Summer So Far-

It's already the middle of July, and I have no record of the summer. And I definletly won't in 2 1/2 weeks when this baby comes. It's time to start playing catch up!
In June:

• We celebrated Jake's 6th Birthday with a trip to Michigan Adventure.

• Had a garage sale with my friend Keri.

• Took Jake to the dentist 3 times for cavities and cleanings. I was there once a week!

• Had T-Ball games Monday and Thursday nights.

• Took Jake to swim lessons everyday for 2 weeks.

• Got cable because I was so tired of not having anything for the boys to watch, especially when they were pestering each other. And secretly I wanted to watch Kate Plus 8 all summer.

• Went to the library once a week. I'm working hard to have Jake read 15 minutes each day, and with the summer reading program at the library, he gets prizes for reading- good incentive!

• Picked my Mom up from the airport so she could spend the summer up north and help me when the baby comes.

• Went to Harbor Springs for a weekend with our friends Corey and Keri to help my Mom clean out my Grandpa's condo, while my sister watched the boys and took them to Lake Michigan.

Still Learning

I think one of the best things about having kids is seeing the world through their eyes. Everything is a new discovery and it is so much fun showing them, even the most simple things.

 Back in the summer of 2008, I took the boys to the pond next to our house to explore.

It was full of fun things to look at. We even found the smallest baby turtle I have ever seen. It was about the size of a half dollar. I picked it up thinking it was a rock, and was going to throw it in the pond.

Anyway, I got the idea to catch some tadpoles. We collected some pond water and put it in a small plastic fish tank. Then I did some research to see what to feed our little creatures. I wish I would have taken some notes because I am not sure what I did feed them now, or how long it took for them to turn into frogs, but they did. I can remember one day looking in the tank and our tadpoles were gone. I could not figure out what happened to them.  I was thinking the worst, hoping I wouldn't find it in our house somewhere. I happened to glance on the underside of the rim, and there was the frog! Overnight it had completed the last part of it's cycle of a tadpole and became a frog.

We moved frog's house outside and changed it to a plastic container with a rock so it could get out of the water. We had a lizard looking creature left, and I still am not sure what it was.

We let the eventually let the frog and lizard thing go in the pond. After doing something like this with the kids, I can see why people homeschool. You can take things to a whole new level of learning. I'm pretty sure when I learned the frog life cycle in school, we read about it from a textbook. We did get some books from the library so that I that the boys could learn more and answer their questions.

This is a great book, and it is part of a series called Let's Read and Find Out. Stage 1 books are for ages 3-6.

Last summer, we decided to try again at growing frogs. This time I got fancy and bought a plastic habitat for growing frogs.

We went to the pond again and got tadpoles. We had them for about 6 weeks and they never grew. I got tired of having to feed them and we let them go. I still wanted to have a "theme" for summer learning, so we did gardening instead. You can read more about it here.

Here is another Let's Read and Find Out Book:

This summer, I hadn't really thought of a theme, or anything fun to learn about. It seems like the themes for our learning just sort of happen from exploring. David had a big car hauling trailer sitting in our yard getting ready to sell. The boys loved playing on it, and soon they discovered a robins nest with one egg in it. Everyday they checked on it, and each day there was a new egg until there were 4. Cue mommy for a book:

A week later, David sells the trailer. I took the nest down and tried moving it, but the momma bird never came back. We felt so bad for those babies.

 I know what you are thinking- I did not try to hatch those baby birds myself. Instead we looked around the yard for other nests to observe. We found a small nest in the ferns I hang from our porch. There were 3 small eggs that were the same and one speckled brown egg that was different. Everyday we took the fern down to see if they had hatched. Last Monday when we took down the fern we found 4 baby birds!

We checked on them everyday, and watched mom and dad feed them all day long. When I got the nest down yesterday, the 4 birds could barely fit in it. They had grown so fast in just 1 week. I took a little too long taking pictures, and next thing I knew the babies starting flying off. Jake and I chased them and carried them back to the nest, but they must have been ready to leave. This morning, there was only one baby still in the nest and by lunch time, he was gone.

I still can't figure out why one egg was different. The bird on the top looked a little different that the others.

So this was the summer of birds. Who knows what next summer will be. I am excitied to see. I am still learning right along with the boys, it is just more amazing to me. When you think about how a bird can make this perfect little round nest or a tadpole can turn into a frog, you realize we need to stop our everyday crazy busy lives and just enjoy the simple things with our kids. 

Finishing Florida

I am so ready to finish! We took this vacation almost 2 months ago!! I want to remember everything so I am making myself finish.

