That seems to be the end of every sentence in my world lately. “My parents came to town…” “We checked the mail and there were more Pokemon cards…” “Your aunt and uncle called and they are coming to visit next week…” “The computer says the hard drive is failing…” “Hey, let’s get a better printer for the Tyler house…”
So there’s been attempted computer repair, setting up a new computer and printer and installing all the new software and explaining how all that works to my dad (a process which will be ongoing for the next couple months despite me installing & tweaking things that make Windows 8 feel more like Windows 7), frantic cleaning, the reorganizing of ALL THE POKEMON CARDS.
Nick sat the kids down last night and asked them to bathe and put themselves into bed without bothering me or I might explode and kill all the people. Umm, yeah. So they did. Quietly, quickly, without drama. All while I holed up in my bedroom and drank soothing beverages and ate British chocolate and reread one of my favorite novels (84 Charing Cross Road – if you haven’t read it yet and you love books and reading, GET THEE TO A BOOKSTORE!!!). It was soul and sanity saving, to say the least. (And where did the spouse go? To hang out with my dad. hahaha.)
This morning one of my most soothing friends and her children came over for coffee and snacks and playtime. It was loveliness. Just what I needed in my week.
After that, we went to my parents house and ate chili cheese dogs I bought us all from Sonic (there was a sale!). The children are STILL at my parents house right now. The Pokemon reorganization can’t be picked up and moved back and forth at this fragile stage of the process, so I left them there and told my parents to kick them out when they got tired of children/cards/the dog underfoot. My house is cool and quiet and I might just go back to reading my book now instead of folding the laundry…you just never know…it could happen…
Technically I came home more than a week ago. I intended on making my first blog post then with a summary of our big Eastern European trip and a thoughtful essay on things I’d learned about myself while I was away. Then the jet lag hit like a wall made of far sterner stuff than I was made of and I instead spent a week lying in bed dozing and pseudo-watching re-runs of Pretty Little Liars (I like the music on that show; it’s easy to sleep to) while the children ran amok and ate all the granola bars in the house.
So now even Nick is back – he left for Brno, Czech Republic the day David and I arrived back in the US – and we are settled back in to our regular summer routine. Well, almost. We spent a lot of yesterday at the local state park with his family and the kids came home exhausted, so they are sleeping in today: hence this blog post.
New things around here:
We gave up on the themed days. The kids were not as enthused by the scheduling as they’d thought they’d be. We did a few days of it, but mostly what they wanted to do was have totally free days where they got to play all the games they wanted and watch all the tv they wanted and eat all the granola bars they wanted. So, last week they had that. This week we are going to have a different kind of schedule, just a bit. I have an idea of what kind of outdoor work needs to be done, so we’re going to do some of that. We’ve got a dentist appointment, and we’ll plan a couple play dates. My parents are unexpectedly here, yet again, so we’ll have to plan around that as well.
I got a Fit Bit. I’m sure you’ve noticed the stats coming through the blog. I thought I’d set it to weekly, but it went daily. Ah well, technology. In any case, I now weigh more and am more out of shape than I’ve ever been. I wanted something to jumpstart me into some more accountability in my physical wellness and everything I learned online lead me this direction (Well, to be honest, I’d thought about the Garmin band as well, but I couldn’t find one in town that day and it’s main advantage was the I could swim with it and I’ve currently no access to a pool, so that’s a moot point anyways.).
…..
So now the kids are all up and I need to be directing them towards clothing and breakfast. Hopefully I can get back into blogging with some regularity again now that we are home and things are more settled. 🙂
So I only slept about an hour last night and have been living on coffee this morning. The kids are saying things like: “MOM, YOU ARE SO HYPER!!!” and “STOP DRINKING COFFEE!” and “WE ARE CUTTING YOU OFF!!” (while drinking coffee themselves, of course.)
Oh my goodness. The morning just keeps getting better (she said sarcastically). Rose got out and we were already running late to school and I was chasing her down the street with my wild hair and inappropriate footwear and yelling for David to come help (she’ll go to him) and this sweet walker lady was trying to help and David was not coming out. Oh, it was delightful. He finally came and walked the dog back home, so we drove around the block on our way out of the neighborhood and saw the walker walking into her yard & stopped & thanked her & now she probably thinks we’re stalkers. Got back home and David was curled up in a ball on the couch moaning. He’s got the stomach virus the rest of us had last week and it’s his last B day of school and he’s insistent that he “has” to go to school. I am sure I need more caffeine now.
