to figure out how she got all that stuff in the bottle.  ;)

At first we thought she somehow pulled off the bottom of the bottle, but then we discovered a slit cut in the label.   The slit was hidden by a cute card that was taped over it.

The kids loved the gifts and had a fun time with the bottles, too! What a fun idea!  Thank you, Tiffany (for everything)!