Books and Movies from June

I am still working on my goal of 50 books for the year but I haven't reached it yet! I am getting some reading done at swim meets this summer, though. Here are the books that I finished in June:

• Death Takes the Cake by Melinda Wells ***
• The Organized Homeschooler by Vicki Caruana *
• Unleash the Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon ****
• Candy Apple Dead by Sammi Carter **

I took my children to see two movies this month - one of which we loved (Up) and one which we really didn't like (Imagine That). The rest I watched while on the treadmill, folding laundry, or working on other mindless projects.

• Up *****
• Next ***
• True Blood Season 1 ****
• Imagine That *
• Quantum of Silence *
• Father of the Bride 2 **
• The Illusionist ***
• Bedtime Stories ***
• Armageddon ***
• Pirates of the Caribbean I ****

Our Week in Review

Saturday, June 20 - Friday, June 26

Wow - I can't believe how fast the summer is flying by for us! We have been super-busy as usual - I'm not sure where that phrase, "long, lazy summer" comes from - obviously whoever said that didn't have two children involved in swim team!

Last week-end was incredible! Amber had a swim meet Friday - Sunday at Cleveland State. Friday and Saturday were both a prelim-finals format which means if a swimmer places in the top 9, they come back in the evening and swim that event again in finals. Amber had her best meet EVER! She made two more zone cuts for the Central Zone Championships which gives her a total of 5 zone cuts! She made her first two AAAA times, broke two more team records, and made it back to finals for ALL of her events! Congratulations, Amber - I can see the gills starting to peek through!

Amber has practice every night M-F and she also swims out at a long course pool on T, H. I do enjoy the long drive out to the long course pool, though, We have 2 hours of solid Harry Potter audio time between the drive out there and the drive home. We are towards the end of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and will finish it (again) before the new movie comes out.

Mason swims M,W,F evenings. He had his first swim meet on Tuesday. He did great! He received three first place ribbons and one second place ribbon. Congratulations, Mason!

Other than those swimming highlights, Mason moved up to brown belt this past week in karate. Congratulations, Mason! Duncan already moved up to red belt, white stripe a few weeks ago. Belated congratulations to Duncan as well!

I have been slugging away at some organizational projects around the house, though the only one that was completed this week was the medicine cabinet. I have been continuing to plan our Ancient Greece unit study for the fall and am more than half-way done with the planning.

And, that's our week in review!

Itch To Pitch Challenge - The Medicine Cabinet

While I am still plugging away slowly on some larger organizational projects, I wanted to tackle a smaller project so I could have some instant gratification. So, I tackled my medicine cabinet. While there was no INSTANT gratification - it did take about two hours to finish the project, I feel really good about finishing it. The medicine cabinet used to be really organized but the underlying organizational system was no longer working. Why? Well, my children have grown and organizing by adult medicines/child medicines was no longer effective. So, gradually, the medicine cabinet had fallen into disarray.

To organize the medicine cabinet, I completed the following steps:

• I removed everything from the cabinet and wiped down the shelves.
• I checked the dates on every single medicine and threw out all of the ones that were out of date.
• I grouped the medicines into categories and found plastic containers that would work to keep them together.
• I organized all of the band-aids into baggies based on their size - regular, tiny, extra-large, and knuckle & fingertip.

I am so happy with the results of my efforts! Everything in the medicine cabinet fit into the following categories: First Aid, Band-Aids, Skin Medications, Colds & Flu Medicines, Ear Medicines, General Pain Relievers (Tums, Midol, Tylenol, etc.). Now I can quickly find whatever medicine I need!

If you would like to see how other bloggers are working on organizational challenges, check out the Itch to Pitch Challenge over at The Happy Housewife:

http://thehappyhousewife.com/itch-to-pitch-week-two/

Our Week in Review

This past week was quite busy as usual. We had many commitments outside of our home, birthdays to celebrate, and family visiting from out of town. I have so many projects that I want to get done this summer but I am making progress towards my organizational and school-planning goals.

Saturday, June 13 - Last Saturday, I turned 40 and nobody let me forget it! Duncan had a swim lesson in the morning - he is in a Red Cross Level 4 class. After his lesson, I dropped him off at home so that he could shower quickly before the party and Nana and I picked up his SpongeBob cake at Dairy Queen. We had a delightful time at Duncan's bowling party all afternoon and were surprised when Pap decided to join us. Amber had a friend spend the night and I was able to enjoy a nice visit with her friend's mother when she dropped off her daughter. Amber's friend has 5 younger siblings so it was fun to have some littles visiting our house!