Note to self: being sarcastic about the morning does not make it better.
PS. I am NOT bringing cookies to the Fifth Grade Graduation tonight. No one needs this stomach virus.
I have been breathless with busy-ness (four field trips, school carnival, track and field day, and a spring recital) and all the household fallout that happens after a couple of weeks of not taking care of it at all. But today, finally, there is some breathing room and I am sitting here in my pajamas drinking coffee and looking ahead to the summer.
Okay, so this is the past. Look at my babies: they were so little. This was in South Dakota at our last big family reunion 7 years ago.
Let me tell you about summer in my house: if I do not plan it out, we devolve into days that revolve around the electronic screens. We end up lying around staring mindlessly into them and there’s an occasional death match figuring out who goes next for what screen or game or show and we never see the sunlight. That and eat. Seriously. Last summer we had this kind of non-schedule and I HATED it. Not only that, but the kids hated it, too. So it’s back to the drawing board.
This is what I want to avoid.
Here’s how I plan things for our summers at home: First I put into the calendar all the camps, trips, fun days at the library or city parks, and obligations we have. Then I go spelunking through the internet, looking for bizarre holidays/celebrations/etc that I can pull into play as themes for the days we have left. (My favorite site is Brownie Locks, which is not the prettiest to look at, but has good info and links updated every year. Holiday Insights is also pretty good and is much easier on the eyes.) Some dates have nothing good or nothing that fit in with my kids interests, so I go ahead or behind and pull things from other days to fill in days (those are the ones listed as “rescheduled” in the pages linked below.)
At the library for storytime many years ago. That particular day a doctor came in and read the kids stories about hospitals. It was pretty cool. They still do things like this, but they also have afternoon activities for older kids.
Once I have a theme for a day, I start looking for websites that have free worksheets, interesting videos, yummy snacks, or fun projects within that theme to do with the kiddos. I also have a board of ideas (well, one for each season and one for each kid individually as well) on pinterest that I add to year-round, so I’ll go through that and pull things out I’ve saved. This year we have swimming lessons taking up pretty much a large portion of June, so we’ll go easy on those theme days and have one little craft for each day and I’ll look up books at the library for our daily reading time to coincide with the theme. In July (after our big trip) and August, we’ll go more in-depth with things and I’ll plan bigger projects and even field trips to work with the theme. For example, for Video Games Day we’ll take a look at what it takes to code our own games on the computer and maybe go out to the arcade in the mall if the kids aren’t as interested in that as I think they’ll be (I’m betting we won’t need to go, but I like back-up plans). For Amelia Earhart day, we’ll probably visit the little local airport and watch the airplanes come and go and at home we’ll watch some of the videos that have popped up recently about her crash site being possibly found. We might also look into how flying has changed in the last decades and study about how airplanes work (yay physics!).
One year we had a cousin over and still did our daily theme schedule. David was working on his special project and M was doing a coloring sheet. This photo is from years ago, obviously. 🙂
I also have a daily schedule that we follow. We start our day outside (because we live in Texas and it’s over 80 degrees already when we wake up), doing some gardening followed by playing in the yard or riding bikes or going to the sprayground. Then we move indoors once we’re too hot to play anymore and have a snack & spend some time reading before lunch. My husband comes home at noon most days, so we have a bit of time to catch up on our days activities while having lunch. After lunch we start working on our “homework” type stuff. We have instruments to practice, theory workbooks, and a summer bridge activities workbook the school district sends home every year. We’ll work our special projects (or in June we have swimming lessons) around in there sometime after all that is done. Then we do some indoor chores, mainly cleaning up from the aforementioned special projects, and then the kids will have some time to themselves for a bit of screen time or personal reading or playing with the puppy. Whatever they want until their daddy gets home and it’s time for dinner and showers and bed.
An example of a Special Project – this took all summer long during “Special Project” time on our schedule
I know some of you are going: Wait, what about friends visiting?! What about playdates at other people’s houses?! What about enjoying the freedom of summer?! The kids all LOVE this themed day schedule, by the way. They actually asked this year if we could go back to doing it this way. (Ok, to be completely honest, they hate the gardening part. That’s not my idea, but my husband grew up on a farm and he wants the kids to know how to grow things in case of some sort of apocalyptic future occurs they won’t die of starvation.) Just so you know, some of these themed day plans will get thrown out the window. We have missionary friends that are coming back home for the summer break that we’ll want to hang out with, we might get girl cousins who aren’t as into “boy things” now that they are older to come over for a day or two, we have other out-of-town friends that we might go visit for a couple of days. Some days the kids are more interested in another day’s activities or I run out of supplies for something earlier in the week than I expected to. Those days we just change things up. I usually have two or three activities floating around in the back of my brain for days like that. There’ll also be days that we are just plain tired of being with ourselves/people in general that we may give in and have a screen-time-all-day-long break. We’re human, we can make exceptions to our own rules.
