Our First Official Make It Monday of Summer 2013!

This summer I am sticking on my taxi driver sign and driving the big guys back and forth to a few day camps, thanks to Grandma Farmor surprising the kids. The two oldest boys are in basketball camp this week before they head off to scout camp next week. Then they are home for a week before they start up football camp. Then in August, the younger fellas will be going off to soccer camp. They are all pretty excited since we have never done any organized sports camps before. I am excited too...I just need to adjust my schedule and get used to playing cab driver! ;)

With the big guys off to camp, and G playing with a friend (did I mention we were still working out the kinks in this whole schedule thing?) I wanted to have our first Make It Monday involve something for my Mom. If she is anything like me, getting mail is a happy thing! So, we made hand print cards to send her in the mail. Although, they did take a tad longer than I anticipated, so they will be going out in the mail tomorrow. So, Mom, if you are reading this...and its not sometime after June 6th, you should stop reading now or your surprise will be considerably less surprising.

I didn't realize when my mother-in-law signed the boys up for Basketball camp, it included uniforms, but I returned to pick up E and JD and found them looking pretty spiffy...if I do say so, my darn self!

  

Meanwhile, back at the house...here is what we came up with for my sweet Mom! I love hand print art, and I just can't get enough of these little guys. Here are the cards we made for our 1st Make It Monday of the Summer of 2013!!! Drum-roll pleeease..... just kidding, they were really just simple little love notes for Gramma Jean. 

Von Bon cut out the hearts and wrote so good!

Cute glitter stickers made this card darling and simple!

2 hands + folded paper= an adorable little card!

Well, that is it for today. Look at me posting 2 updates in one day! Who knows how the rest of the summer will play out, hopefully I will keep up with the guys and we will have another Pinteresting Summer! 

That first week doesn't really count does it?

I am not quite on top of my game for all this summer stuff. I felt much more prepared last summer! I have all my ideas, and lists...it's just a matter of carrying it all out! The first week of summer has already passed us by; but since it was a holiday weekend, I am going to pretend it just didn't count as "actual summer days". Whose with me?

Memorial Day has always felt like a holiday to me, until my Dad passed away in April. This year was particularly unique since Monday was also my sweet Hubby's birthday. It was a quiet and low-key day, spent with just our little family. I wasn't quite ready to head back up to dad's grave yet, so we spent the day chatting about Grampa Jay and then celebrating our Daddy.

Our family tradition is to have the Birthday Boy pick their favorite meal which I make, and then decorate a cake for them. Our Daddy loves marinated BBQ chicken and summer sausage salad with lots of fresh veggies chopped up in it. That was all pretty easy. But if you know me, you know that cakes are kind of a big deal to me...so, when you see the picture of the hideous blob he requested, you'll understand my hesitation to even show it! ;) While it tasted divine, it is as ugly as dirt...in fact, it rather resembles dirt. See for yourself:

Looks like the perfect little mound of dirt, doesn't it? I guess it was nice to have an easy request, but like I said...cakes are kind of my "thing". This is a yellow cake with raspberry jam slathered between the two layers and topped with chocolate pudding, whip cream frosting with a bit more jam; refrigerated until nice and cold. So very yummy, and did I mention ugly? :)

Moving on.

This past weekend I did attempt to kick off our summer with some organized fun. While the 2 oldest fellas were away with the Young Men on a retreat up the canyon, I had some fun with the younger members of our crew.

First we set a new record for play time at a park and managed to enjoy over 3 hours at a local playground with some cute friends. Then, since Daddy was working late...we picked a movie on netflix and set to work making some yummy treats. The original plan was to make s'mores pops. (Marshmallows on a stick, dipped in melted chocolate and sprinkled with crushed graham crackers.) However, as we got going, I found some red candy melts and some fun sprinkles so we ended up with a variety of mallows. My favorite remains the s'mores kind though.

Here is a look at some of our combinations:

All set up and ready to dip!

Red candy melt with green sugar crystals

Dipping his s'mores pop

The finished product...no fire necessary!

This takes great concentration...obviously!

All hardened up in the fridge and ready to enjoy!

We enjoyed our mallows while we ALL sat on the lovesac together and watched Your, Mine, and Ours; the newer on with Dennis Quaid. :) It was a fun night and got me in the mood to be ready for the rest of our summer fun!

It's June Already? Welcome back summer...you have been missed!

Here we are again, facing the 100+ days of summer vacation with the age-old question "What are we going to do today?" Well, around our house, summer will look a lot like last time; just with new projects and recipes. I love the Make it Monday, Time to Read Tuesday, What's Cookin' Wednesday, Be Thoughtful Thursday, and Field trip Friday schedule from last summer. 

So, I think we will stick to that same outline. So far the weather has been very mild and pleasant so there has been a lot of playing outside; I know that will change in the not-so-distant future though, and we'll need a good plan to survive each other and the heat. 

This summer some of the boys will be attending some day camps thanks to their Grandma, so that will be an extra treat. With the same schedule in place, all I had to do was scour over pinterest for things to do that fall into our daily category. I think we are all set! Bring on the Summer!