Summer Fun

Summer is about fun and routine, yes I said routine. Knowing what to expect helps to make summer fun and run more smoothly when you have children.

Our summer routine most weekday's goes like this :

I get up at 6 , make my husband's coffee and lunch made along with getting Conner up and also do the morning chicken chores and a little weeding in my garden.

Conner heads off to drivers ed, and summer school so he is gone from 7:15 to 2 when I pick him up after I get out of work.

The next three get up, eat breakfast, and get ready for swim lessons, if there is time Aidan works a bit on school work for the day.

Off to swim lessons for the younger three and Sarah is also there working.

Sarah teaching little ones to swim she is great at it.

After lessons I drop the younger three at home and head to work, while I am gone Aidan has more school to work on, usually I leave a craft, they also have chores to do, computer time and they have lunch.

When I get home if they have gotten their chores done we either go swimming in our pool, head back to the town pool, head to the beach, so something fun. 

On Fridays things are a bit different as my husband is home that day,he takes Nolan and Kat to a youth program at the library which runs from 12:30 to 4, then he helps Aidan pick out three more books to read for the week. I stop by and pick up Conner on the way home from work and head to the library with him for both of us to pick out our books for the week. 

I find that everyone having at least 3-4 books on hand to read helps with any I am bored problems.

Then it's home for dinner and then back to the pool for Friday Night Family Fun, sometimes they have pizza, this time they had ice cream , then the pool is open and they pull out all the toys that they use in swim lessons to play with.

Ice cream Sundae's yummy, thank you to the Bainbridge Teachers Association 

       Conner working hard at the pool on Friday Fun Night

This current routine will work until Aug 8th when summer school ends and so do lessons. 

So how do you keep your kids busy in the summer ?

Living with less

Being away from home with access to a minimum of our stuff, I have realized that we can live without alot of that stuff. If I still feel this way at the end of the month, then I have a large summer/ fall project ahead. I also did like the beige walls, but that only lasted for a day or two, but I do see maybe a bathroom being painted white.

I have 1/2 of my summer wardrobe here with me and it is working fine, I would like to have brought 1 or 2 more skirts and I don't have my gardening/ bleach cleaning day clothes with me. But other then that alot of what is in my closet for summer can go.

 The same for the kids, Kathryn has enough clothes at home that we can have a full bushel of clean clothes downstairs, a closet of clean stuff, and a bushel of dirty clothes all on the same day. She really only needs 7 bottoms and 10 tops.

 The older boys have closets full of clothes that they will not wear ( not their style, doesn't fit right), and my mission when I get home is to make them go through it all and get rid of what they don't wear. I have realized that they only need 2 sets of pj's, only 5 pair of shorts, and 7ish t-shirts and 3 Polo's.

I really need to make a list of what is needed and go through their clothes only keeping out what is on the list, boxes up a few extras in case of stains and the rest passing on.

Same with toys, I think that most of them are getting boxed up for the rest of the summer, and come winter doing a toy closet system for Kathryn and Aidan.

Books, that one is a bit harder for me to think about, but I can go through the little kid books keeping the classics and the picture books we do read.

Is doing this going to be easy for me, no way I am after all my mother's daughter and come from a long line of savers, but I can live with less, and I have more time to do other things.

So this month I will be making a plan to get it done, and in July start working on that plan.

Works for me Wednesday- Kitchen Timer

There is this wonderful thing at the dollar store that every house should have one or more of, and that is a kitchen timer.

                                         

In our home I use one for the laundry, when I go downstairs to start a load I program a few minutes before the stop time. Then I go about daily life and when it dings I head downstairs to fold what's in the dryer and change the wash around. When my timer has died like it did this week, laundry is not nearly done as efficient.

With the children it is helpful for timing reading, homework, music practice time, even showers for the teens.

I use one for my computer time, if I am taking a computer break, set the timer and when it dings it is time to get back to work.

When it it canning season the timers are great, just set for the time your cans need to process and no more wondering what time did I put those cans in.

