First day of summer

June 1st is here!!  Yippee, it's the first day of summer.  I'm glad after a long school year that my babies are finally mine again {even though today was rough}!!

I am loving the Keep Calm iPhone app, and made this yesterday while sitting in the carpool line for the last time of Sydney's second grade year.

Today started off lazy, we all slept in!  It was one of the best nights of sleep I have had all week.  I loved it!!  On Instagram, I am taking part of the photo-a-day challenge - I will get through this month without missing a day!  :0  Today's day was morning, so I snapped a picture of my clock, the time that I woke up!  Oh, did it feel good to sleep this late!

Since Tim's shoulder surgery two weeks ago today, the house has been a WRECK!!  Toys, laundry, stuff, everywhere!!  I'm putting all that off until next week since we have a busy weekend ahead!  It's so hard for me though, I feel so much more productive when things are organized and in their places!  First up, we had to make our first batch of summer lemonade, what's summer without it?!

Brody and Sydney wanted to go outside and swim in the little plastic pool, so we did that for awhile and enjoyed the awesomely amazing weather for the first of June.  Blue skies ruled today with the nicest breeze.  After they went in to watch a movie, I enjoyed a lil' quiet mommy time listening to the birds chirp, the planes flying overhead, the sound of kids playing outside, all without the constant hum of all the air conditioners running.  It was just the bit of calm I needed before heading back inside to the constant, "mom, mom, mom", oh and the fighting and crying!   

Unfortunately, we received some bad news today.    Tim's dad has not been feeling well the last few weeks, and went into have some tests run.  The doctor's office called and wanted him to go in for the test results.  We knew immediately that didn't sound good.  There is a 95% chance he has lung cancer.  He will have to have a biopsy on Monday to see for sure.  Poor Tim, this is too soon.  We just lost his mom to cancer 7 months ago.  We are not ready to go through this all over again!  All we can do is pray!  The doctor said it looks like they caught it early.  But, regardless, cancer.sucks.period!

Today is Stephanie's birthday.  Tim's dad told us to go to her birthday dinner, or else, we would have spent the evening with him, since he was upset about today's news.  We ate at Carrabba's, all 17 of us!  We missed Blake.  Now that he's a big 7th grader, his priority is friends and going to the movies!

This is a picture of Steph and me taken in the back of the good ole' station wagon, circa 1970 something!  It's my favorite childhood picture of us!  Sisters and best friends...I'm so blessed to have such a caring, loving, creative, talented, and funny sister!  Happy birthday Steph!  I love you!

New posts coming soon...

After nearly four months of no blogging, I'm ready to start again.  Look for new posts coming soon.  The kids have been out of school for a week now and so far, our week has been jam packed, I like it that way although I still need at least one lazy, quiet day a week!

I have several posts to catch up on for events that have happened over the months that I have not blogged about.

First up - Sydney's 7th Birthday Baking Party.  It turned out to be such a cute party!!  Stay tuned tomorrow.

Until then, I hope you are enjoying your summer!

Shannon

Fun Friday!

Today was such a fun Friday!  We had a great first week of summer and I'm still sane.  Yes, I am an order taker/waitress, spill cleaner up-er and maid for the next three months, but I love having my babies with me!!

My nephew Jacob has been with us this week and spent the night at our house two nights in a row.  The boys have had so much fun together - laughing, telling jokes, catching up, playing games, making plans for a lemonade stand next week, talking about rides at Disney, going to It'z, watching videos on You Tube, playing Just Dance on the Wii and dodging Sydney and Brody.  It makes me sad that they can't really spend this much time together until summer.  I have loved having Jacob around.  He's sooo smart and sooo funny and sooo imaginative.  I love that kid!!

Today just seemed like a lazy day.  We all slept until about 10:15.  It was nice, especially since I have stayed up so late this whole week.  We hung around and ate a late breakfast.  I told the kids last night that we needed to go to the garden center to get some fresh flowers.  It's been so hot here that all my favorite petunias are all leggy and dead looking.   We started off at Starbuck's and they loved their smoothies and decaf Fraps.  Eventually, we found our way to the sea of flowers.  Jacob and Sydney loved being on the double-decker cart and I was their tour guide.