One day a friend called and asked us over right that minute to help try out an inflatable water slide they got for a party. Of course we went right over!
So here are my drafts of our daily schedules and theme day plans. Feel free to download them and change them up to fit your needs. I made them in Word, so that should be easy to do. 🙂 Enjoy!
Yesterday was so busy that at one point I found myself crying in the bathroom. Yeah, I felt like a real winner. LOW POINT!
Even before school was insane. One child told me he needed a monkey costume for that night, one kid told me that the shirt I’d ironed & starched for the event he had going on that day was mysteriously in the bottom of his laundry basket, my third child kept wandering around muttering “never mind, never mind.” I still have no idea what he needed.
After dropping everyone off at their various places, I spent my morning battling technology (changing passwords FTW!), organizing kid’s room closets, and preparing for my next-to-last PTA meeting as president. I didn’t get to eat lunch because the food I thought was in the fridge for me wasn’t there and at that point there wasn’t time for anything else or I’d be late (I was getting texts from people 15 minutes before the meeting telling me people were there already.) The meeting went well, although lots of little date changes and still a TON going on before the end of the year.
I left there and ran to Chapel Hill (next town over) High School for the Middle School UIL Concert & Sightreading Contest. I got to follow David’s band through warm-up, the concert, and even into the sightreading room. They did so well. I’m so proud of them! (And I loved meeting some of the other parents chaperoning there as well)
This program had so many bands listed in it and it was all in 10 point font and so hard to read!
This was one of two band halls in the building. This one was the warm-up room. I loved all the instrument cages along the walls. 🙂
On stage during the concert portion of the concert.
From there, I ran to pick up my younger kiddos from a friends house, stopping only long enough to pick up a much belated lunch. We discussed yet more PTA (she’s my VP) before we ran off to change clothes for my youngest’s Mama Goose program. We got there and it turned out he didn’t need a monkey costume specifically, he could have been any nursery rhyme character he wanted. I nearly lost it at that point. We have a huge costume box and could have made many different nursery rhyme characters happen if I’d known about it. (The teacher pointed out that the original note that went home about the event a month or so ago told us what they needed, but I pointed out to her that that note was also the permission slip and I’d sent it back in. I need this stuff to be sent back out a second time closer to the event or put on the school website. It makes me insane.)
Anyway, my kid wore a monkey hat and I just have to be okay with it.
Greg and his friend Sutherland (who didn’t bring a costume either. See, it’s okay!)
During the program: Greg was on the back row anyway.
After that we came back home (finally!) and started on homework, instrument practicing, cleaning for the Days of Unleavened Bread, and eating dinner. WHEW! Fortunately there was wine and The Big Bang Theory for after the kids went to bed.
It’s National Poetry Month…and therefore I must share poetry. Some days I’ll share my own and some days I’ll share famous works and others I’ll share works of lesser fame. Who knows what the day will bring?
Today, because it’s on my mind, a poem about adoption (I’m an adoptee and a friend called tonight to ask about my experience): (click on the image to enbiggen)
Our son was selected to be part of his school’s National Junior Honor Society for next year. (If you don’t know what that is, go here.)
Our son’s name is called
David receives his certificate of induction into the NJHS
I’ll be honest here: I was not an NJHS member in junior high. I got decent grades, but I was not leadership material at that time and I was so shy that I would literally run away if you talked to me and I didn’t want to talk to you. My husband wasn’t part of NJHS either, but his school was small enough that they didn’t offer it.
Anyhow, I could not be prouder of my son. (I’m tearing up again as I type this.) He is such a good, smart, wonderful boy.
My NJHS member and I
The ceremony was beautiful, the gym looked lovely, and they had a wonderful, encouraging speaker, too. Getting cookies at the reception afterward was an adventure, but all three boys managed to get them AND get back to me without spilling a drop of punch. 🙂
When we were planning Spring Break originally, Nick wasn’t taking time off. I’d thought about going to see my parents or staying here…and then at the weekend we had a Teen Regional Weekend for church. Plans changed.