Sunday, June 14 - Sunday was spent here at home for me. My husband took our children and Amber's friend to a nearby outdoor water park for the day. I was alone! I spent much of the day getting a large donation ready for Goodwill. After that, I worked on the weekly payroll for our family business and finished it for the week.

Monday, June 15 - I spent much of the day at our family business taking the grocery order. Nana had the boys for the day and Amber stayed home to sleep-in and work on her novel. (She was so excited to get started on her new creative writing course that she just couldn't wait for the fall. Of course, I'm thrilled by her motivation - let the learning begin!) The evening was filled with swim team practice for both Amber and Mason.

Tuesday, June 16 - Tuesday morning was Amber's first practice out at the long-course pool. I am taking her out to practice there twice a week through the summer. Nana is taking the boys to karate on Tuesdays and Thursdays so that is a huge help. I am very glad that she has the opportunity to practice at a long-course pool but it is a long drive from our house. Happily, it gives us lots of time to listen to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We have been working our way back through the Harry Potter books - Jim Dale, the narrator, is wonderful!

When I got home, I had to run Mason to the orthodontist. His retainer was no longer staying in his mouth so he needed to get it tightened. Sadly, the retainer was cracked in the back and he needed to get fitted for a new retainer. We will pick it up next week when it is ready.

Since we had to leave at 5:45 am for practice and I didn't sleep well the night before, I was exhausted when I got home. I took an afternoon nap! I haven't done that for quite a long while. Later that day, after dropping Amber off for evening swim team, I went to Steak and Shake to meet family for dinner. My husband's brother and his family from Colorado flew in for the week.

Wednesday, June 17 - We spent the day visiting with family here. The boys and their cousins played dart tag most of the day in the basement and the adults and Amber just chatted. The evening brought swim team for Amber and Mason.

Thursday, June 18 - After morning swim team practice for Amber, I spent the rest of the day getting caught up on laundry. I can happily report that there is no mountain of laundry waiting to be folded. I am also happy to report that, given the trapped time for me at the long-course pool on T/H mornings, I am making great headway towards planning our first history unit of the school year on Ancient Greece.

Friday, June 19 - Today I will be spending the day at Amber's swim meet. The meet is a prelim/finals format so I will be spending the entire day at her meet. I don't mind, though, she is so beautiful in the water - it is a treat to watch her swim. I'll be bringing a bag of reading, though - there's a lot of time in between her events!

That's our week in review!

Bowling Birthday Party for D!

My youngest just turned 8! He is still the cutest little boy in the world, though! He loves to go bowling so I thought a bowling party would be a particular treat for him. Last Saturday, our whole family and my parents (Nana and Pap) went bowling for D's birthday. Pap doesn't always attend birthday parties so it was wonderful to have him join us for the day. We had a great day!

Saturday was actually MY birthday (D's is the day before mine - our birthdays are back to back) so the kids put "40" below my name on the computerized bowling scorecard. I think just my name would have been fine, though. After the continued reminders from my kids on Saturday, I don't think I'll forget that I'm now 40 years old!

I took lots of pictures of the bowling fun and I'm sharing a few of them below.

The birthday boy looked so adorable jumping up and down and screaming with joy when he got a strike! D told me that he thought this birthday was the best one he had ever had.

Pap broke his hand earlier this summer so he wasn't able to bowl. It's a probably a good thing, though - I'm sure he would have won!Nana was still able to bowl, though. It was so great to see her having a good time!As part of the party, the birthday boy received a bowling pin that all of the party attendees signed. D was so happy to get his bowling pin! His big sister is signing his bowling pin for him in this picture.M and D LOVE to play the crane game. I rather wish that they would not play but they love to play. Very surprisingly, they often win! Cake! Cake! Cake! We had a SpongeBob vanilla ice cream cake from Dairy Queen to be exact. Yummers!

Happy birthday to my sweeting!!!!!

Clay Figure of the Week

As I've mentioned before, my middle son is very artsy. He is always making really neat creations out of Sculpey III, but sometimes his creations just amaze me. Recently, he made an amazing monster based on a character from a Mega-Man video game. When he showed me, I was truly impressed!

Impressive!

