I took this test to see which Disney Princess I was most like. Yeah, I’m Mulan. Rob thinks I pretend I’m the man already and I will totally break the rules if they need to be. I am no princess.

Strong and spirited. You’re no one’s girly girl; actually you are very determined person with a strong sense of self. Never let go of that! The only thing that equals your sense of self is your family, but the traditions of society can always be bent to protect something or someone you love.

So how’s your summer going? Why is mine so slow? Maybe I’m not busy enough. Or maybe it’s because my kids are home all the time! So how can I keep them busy without indulging them in expensive getaways and camps? This is what we’ve done so far…

*I put the sprinkler under the trampoline. It sprays up like a water fountain and they jump with their swimsuits on. We are on water restrictions so I had to turn it off after 20 min.

*We had a pudding party. We bought different flavor puddings and made up some games. I let them each invite one friend. I didn’t have my camera for that…Rob took it to Boy Scout Camp for a week.
Games we played:
Worm Walk (it’s like a cake walk, but with gummy worms that I put on a makeshift fishing pole and fed them the worm when their number was called). They played that until the whole bag of gummy worms was gone.
Pin the Pudding in the Bowl (variation of pin the tail on the donkey except I cut out blobs of pudding–banana, lemon, pistachio, chocolate, butterscotch, vanilla–and while blindfolded stick it in the bowl).
Save the bugs. I sunk graham cracker bugs into pudding and they had to pull them out with chopsticks. When they did that I gave them a spoon to eat it.
We also had pudding parfaits and watched The Bee Movie.

*We shopped at Value Village. We found books and treasures…cheap!

*Sleep outs in the backyard on the trampoline. I did that as a kid and have fond memories. My kids woke up at 5:00 am when the birds started chirping, so we won’t be doing that again soon.

As the summer progresses, I’m sure I’ll come up with more stuff for my kids to do…it’s only been three weeks. Three very long weeks.

I painted these for my mom for Mother’s day. She was out of town the week before, so my dad and I hung them up before she got home. They don’t look very big in the picture, but they are 48 inch canvases that fill up her wall nicely. Happy Mother’s Day!

Gordon loves to dress up in costumes. For a while now he has been asking me to make a superhero costume for him…just for fun. He wanted it red with a lightning bolt on it. A red t-shirt, red pj pants and a pair of red underpants and viola!

Up, Up and away!

And here is a night before penguin costume Gordon wanted for the book parade at school. The kids were supposed to dress up as one of their favorite book characters. Gordon is Tacky the penguin.

My friend had the best idea…A girls weekend at the beach. Three of us got together and Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday were ours. We headed to Myrtle Beach (my first time), shopped, ate, played, laid on the beach, body boarded, watched movies, sat in the hot tub, shopped (we did a lot of that), and enjoyed each others company. I can’t say how great it was enough times! We wrote our theme on a table at a restaurant…

And this was as wild as we got…pedicures!

And candy!

And whatever I am wearing from the hundreds of gift shops we visited.

The Muhlesteins came into town…Rob’s parents. It’s the first time they have visited since we moved to North Carolina. They came for Gordon’s baptism and we loved having them . They helped with the baptism and the kids were excited to see them again.

The tradition stayed alive…Rob borrowed a motorcycle to take Gordon to the church for his baptism. They went in their whites and got lots of looks on the way. I drove ahead of them and Rob’s parents flew into town and drove behind them. The grandmothers gave the prayers, the grandfather’s gave the talks, I lead the music, Rob did the baptism and confirmation, Nick & Ben played the prelude music, and Gordon’s piano teacher played the Hymns. It was short and sweet and perfect. Afterwards, we all went to Brooklyn Boys pizza and then to Stumpy Creek park.

Gordon had Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake for his birthday–what great taste.
He got his first Webkinz (actually the first Webkinz in our house), a blanket, $20, Tiberium Wars and Mario Cart. The best present he got was his baptism.

For Ethan’s birthday, our family went to Hickory Dickory Dock. I’ve been steering the kids away from big parties and lots of friends and making it more just our family. Their favorite thing to do at Hickory Dickory Dock is lazer tag. I wish Mooresville had a lazer tag arena besides The Pits (that place is a money pit). We rode the bumper cars and played putt-putt golf. Ethan saw a picture of an ice cream pie in the Schwans catalog, so lucky me, I didn’t have to make a cake either. I did make his favorite dinner–macaroni & cheese.