Nick looked at the schedule and realized this was a great time to a) do our family vacation (a mini one this year due to other travel going on later in the year) and b) to go see the Magna Carta (on display in Houston). So we added that to the schedule.
Meanwhile I realized that my much postponed visit to see my bff needed to happen during that week, too.
So our break became one long car ride with interruptions here and there.
We started off our break with a Holcomb Family Dinner at Nick’s parents house.
Cousins all watching a movie
Adults all talking about “boring stuff” (according to the kids)
Saturday, this happened:
There’s free time! We should Bedazzle something! What do we Bedazzle? Our Phineas & Ferb shirt!
Saturday morning Pokemon obsessing
Floppy David is floppy
Then on Sunday we started the first leg of our journey… to College Station, where I spent a lot of time sitting around while the kids went exciting places, like the ice skating rink.
Ben & Greg start off pretty close to the wall.
David is a speeding blur!
Now Ben’s got it going on.
I did break free and run off with Steph for a while to do some catching up and shopping. My favorite thing we saw:
I am absolutely certain that we do.
While I was gone:
Time for Poker!
Then on Tuesday we drove down to Houston to tour the Houston Museum of Natural Science and to see the 1217 copy of the Magna Carta.
At the Magna Carta exhibit, there were many good things for the kids to do hands on.
The chained books made the kids excited: “It’s just like your Library screensaver!”
The Writ of the Magna Carta (the instructions that travel with it)
The 1217 Magna Carta
The parts of this chair that look like wood are actually carved and polished stone.
TRILOBYTES are EVERYWHERE!!
Alligator?
Mineral that formed in the shape of a dragon
We had lunch nearby at a place that only did sliders and sides.
Our skyline view
These chili fries taste weird. Yeah, that’s cause they taste like curry!
Sliders, sliders, and more sliders
On Wednesday, we drove back to Tyler, dropped Nick off, then the kids and I drove to Quitman to visit the cousins at the park near their new house.
Teeter-tottering with the cousins
Wandering down the nature trail
Sitting on the cute front porch of the historical building.
That’s a really tall slide!
On Thursday, we did a bunch of laundry, repacked, and headed up to Colleyville to see Kay. Unfortunately, she was unexpectedly still in Houston. We spent several hours trying to amuse ourselves on our own before she made it back.
On Kay’s trampoline
In Kay’s backyard
Then the girls had to go to gymnastics class (and yes, at this point we were wondering why we were even invited up, and by the end of the visit there was unpleasantness), so we took the kids to the park.
Climbing at the park
My spider boy
David in a teacup?
The sleeping arrangements were weird because the bed we were supposed to sleep in was broken.
The next morning we had a muffin cook-off.
Iron Chef: Muffin Battle
Our plan for the rest of the day involved the ginormous amount of books to go through and then take to sell at Half Price Books.
These are the books I took home. There were about 20 other bags & boxes that I didn’t take home, but did dig through.
After Half Price, we went to Cost-co to celebrate Pi day the cheap way.
Happy Pi day!
Then we went back to the house for movies and a frantic search for my debit card.
Sometimes it’s easier to take photos of kids when they are facing the other way.
In the evening before bed we had one final bit of happy Pi-ness:
Happy Pi Day!
Saturday we got up and drove over to McKinney for the Dallas UCG Regional Teen Weekend.
Church a la research center
We had church and a Bible study earlier in the day, then in the evening there were separate dinners for the pre-teens/families and for the teens. After dinner, the teens had a dance and the pre-teens/families were left on their own for entertainment.
This is so obviously my kid. We sat across from each other and read. People thought it was weird. 😉
Savage Raccoon Greg
Sweet Owl Greg
Rainbow Loom bracelet making station.
Our dinner companions
Touring the Heard Museum – they were sweet and let us tour as long as we had enough adults to take all the kids through. Nick and I took some extra kids whose parents were chaperoning the dance.
Our hotel for the night. The younger kids and I went back early for sleep while Nick stayed behind and waited for David’s dance to be done. Ben thought our hotel room was beautiful.
The next morning we got up and had breakfast back at the Heard Museum before going for a little hike on the nature trails.
The Heard Museum’s Research Center
Part of the Bluestem Walking Trail
Part of the Bluestem Walking Trail
After the trail (which the kids didn’t go on because it was FREEZING!), we headed out to Garland to the Skatium.
Roller skating fun
David is a blur on roller skates, too
After the skating, we had one last meal together before we left for home.
Lisa Holcomb 