We stopped to get Little Caesar's to pick up pizza for lunch and then headed outside, in the sunny, humid, ever-so-hot 95 degree Houston weather.  I planted and the kids washed the car and played with Brody in his pool.  Blake even climbed up in the tree taking the hose with him and creating a pool "waterfall".  Where does he come up with his ideas?? 

Anyways, it was fun and somewhat lazy since it's was a Friday.  The best part of all, we were outside much of the afternoon and I wasn't their maid.  I got a little break!!  :-)

Writer’s Workshop: 30 Things I Vow to Do This Summer!

I follow Mama Kat on Twitter and saw her writing prompts.  Here's the one that I chose...

30 things I vow to do this summer (seeing that I have three kids (10, 6 and 18 months), this is subject to change and I will do a blog post at the end of the summer to see what I actually accomplished!

1.  Read two books, either Danielle Steele or Sandra Browne.  It's been over a year since I've read a book!

2.  Do my fall projects now so I don't kick myself that another year went by without adding some new decor to the house.

3.  Do fun and really messy, gooey, ickey, slimey experiments/projects with the kids.

4.  Lose 1 pound per month.

5.  Make dinner at least 4-5 times per week.

6.  Take an online photography class.

7.  Get a blog re-design.

8.  Get a new laptop since my other one is toast after only two years.  :-(

9.  Take a weekend family getaway somewhere in Texas.

10.  Paint and re-do hallway bathroom, pick a new paint color and add new framed mirrors and updated lights.

11.  Read a lot with the kids and take them to the library each week so this summer they actually get the Summer Reading Certificate and free book for the reading all their books!

12.  Decoupage and fix up my old childhood desk to put in Sydney's room.

13.  Pay it Forward (#13-#15) - surprise one unsuspecting clerk who is extra friendly, smiles, is nice, not rude, who actually greets me and talks to me and loves their job.  Give them a little reward for having a great attitude regardless of their minimum wage job.

14.  Pay for the person behind me at the toll booth.

15.  Pay for the person behind me in the fast food lane.

16.  Continue taking Blake and Sydney on dates.  They need to know they are special and they deserve some one-on-one time with their momma since our daily lives are so crazy!

17.  Take the beginner Photoshop online class my sister gave me for Christmas.

18.  Soak in the bathtub uninterrupted reading one of my books from #1.

19.  Sign Brody up for Mother's Day Out for the fall.

20.  Get to sleep early at least twice a week, these 2am bedtimes are killing me (well it's now actually 3:36 am as I'm typing, I'm in trouble tomorrow)!!

21.  Help the kids plant their vegetable/flower garden.

22.  Call my best childhood friend and talk instead of e-mailing or Facebooking, call my parents, brothers and in-laws more.

23.  Make some funky camera straps for my camera.

24.  Go to Barnes and Nobles by myself once a week to read, escape and come home a refreshed momma.

25.  Find a babysitter so Tim and I can go on some dates and have more late night snuggle time catching up on all kinds of DVR shows!!

26.  Hunt for new recipes to try each week instead of eating the same old stuff, this will help with #5!

27.  Do a kid swap with my sister...I take her three, she takes my three for the day - that way I get to spend quality time doing something different with my nieces and nephew. 

28.  Go downtown for lunch one day so the kids can eat lunch with their daddy.

29.  Go to the beach again with the entire family (parents, brother, my sister's family), we had so much fun when we did that over Memorial Day weekend.

30.  And last on the list...try not to sweat the small stuff and enjoy every day I have with the kids during the summer, school will be here again before we know it!

Summer Begins Next Week!!!

Eight school days left until summer!!  It's so unreal to think that school will be out next week, Thursday to be exact.  I'm ready for a break from homework, paper shuffling, signing folders, carpooling, waking up early, the nightly bedtime battles, etc!  I think I'm probably more excited than the kids!  Three months to do whatever we want!!  I'm looking forward to having Blake and Sydney home with me during the day.  I know Brody will love having his Bubba and Sissy home, someone to play with besides me!   It's time to get the summer schedule ready...top on the list - swim lessons for Sydney, finding a summer Mother's Day Out for Brody and signing Blake up for golf - he needs to do something other than baseball!!