Anyway, we went to Boca Grande on Monday. My grandparents had a house on Boca and I went a lot when I was growing up. It was fun to take the boys to the places I went as a kid. I hadn't been since I was 22, so it had been awhile and it brought back a lot of fun memories. We spent the day at the beach and the boys each found a shark tooth. Later we took them to Banyan St. a favorite from when I was little. This picture is not the best-

It's just a fun little street lined with banyan trees.

The boys had a blast climbing and sitting in the trees. After that, it was time for ice cream.  We had a lot of fun at Boca. It is a great little island- it has bike paths, a charming little town, great beach, and not crowded. I actually meant George Bush Sr. in church at Boca when he was president and I was visiting my grandparents for spring break.

It was back to the pool on Tuesday. It was hard to keep the boys out of the water! Later in the day, we took them to the jetty to watch the boats and fisherman. After that we went to downtown Venice and let them play in the water fountains.

Mom and I got to shop on Wednesday. Venice has a lot of fun stores downtown. The boys each picked a souvenir- Ty got a shark and Jake got a t-shirt. We spent the rest of the day at the pool.

Our last day was Thursday. We made it to the beach in the afternoon, and then went out to eat at a fun restaurant right on the water called Pop's. There is nothing better than eating right on the water watching the boats and birds. It kept the boys entertained.

We packed up on Friday to head home. We were going to get up and go in the morning, but thought traffic might be bad so we waited until around 2:30 to leave. We got stuck in some traffic in Florida because of construction. The worst was outside Atlanta because of more construction. We went 2 miles and it took us 3 hours. The boys were still up and it was 11:00pm. David was getting frustrated. The computer battery was already used up so we had no movies. We kept seeing minivans with the flip down DVD players and David and I agreed our next van, we are getting a DVD player in it! I am really impressed though that we did make it home without letting the boys watch movies. We drove straight through the night and still had a big stretch the next day, and no way to charge the computer. They entertained themselves, the same way I did when I was little and there were no tv's in cars! I think we fianlly arrived at 4:00 the next day. It was good to be home! It was a great trip and I loved taking the boys to the beach. Especially Tyler who had never been. We are grateful to my mom and Bob who gave us the opportunity to take the boys on vacation. We have many memories we will never forget.

Finally Florida

So now that we have been home now for over a month, it's time to finally write about Florida. We drove down for Spring Break and meant my mom and her hubby in Venice, where she rented a condo for the month. I was so nervous about driving. At this point, we had a terrible drive to Colorado at Christmas, and a terrible flight to Arizona in February. Something had to go wrong. We left a few days early to beat some traffic and extend our vacation a tad. So we got up bright and early Wednesday morning and drove to Chattanooga, Tennessee. We had an easy drive and the kids did wonderful. We brought our laptop and wedged it between the driver and passenger seat arm rests. The battery only lasts 2 hours so we let them watch a little at a time. The rest of the time they had snacks, played Leapster, colored on ColorWonder paper, listened to books on tape, or took naps. David was in charge of making the hotel reservations before we left, and he chose a Super 8. Really? A Super 8? It was what you would expect for $50. Not so super. We had dinner and let the kids swim in the pool.

The next day we only had to go through Georgia and Florida, but it seemed to take forever. I think we made it to Venice at 4 or 5. I'm glad we drove though, the kids got to see a lot and loved going through each new state. I think it helped Jake understand how big the US is knowing it took us 2 days to get to Florida when he looks at his map on the wall.

We spent a majority of the rest of our vacay at either the beach or the pool. The kids spent hours swimming. It was so fun to watch Jake. He went from learning how to paddle around with no water wings in Arizona to doing cannon balls in Florida.

On Friday, we took the kids to the Mote Marine Aquarium in Sarasota. We thought about doing Disney or Busch Gardens, but I wasn't up for big crowds and a lot of hassle. It was perfect. There weren't many people there, and they had a lot of hands on exhibits. Stingray with barb removed

Panning for sharks teeth

    Mr. Sea Turtle

 Dolphin doing tricks
We all really enjoyed the aquarium. On the way home, we found a cute restaurant right on the water and had a great lunch.

 Mom and Bob at cute restaurant

On Saturday, Venice held an Easter egg hunt in a park downtown. The boys have never really done a hunt besides our own so we thought we would give it a try. For some reason, I really thought it would be a hunt but no, they roped off an area, and dumped some eggs. There were quite a few kids there so I guess I can see why they do it this way. Tyler was pumped. He is usually my shy guy, but he wanted some eggs and was ready to gather. Did I bring my video camera? No. It was hilarious to watch him. He was in the 0-3 age group so he had the advantage understanding and knowing what to do. They announced it was time to start and he was off, collecting those eggs as fast as he could. There was no stopping him. He was on an egg mission. It was so nice to see Tyler come out of his shell- (that one is for you, Bob). Jake was in the 5-7 age group and those kids were fast. He had a harder time finding as many as Tyler, but he did find the "golden" egg and won a stuffed Pat the Bunny. That night we went to another fun restaurant right on the water. I had some great fish. Normally I don't care to much for fish, but I was craving it while we were on vacay. I had it every time we went out to eat. A pelican pooped on my shoulder while we were having dinner. This is all part of eating by the water. You take the good with the bad.

