No Louder Than Lovely

Summer is officially in full swing. And I have to be honest -- it's going a lot better than I thought it would be going! Here is what has been on the docket so far:

First up? A little object lesson. I did this last time around when I was pregnant with Jane, and I think the kids needed a little reminder. To illustrate the difficulties of a pregnant mom having to bend over and pick up after their messes all day long, I had the kids strap on a back pack backwards and filled it with 5-10 pounds worth of flour and sugar. Then I dumped out a ton of toys all over the floor and made them clean it up. It was hilarious. And hopefully insightful for them as well. Hahahaha.

Apparently this exercise really wore Grace out.

Next up? Some of our summer time activities thus far. As soon as school let out we had a little discussion about what the schedule would be for the next few months. After rebutting Ethan over and over and over again that I would NOT be making them clean "for like 5 hours every single day" and that I would NOT be "making" them have a "boring" summer "on purpose" -- we managed to hammer out a contract of sorts. In THEORY, the kids owe me their daily chores (a rotation between the Kitchen, Family Room, and Living Room), an hour at the gym in the morning, and quiet reading time for an hour in the afternoon while Jane is napping so I can have some peace and quiet. In exchange, they get to watch TV, play the Wii, swim at the pool, go on a weekly "field trip," play at the park, invite friends to play, and get the occasional treat during the remainder of the day -- although not all at the same time, of course. I happen to think they're getting a pretty sweet deal. Especially since they don't always do their chores, we don't get to the gym every day, and they (specifically GRACE) convince me more often than not to skip the quiet reading time and head straight down to the basement to watch a movie so that the baby will stay asleep. All in all, the summer is going MUCH better than I thought it would.

A couple of things I did at the beginning of the summer that helped was to take the kids to Target where I let them each pick out a bucket to fill with art supplies and a canvas bin to become their "book box" to keep all their library books and summer reading "passports" in. The art buckets have come in handy for the various "projects" they like to do -- and I love that they each have their own stash of stuff and they know that they have to take care of it because I will not be replacing ANYTHING in it until next summer. The book boxes have also come in handy, although the "passports" have now become obsolete due to the fact that my kids finished all three levels of the library's summer reading program in the first week and a half of summer vacation. Apparently the library has limited prizes this summer, so they can't just do the program over and over again. Hmmmm.

Ethan's Art Bucket

Ethan's Book Box

Without any kind of incentive to continue reading for the rest of the summer, I took matters into my own hand and created our OWN summer reading program based loosely on the library's. For every book OR 20 minute time slot that they read they can fill out a bubble. After all 12 bubbles are filled they finish that level and can get a "prize."

Prize list

At first Grace was really gung ho and finished like 3 levels in one day. Then I told her she couldn't re-read the same board books over and over again to let them count. And then I discovered she was just writing down books on her "passport" without actually reading them and I told her that wasn't going to work either. And ever since THEN, she hasn't really had much to do with our little Reading Club. Hahahaha. Ethan on the other hand -- being the check-list-oriented kid that he is -- has taken it upon himself to read every Geronimo Stilton book that is available while completing all 12 levels of our program. He's already on Level 6. I'm pretty sure he's going to be the only one to make it all the way.

"Reward Coupon"

Other than those festivities we've been filling our days with lots and lots of freezie pops, outings to the pool, and dodging all the cicadas that have been swarming our neck of the woods for the past month -- although thank goodness they are all finally GONE because Sophie is a freak out queen especially when it comes to any kind of bug.

Father's Day snuck up on us a bit this year. I kind of felt really terribly because I really had nothing planned and had kind of forgotten about it until the day before! Scott had been out of town for the past few days and we decided to head over to Indiana to visit Kristin and company while he was away. I'll just put the blame for my lack of planning anything special on the craziness of the week! Driving for almost 5 hours while 7 1/2 months pregnant with 4 children under the age of 8 is not for the faint of heart. Hahahaha. Nevertheless, the kids had a BLAST with their cousins and even I had fun despite my complete and total exhaustion from dealing with a melting down Grace at bedtime almost every night and multiple middle of the night awakenings from Jane who was sharing the room with me -- all without Scott there to help me.

We got back on Saturday afternoon, and after thinking of possible last minute ideas on the drive home, I decided that the best we could come up with for poor Scott was a breakfast of bacon and some handmade cards from the kids. Pitiful, right? Luckily for me, the kids did some planning on their own, and when I came downstairs on Sunday morning, THIS was the picture I saw:



They had dug out this kids cookbook that they got for Christmas and found a "recipe" for lemonade that they thought would be perfect for dad's special day. Hahahaha. I had to help a little with the tweaking because they decided it would be good to double the amount of lemon juice in the mixture without doubling anything else.

Apparently Sophie needs to learn proper behavior for her Food Handler's Permit. Hahahaha.

In the end, the lemonade was still a bit tart, but overall pretty good. Which was a good thing, because I managed to completely burn the whole pack of bacon that I was attempting to make while getting the kids to make Scott their cards. :( Multi-tasking is not always the best bet. Fortunately, there was a back up pack of bacon to cook up, but UNfortunately, Scott barely had time to eat before he had to leave for church meetings. He did have time to read the kids' cards, which I thought ended up being pretty funny. I googled "Father's Day questionnaire" and found a bunch of questions to have the kids fill out about Scott. Some of their answers were truly hilarious. Here they are:

Ethan's answers


Grace's answers


Sophie's answers


Before Scott had to dash off for his meetings.

The pathetic-ness continued with dinner that night -- chicken nuggets, carrots, and applesauce -- but fortunately Primary always comes through in the clutch and creates something cute for the kids to give to their dads. They each came home with a "bowtie" made out of a bag of M&Ms, with a little Get to Know You game to go along with the candy. It was actually a lot of fun to play as a family that evening as we asked questions and got to hear what everyone's answers were. In case you were wondering, Ethan's favorite color is orange, Grace is an "indoor" person, and Sophie's favorite food is chicken nuggets. The funniest question of all was the one we ended on which Scott picked and asked "what do you want to know about me?" Sophie's response? "Who is your favorite child?" Hahahahahaha. Fun times.

"Dinner"


Grace modeling the "bowtie"

The M&M Game

Following closely on the heels of the Father's Day debacle was preparation for Ethan's 8th Birthday and Baptism! I wanted to do something special for the big day, so a few months ago I decided to make him a quilt to commemorate the occasion. A couple of years ago, there was a talk given in the General Conference of our church that was called "Helping Others Recognize the Whisperings of the Spirit." In Sister Matsumori's address, she talked about a Primary teacher who had "wrapped each of her class members one by one in a blanket to teach them how the Spirit feels like the comfort and security of that covering." I loved the imagery of this, and decided that making him his own special quilt would be a perfect and tangible symbol for him of his baptismal covenant -- part of which is to comfort those that stand in need of comfort -- and of his receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, which can help him to feel peace and comfort as well.

I used my awesome Quilting Bee members to help out in making this "Flying Geese" quilt for Ethan and I LOVE the way it turned out. In a special Family Home Evening last week, Scott taught the lesson on the Holy Ghost and then used Sister Matsumori's example and took each kid and gave them a turn to be wrapped in a blanket and held close. I have to say that watching the sweet innocence and purity in their faces as they were hugged and looked so happy and loved brought tears to my eyes. Even though they all drive me nuts almost daily, I love them so much and I'm so glad they're MINE. What sweet little angels they really are.

I was SO glad that Ethan loved the quilt as much as I hoped he would. He's been sleeping with it every night and looked so happy when I gave it to him that it made it all worth it!

Rolled up and tied with a bow -- waiting to be given to Ethan.

I couldn't resist this ribbon -- I thought the subtle polka dot was just too cute and it was in Ethan's favorite color so I just had to buy a couple of yards!

His face says it all -- don't you think? :)

He was lucky enough to be baptized on his actual birthday and even more lucky to have family come in town for the big event! Scott's parents flew in the night before, and Kristin drove down with Ben, Hannah, Jonah. The one thing Ethan really wanted for the baptism was to have "CTR" sugar cookies like the ones at a Fireside we attended at the beginning of this year. After looking EVERYWHERE for a cookie cutter in this shape and having no luck at all, I was just about to give up when I found this link. And then I proceeded to make my OWN cookie cutter using a tin can and pliers. And yes, it is as difficult as it sounds. I almost gave up several times, but in the end where there's a will there's a way!




Hopefully, this will not be rust-laden by the time Grace's baptism rolls around next November, because I don't know if I have the patience to ever attempt this again! As it is, making sugar cookies alone is a labor of love. I used the recipe that was linked in the blog post above, and I've discovered that it is the same recipe from the website Our Best Bites. And for the record -- they were DELICIOUS. The absolute perfectly flavored and textured sugar cookie in my book. And even though I'm a buttercream frosting kind of gal myself, the glace icing still tasted pretty good, too, and I wasn't the only one who thought so. Grace ate 4 of them herself at the baptism. The only variation I made to the recipe was to use BOTH vanilla and almond extract rather than just one or the other.

The icing -- "leaf green" concentrated food color gel from Wilton(s?) (I got it at JoAnn's and they come in little jars.)



Waiting for letters.




"CTR" -- Choose the Right


I doubled the recipe in order to make this many -- a few are missing that I had to test out, of course...

They were kind of a pain to make, took a TON of time, and were a bit trickier to ice than I thought they would be, but in the end I'm glad I made them because they were such a hit.

The baptism itself was a lovely event, and I was so proud of how seriously Ethan took everything. We were so blessed to have friends and family there with us! One other special thing we did was to let Ethan pick out a tie and a matching one for Scott to wear on the big day. Surprise, surprise he picked an orange one and even though it's a bit loud for Scott's personal taste, I love the little bond it gave them.

The obligatory Family Photo op.

Enjoying some refreshments.


Singing "Christmas carols" in the gym after the service was over.


Picture Time!


Grandma, Grandpa, and Ethan.




Best Friends and Cousins.

And THAT was that! Luckily, Ethan has agreed to postpone a "real" birthday party until after the 4th of July, but we couldn't let his actual birthday go by without opening some presents. Of course, he had already been spoiled enough by FOUR packages from my dad (one of which contained a balloon-animal-making kit which has resulted in my becoming a semi-professional balloon artist in the kids' eyes), but we wanted to give him something as well. He REALLY wanted to get his own set of scriptures so that's what we got him. And believe it or not he was really excited to open them.

And a new shirt from Grandma and Grandpa in...ORANGE!

So, that brings us to the end of the month. Whew! I'm tired just from typing everything out. Summer is almost halfway over and Baby Alex will be here in 7 weeks (or less -- hopefully)! We'll be seeing Kristin's family again for the 4th of July and then after that we will have company for almost all of July! My sister Emily is coming to visit with little Pearce (yay!) and my mom is driving out to see us with Amy and Freddie, so we will be having another fun-filled month of summer ahead of us -- aren't you so jealous??? Hahahaha. If you have stayed with this post for this long you win an award. Seriously. Goodnight everyone and have a pleasant tomorrow!