Organizing in the Boys' Room

I was so excited to see that one of my favorite bloggers, The Happy Housewife, is sponsoring the weekly "Itch to Pitch" challenge. I am working on multiple organizational projects around our house this summer so having somewhere to show my hard work is quite encouraging!

I have two boys (10 and 8) who share a room. They are both collectors AND creators. They love to create little characters out of Sculpey III so they have hundreds of clay creations that they have made over the past few years. They also collect lots of little toys like Legos, little balls, little action figures, and trading cards. Every time I went into their room, I felt overwhelmed and really could do little more than help them "straighten up." There was no underlying organizational structure for their collections and creations.

I took some pictures in their room before our organizational project. Every available surface in their room was just covered with stuff. Not only was this incredibly discouraging for me, the boys didn't really like it either. They had trouble finding their collections and creations amid all of the clutter. Because of all of the clutter, the boys had very little space just to play in their room.

This was a big project and it took the boys and me over a week working on it for a few hours each day. We also went through all of their clothes which added to the time of the overall project. My boys really were a great help. I think they were afraid I would just pitch all of their treasures if they didn't help!


We went through every single bin, basket, and individual toy in their room. EVERY SINGLE ONE! We tossed some junk, gave away boxes of toys and stuffed animals, and organized the rest. I purchased two large standing plastic sets of drawers and two small plastic sets of drawers. The drawers were exactly what was needed!


The boys went through all of the clay creations that they had made and put them into categories. Each category went into a separate drawer. I do need to purchase another one of these plastic units, though, as some of the drawers are already quite full.

The other large set of plastic drawers was perfect for collections of small toys like action figures and Crazy Bones.


The small sets of drawers were absolutely perfect for all of the small toys they like to collect like mini figures, dice, small rocks, and creations they make out of Perler Beads.



Remaining collections were put in plastic shoeboxes. So, they now have a shoebox just for "Little Balls" and "Pokemon Trading Cards," for example.

The bookcase in their room was super messy so we went through all of the books and listed a bunch on PaperbackSwap. The rest were organized by category. The boys wanted to keep all of their Lego magazines and a few other magazines so I put them in magazine holders. After organizing and culling the books, there was more room for toy storage on the bookcase. The stuffed animals that remained were placed in large containers that store easily under their beds. The Legos are also in two big bins but we do plan to organize them by color into smaller containers this summer.These shelves were really quite messy and FILLED with finished Lego creations. The boys decided to take many of their finished creations apart so they can make new things! Now there is plenty of room on the shelves for new Lego creations that are made in the future that the boys want to save.


Best of all, the boys now have a large area in which to play, they know where all of their little toys can be found, and they really like their new, organized room!

So, one big organizational project down - many more to go! If you would like to see other organizational projects by other bloggers, visit http://thehappyhousewife.com/itch-to-pitch-challenge-week-one/.

Top 10 Things I Love About Summer

While summer is not my favorite season (I'm an autumn girl), there are many things about summer that I absolutely love. Here is a list of 10 things, in no particular order, that I love about summer.

1. The fact that I can take my children out to lunch on a week-day and not have to answer questions about why my children are not in school. While I have only ever received positive responses to my children's announcement that, "We're homeschooled," I would still just prefer to have lunch without discussing the educational choices we have made for our family.

2. Fresh corn on the cob - yummy!

3. Sweet cherries - double yummy!

4. Watermelon - triple yummy!

5. I love having time to work on organizational projects around the house. I never have time to tackle big organizational projects during the busy school year.

6. My mom and dad are back from Naples, Florida during the summer. They are snowbirds and fly back North when the weather is warmer. I miss my folks when they are away.

7. I love getting to go away alone with my husband for a few days each summer.

8. Planning for the next school year.

9. Eating outside on our back patio.

10. The sounds of the birds first thing in the morning and the crickets last thing at night through our bedroom window.

The Blissful Blessing of an Organized Daughter

We are officially on summer break now!!! Even though my children all have some schoolwork to finish up and they all have to continue reading throughout the summer - I'm on break! Summer break for me means getting to work on all of those bigger projects that I never have time to work on during the school year. Hmmm, maybe I need to work on my understanding of the word "break."

Regardless, one of the tasks on my never-ending list was to clean and organize my daughter's bookcase. Overall, her room is quite neat and lovely most of the time. She makes her bed neatly every day and doesn't let clutter accumulate. She regularly updates the outfits on her American Girl dolls and puts them on display. As well, she sometimes even makes delightful handmade posters for her room. Sadly, though, the one area of her room that had really fallen into a disorganized mess was her bookcase. I planned on working through the task with her sometime this summer.