Easter was on Sunday and the kids dyed eggs in the morning. Then we spent the rest of the day at the pool.

We had a yummy Easter dinner of salmon. Tyler said the prayer for Easter dinner:

"Thank-you for this lovely Easter day and Jake, Nana, Grandpa Bob, Mom, and Dad." (Repeat again.) Yes, he really said lovely. Too cute.

I'm going to finish the rest tomorrow. It's getting late and really long.

I'm Single Again

That is- a single parent. David is back to work!!! Today was his first full day back and he was gone from 6am-6:30pm. He will be putting in long days for the rest of the summer, so I'm a single parent again. Today was really good though. I got Jake to school on time, although he asked to be dropped off at the school door instead of me walking him in. I shed a tear watching him walk in the school by himself.

Tyler and I came home and all of a sudden I decided to clean the basement. It turned into a dumping ground the last few months. I would just take stuff down there and set in on the floor instead of putting it away. It took awhile for us to clean all the ladybugs that were down there too. The floor was covered in them. I also made a big pile of garage sale stuff. It feels so good to get that stuff out! By the time we finished it was already time for Jake to get off the bus. The boys played outside until dinner, and then we had burgers on the grill, french fries, applesauce, and root beer floats for desert. So yummy.

Now David is home and has the boys in the bath while I get to relax. My back hurts so bad! I need to get that Gopher Grabber thing you see on t.v. I can't spend all summer bending over picking toys and stuff up. After the boys are in bed, we get to watch The Blind Side. Not to bad for my first day, give it a few weeks and I'll have a different opinion.

It's About Time

I will admit, I have been un-motivated this past week, maybe even week and a half. I love taking vacations, but I hate all the work involved before and after. Last week I spent all week catching up on laundry, bills, grocery shopping, ect. And then last weekend it was time for game night at our house so I had to clean, clean, clean and make food. This week I've had appointments, 2 days of subbing and 2 days of car shopping, which I absolutely dislike. We've only bought one car since we have been married, but when it comes to car buying, I always feel like I'm getting screwed and I dwell on it. I hate that cars are not priced at a real price. Put a price tag on it like Target does and call it good. And it is so time consuming. Blah.

Anyway, on top of all this, David is still not back to work. He has never been laid off for this long. It's been nice having him around, but it is starting to make me lazy! I don't have a routine down. I haven't had to take Jake to school in 5 months, which means I don't get ready until 9:30 or 10. I need to get some order back in my life. And I need to get some blogging back in my life. There are so many things I want to remember and capture, but I am so behind! And I know what is going to happen, one day I'm going to look back and think to myself "why did I not spend more time blogging this?" I enjoy looking back so much and knowing that that moment is forever remembered and documented.

It's also sinking in that I only have 12 weeks left of just Jake and Tyler time. I get so emotional thinking there is another sibling about to arrive. I got the same way when Tyler was about to arrive. I was sad that it was no longer just me and my Jake. And I start to feel bad, thinking I'm just taking more time away from them. It's hard enough to find balance and then you throw in another thing that consumes your time. It's hard not to feel guilty. And I know once this baby is born, we will adjust and we will wonder what our life was like without him, but the weeks leading up to that point are hard. They are are both at the age when they are really playing together and enjoy each other's company. Which is another factor in my not motivated situation. I don't have to do much for them anymore. They entertain each other. I can sit back and not have to be a source of amusement. I love watching them play and talk to each other. It's a great source of comfort to know that for some reason, should anything happen to David and I, they will always have each other. I'm going to be honest, Jake was a huge "surprise" to us, and I wasn't ready for another when I had Tyler, but I wanted a sibling for Jake and I wanted them to be close in age. With this one, I have pure baby fever. I haven't had a baby in almost four years! I'm looking foward to having a tiny baby around.

So there you go, this was supposed to be my Florida/Easter post and I went off on this rambling about random stuff post. It feels so good to get it out though. Ahhh. Tomorrow I will try to recapture our Flordia trip, if I'm feeling motivated.

I'm Sorry

I would like to blog about Easter and our trip to Florida, but when we were in Florida, we had cable and David got me hooked on the show 16 and Pregnant. So, until I finish watching seasons 1 & 2, I will not be doing any updates. Thank you for your cooperation.