Finding our summer rhythm

I'm having so much fun reading all the summer ideas and ways to display summer activities all over the blog. I think this is a great idea for the parents and kids to do together. We are still in the planning and process part which means....

The start of summer break is always a little bumpy and slow to start at my house. The kids are getting use to being home and being I have to get use to them being home all day invading my space to put it somewhat nicely,lol. It takes us a couple weeks to adapt to the new found freedom for them and the noise level and the mess for me. Don't get me wrong I love that they are here and we get time together but after 9months of a quiet house and doing my own thing in peace it's hard to make the switch easily. By mid June we are liking each other and in July we are loving it and by mid August we are ready for school.

This year I have the challenge of entertaining 2 teen girls and my only boy on my own, yep 3 against one. The odds aren't good for me. I'm keeping an open mind though and want this to be a memorable one for us. I usually don't like summer, the bugs, the heat, the water, the sun, the sand, the bugs again, sorry to ruin it for those of you who love summer. I am a fall girl all the way and could stay in fall weather the rest of my life and be happy. This year though I'm embracing the summer and trying to change my attitude towards it and finding the beauty of it. I want to make the days longer and stretch out summer for as long as possible.

Ok, enough rambling and onto my ideas for the summer. The biggest one is of course having the kids in the kitchen cooking and learning about being healthy and cooking. I did a post about this below already if you want to read it. The next thing is getting the kids to the track with me and getting good quality exercise in as a family and also one on one with them. This week the kids have made a list of some ideas to do this summer which were a little impossible to do so we redid those lists and I added some ideas too which they aren't that happy about but I'm hoping they will come around. So here goes in no order

library summer program, make two new smoothies a week, make new muffins every week, have a spa day, go to the zoo, try new parks, amusement park, walking trails, starting a gratitude journal, drawing outside, one tank trips to wherever we end up, working in garden, painting girls room, lots of reading inside and outside, camping, free summer bowling, try new ice cream stands, the beach, watching a sunset at the beach, having a meal outside, picnic at the stream, practicing our flashcards, learning the capitals of states, writing book reports, arts/crafts/ sewing if possible, listening to music in the village on Thurs. nites, cleaning grandpa's garage, visiting grandma, spelling words and tests, workbooks, learning to type on computer, learning to be kind and helpful to each other, do random acts of kindness to your siblings, play with Lucky, to to the movies, go to a baseball game, bonfires, smores, camping, smash journals, painting, scrapping, learn to wash clothes, of course lots of swimming in our pool that's a given and we've already started a tradition of playing baseball each evening which is so fun and I love already.

So that's our list for now and I really hope we can do all these things. My dream is for each day to be filled with activities and fun, laughs, adventures, story's and enjoying the time we have together since it is over pretty quick. My girls are no longer into playing games, hanging with family and playing outside. They want the tv/computer/phones/ friends and that's it. My son still wants those but he's willing to play a lot too. I did want a no electronic summer except for a rare treat but the kids are really giving me a hard time on this. Thinking of making Mon/Wed/Fri no electronics as a compromise. Hope this gives some of you some ideas and please share some of your ideas with me too. Let's make a pact to have the best summer ever!!