The other day, my daughter had been in her room for quite a while so I checked in on her and was greeted with this wonderful sight!

My daughter, with no encouragement from me, had decided, on her own, to tackle her messy bookcase. She even went out to the garage and retrieved three boxes which she marked "Give Away," "Keep," "Don't Know." I was so impressed with her efforts! Her messy bookcase was transformed into a neat collection of her books, magazines, special swimming awards, American Girl dolls and treasured keepsakes.

While I was still glowing in my obviously superior mothering skills, my two younger sons came in from playing outside. I showed them A's progress and raved about the wonderful organizational efforts she was making. My middle son, who revels in artistic disarray, merely looked at me and laughed. Then, they hurried back outside to play again, lest I grab them and force them into some Medieval torture like cleaning or organizing. I quickly stopped glowing then and there.

Wild Turkey in Our Backyard

We are very blessed with woods surrounding our property. I love the privacy, lack of close neighbors, and the opportunity to see wildlife in our backyard. The morning we were getting ready to leave for Mammoth Cave, we had the unexpected treat of seeing a wild turkey in our backyard. I had seen one run across the backyard a few years ago but I had not seen one since that time. My husband and my children were all home so we all enjoyed seeing this beautiful bird.

Weekly Menu Plan

Now that my life is settling down for a while with no trips planned until August, I took the time to plan meals for about the next two weeks. Most of the recipes are tried and true family favorites but a few are new ones for me.

6-2, Tuesday - Anne's Chicken Burritos, refried beans and cheese, soft tortillas, salad, olives, tortilla chips

6-3, Wednesday - Spaghetti with homemade meat sauce, steamed broccoli, garlic breadsticks

6-4, Thursday - Broccoli cheese casserole, salad, roasted chicken

6-5, Friday lunch - Homemade chicken noodle soup

6-5, Friday dinner - Pork roast, cheesy potatoes, green beans with bacon

6-6, Saturday - Moe's after church

6-7, Sunday - Turkey burgers on the grill, hot dogs on the grill, baked potatoes, baked beans, grilled veggies on skewers

6-8, Monday - Seasoned Swiss Steak, mashed potatoes, salad

6-9, Tuesday - Shake and Bake Pork Chops, macaroni and cheese, green beans

6-10, Wednesday - Homestyle Chicken and Noodles

6-11, Thursday - Taco Pinwheel, salad

6-12, Friday - Pizza and Jo-Jos from Blasiole's Pizza! Happy Birthday D!!!!!

6-13, Saturday - Moe's after church

6-14, Sunday - Turkey burgers on the grill, hot dogs on the grill, baked potatoes, baked beans, grilled veggies

Books and Movies from May

May was an unusual month for me. In some ways, it was extremely busy, and in other ways, I had more time than I usually do for books and movies. I took three trips this month: an overnight visit to Kalahari Waterpark Resort with my husband and the kidlets, a week-end trip to Hocking Hills with my husband, and a two night trip to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky with my husband and the kidlets. Getting ready to go on vacation, and finishing up our school year made for a busy month. But, once I was away, I had more time than usual for reading and watching movies.

I am continuing on with my local library's 50 Book Challenge and I have read over 30 books so far! I am very pleased with my progress as I am more than half-way to my goal at the mid-point in the challenge. Here is a list of the books that I read in May:

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling (audiobook) *****
• Kitchen Organization Tips and Secrets by Deniece Schofield ****
• Sins of the Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon ****
• Mother's Day Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery) by Leslie Meier ***
• Taming the Scotsman by Kinley MacGregor ***
• From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris ****
• Killer Mousse by Melinda Wells ****
• Managers of Their Homes by Steven and Teri Maxwell ****

I also watched many movies in May. Many were watched on the treadmill but some were watched at the cabins, while folding laundry, and while cutting out components of next year's lapbooks! Here is a list of the movies that I watched in May with my personal ratings:

• Rome Season 1 *****
• Minority Report ****
• Ever After ****
• Live Free or Die Hard ***
• Deception (2008 with Hugh Jackson) **
• Meet the Fockers ***
• There's Something About Mary ****
• No Reservations ***
• Rome Season 2 *****
• Little Women ****
• The Day the Earth Stood Still **
• The Bourne Identity ****
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ***
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings ***