Our Summer Vacation Chart is back in the closet awaiting next year <tear>.

We’ve had such a fun, relaxing summer. We’ve really taken it easy.

Our summer has been full of too much ice cream,

several park trips,

A couple of movie theater visits,

Cars 2

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2

some pool time,

time at the lake,

fun at the beach,

And much more! So long summer vacation!!

Family vacations are the best.

The gigantic lollipop that seems like a good idea during the high of a vacation is a bad idea in the reality of after vacation. {Don’t buy these monstrosities, Cindy!! Don’t do it!}

Fleas are evil, evil little gross creatures!

The Summer Vacation Chart is actually a doable and fun little tool to keep activities {other than video games and TV watching} happening during the summer.

S’mores are yummy {even made in the microwave}.

Vacation Bible School songs can give your preschooler a soundtrack for the entire summer.

Several trips to lake sprinkled through the summer is muy enjoyable.

Kids swimming in the pool with no fear and not clinging to their momma is awesome!

My seven year old can read Harry Potter. {He LOVED it.} {This is a completely shameless brag, but it is my blog after all, right? }

Being “off schedule” is not necessarily a bad thing.

Summer with these two keeps things interesting!!

Monday we headed to the park. It was so insanely hot, but we stayed about 45 minutes to an hour. Luke swung for the longest time. He just loved it. Poor Daniel got too hot and it made him feel really rotten. We were drinking water the whole time, but it’s just too darn hot!

Tuesday we made a marshmallow catapult. It was a fun little activity.

Here are our supplies ready for us:

Dan saw us working on it and decided he could make it better. And he really did.

He used a ruler (with the ends predrilled- for the rubber band) instead of the second pencil as the catapult. Then we didn’t even need the little cap to hold the marshmallow, it just layed on the ruler.

The kids got a big kick out of it (and I did too to tell you the truth).

They stood there trying to fling marshmallows into each other’s mouths for a while.

Wednesday brought on waterballoons. Whose idea was this?

It took me forever to get into a water balloon filling groove, so the kids played in the pool while waiting on me.

Then they had fun throwing balloons at each other for approximately one minute.

It takes a heck of a lot longer to fill the balloons than it does to pop them… but they had fun.

Thursday was Watermelon Day. It was supposed to be last week, but uhmm… it didn’t happen. It was a pretty low key themed day. I took all my ideas from right here.

We colored half a paper plate to look like a watermelon.

Can you tell whose is whose?

I also made an icecream snack that looked like a watermelon.

Here’s the link of how to make one and it is so much cuter than my pitiful little teeny tiny version, but we enjoyed ours!

Luke wouldn’t eat it! He was too freaked out about the seeds, even though we kept telling him they were really chocolate chips.

The last thing we were going to do for watermelon day was bob for watermelon. Daniel got a big headache though so we skipped out. I think we’re going to be headed to the doctor with him. He has been having headaches and sneezing his little head off.

I guess it was a mini watermelon theme, but another fun summer week. We are getting closer and closer to being ready for the routine that the school year brings!

I think we have officially entered into the time in the summer where we have been together a lot, our schedules are completely different- staying up late and sleeping in and the boys are starting to act up.  Lots of fussing and fits and time outs this week.

The kids pulled their cards for this week.  They pull from a stack, so they are surprised with the card they choose.

Monday we took a mental health day and stayed in our jammies most of the day.

Tuesday the kiddos picked the card to make cupcakes.  Much to Luke’s delight.

After the kids argued over cake mixes and frosting at the grocery store (our theme of the week- arguing, that is) we decided on good old Funfetti vanilla cake and chocolate frosting.  There were only two crying episodes (and neither were mine) during the making of the cupcakes, so it was semi-successful.

Wednesday was the day to hand wash the car.  Much to my delight this time.  My car was filthy.

There was only one rather large time out involved during the washing of the car, so another semi-successful activity.  Ha!

Thursday was to be Watermelon Day, but the kids behaved so terribly on Wednesday that they lost the treat.  Guess we’ll have to see how that will go another day!

Well, there’s the short version of our week.  You never know what you might get at our house!  Hopefully next week will be filled with much more agreeable family members. 

So…. The kids got to pull their cards from their Summer Vacation Chart.

Monday brought us a trip to the park. First thing in the morning Daniel had a dentist appointment for a teeth cleaning. And can I just say that I don’t like going to the dentist, even when I’m just taking my child. I always feel so judged if his teeth aren’t perfect, which they never are, but that’s just me and my hang ups.

So, after the dentist appointment we headed over to the park in the ninety degree temps and the kids ran around and played. Them and one other child. Apparently everyone else in town was smart enough to stay indoors with air conditioning. But the kids, as usual, had a ball.

The boys wanted to walk over to the covered bridge…. which involved walking across a creek by stepping on some rocks. I don’t have any pictures of that, I was busy trying to make sure Luke and I survived. J

We made it across without anyone falling in! It was quite the success.

The boys wanted a silly picture:

Tuesday the boys chose the Make a Paper Pizza card. Easy enough.

We got together our ingredients.

We used lunch bags as our pizza crust. I cut the sides to a point at the bottom and rolled the tops over to look like crust.

I think they turned out pretty cute.

Wednesday was to be slip & slide and sprinklers day, but it rained. This brought about much whining and gnashing of teeth… and boisterous playing indoors.

Thursday was Pajama Day!  I was looking forward to this one.    I could handle a day staying in jamas as Luke calls them.

First we made pajama friends.  They are little paper dolls with paper pajamas.  I really wasn’t sure that the boys would be into the “paper dolls” but they seemed to enjoy it. I forgot to take a picture of the final products, I’ll have to post a picture later.

We ate pancakes and scrambled eggs for lunch.  The boys devoured the food, so I think that was a hit.

The last thing we did for pajama day was lay sleeping bags out on the floor of the den and watch James and the Giant Peach and eat some popcorn.

We’ve been staying pretty busy this summer and this Summer Vacation Chart is making some of the “downtime” a little more structured.  I would say it’s a success.

Now off to celebrate the fourth at the lake!

This week was our Vacation Bible School at church as well, which the kids loved! It was a fun and active week of VBS.

As far as our Summer Vacation Chart goes, the kids chose some fun activities for the week.

Monday, Daniel went to Police Academy and had a great time. The police officers fingerprinted the kids and dusted for fingerprints. He also saw a demonstration with the police dog and got to see in the police car and touch the handcuffs. J He seemed to enjoy it and still says he wants to be a policeman when he grows up.

Tuesday, the kiddos made s’mores. That’s always yummy… and messy. 

Wednesday, was Mississippi Flood- which is what I call it anyway. It’s a game where there is a bucket full of water at one end and an empty bucket of water at the other. You have to get a cup full of water from the full bucket and run it to the empty bucket until the empty bucket is full. The kids seemed to enjoy that.

Thursday, was Under the Sea Day. First we painted paper plate fish.

We also made a jello aquarium. I don’t have a good picture of this, but all we did was make blue jello and when it was starting to set we put in gummy fish.

I could have gone all out and made a themed meal, but I didn’t.

These squid dogs are cute and so are octopus hotdogs. You could pair it with shell mac and cheese. You could eat fish or fish sticks, but I’m allergic to fish, so I never even think of feeding these things. J I’m sure there are a ton of other cute ideas.

We also made a wave bottle and played Fish Bingo.

The kids loved the Bingo game. We used goldfish as Bingo markers and they got to eat them when they were done.

After a full week with the kiddos and a full week of VBS with a lot of kiddos and a full week of Dan being super busy, I’m ready for the weekend… and a trip to the lake! I might have to arrange that. J

Monday they pulled the card for a trip to the park, which they thoroughly enjoyed. It was so hot that they were begging to leave, which was fine with me!

Tuesday they chose the card to make playdough, but we ended up not doing this. I had to run errands, Daniel had his library program in the afternoon and then I went out of town for the night with Dan to his meetings and my mom came to stay with the kids.

I arrived back Wednesday in time to wash the car, which is the card they pulled for that day.

The theme for Thursday was Rainbow Day and we did four activities.

First, the boys colored a rainbow.  Daniel’s rainbow was cool, but it didn’t have the colors in order, so I marked through some of the numbers and changed them.  Maybe I’m a smidge anal with some things, I don’t know.

Daniel’s rainbow

Luke’s rainbow

The second thing they did was make Fruit Loop necklaces.  Daniel patterned his in rainbow color order and Luke just strung the cereal.

The third thing we did was paint rainbows.

The last of the rainbow themed activities was making a rainbow cake.  I made it for Easter a couple of years back and it was awesome, but today I tried to half the recipe and it didn’t cook thoroughly and was not that great… but the boys thought is tasted good and looked really cool. 

Daniel pulled a few cards from the ‘Nothing to Do’ pocket this week, which seemed to work well.  All in all I would say the week was successful.  We still pretty much went with the flow and just threw in a project each day (or several on Theme Day).  The activities really don’t take all that long, but give a bit of direction to the day.  We’ll see if they stay excited through the summer.  I’m hoping so, since we have little things spliced through the summer as well.

Now, bring on the weekend!