What do you use Kitchen Timers for ?

this post is linked at We are that Family

Jeans into a Skirt

My 10 yo daughter decided to grow ,leaving me with a pile of pants that fit her in the waist but not the legnth. We were able to replace her pants with new ones at the thrift store, but every skirt they had there was way to short for a young girl who doesn't always remember how to sit like a lady.

So after some on-line research I decided to try to turn a pair of the to- short jeans into a skirt. It really didn't take long and would have gone faster except that I didn't have seam reaper.

Here are some of the links I used:
Turning Old Jeans into a Skirt
The Family Homestead

And the best part it was easy to sew, and since I used a pair of pants it has pockets, a zipper,and a waist band that I didn't have to sew,  which I really don't like to do. She also was happy to see it when she walked in the door, and I promised to have it hemmed and ready to wear on Sunday.

I plan on making the next one shorter and using the fabric insert in the back only.

Works For me Wednesday - Childern Clothes Shopping

We are a family of eight, six of them children who didn't seem to get the message that growing should be done in a staggered manner, one child every 2 months. These children usually decide to grow in groups, for instance this week three of them have grown out of there pants. I was prepared for one to grow the youngest and had on hand 5T's and regular size 4 which for some reason are the same size. But the other two have been the same size for the last year or more and I had given up hope that they would ever grow any taller, no their bodies were just waiting for the week before Christmas to grow.

I buy most of my children's clothes at the local thrift store for the younger kids and teens, and Plato Closet for the teens. So that means shopping has to be done with a plan, I keep a notebook with there current sizes, and needs. When I do my bi- weekly shopping I usually stop in the thrift store and take a look for what is on the list, if is not on the list I try very hard not to get it, but there are times I bend that rule usually for spider man shirts that a certain boy loves. This allows us to clothe the children in nice clothing that our budget will allow, and not become over run by clothes. This has rubbed off on the teens to, when they have there own money to buy clothes with and head to the mall they go straight to the back of the stores where the clearance racks are. They have learned that if you wait and shop carefully you rarely have to pay full price.

I do get the boys t-shirts in a store that you really wouldn't think of looking for clothes, and that is Ac Moore. I wait until they have there 5 for 10 sale on t-shirts and stock up on solid color t-shirts for them, and if they are ruined in hard play that is ok. I also try to make sure to have clothing money put away for when Old Navy has there 60% off clearance prices sale at the end of each season.

In the case of a sneak attack growth spurt we have Plan B, first we check to see if there are any clothes that might work in the other kids closets for the short term. This usually works for the older three boys, but not so much for the girls. Then we head to the thrift store as soon as we can and try to find at least 3 pair of pants to get them started, if there is nothing there in their size then we will head to the regular store and hope to find some on sale. Then there new sizes and needs are added to the list and over the course of the next month or two we fill out the wardrobe.

This post is linked at Works for Me Wednesday

Works for Me Wednesday - Teacher Gifts

Yesterday I sat down and counted all the teachers the children have between school and church and to comes to about 30 and I am sure I missed someone. With this many people to say thank you for the time and energy you put into my kids and with my kids that is a lot of energy, what to do for gifts that won't break the budget.

In the past I have done coffee cups, with hot coca packets, and chocolate dipped pretzels, marshmallow snowmen, and cookies on a stick. But this year since the number of adults involved has grown, we are doing cookie plates. Just simple paper plates piled high with goodies, wrapped up, and delivered with a smile and probably a hug if you are one Aidan or Kat's teacher.

On the plates are going to be sugar cookies, chocolate dipped pretzels, snicker doodles, chocolate dipped graham crackers, chocolate covered marshmallows, chocolate covered coconut cookies, crusciki, and whatever else catches our eye.

Recipes and pictures to follow on Saturday once these are all made and ready to go.

This post is also linked at Works for Me Wednesday

And here is the link to all the recipies Teacher Box Cookie Recipies