Summer Lovin....havin a blast.

Ok, Ok...I know I haven't posted anything in quite a while...but really, we've been extreeeemly busy! And what little time I've had since school was over last week, I've been on a mental vacation-meaning, I've done VERY little of anything for the last few days. I've been a bum. I've been a slacker. I've been catching up on sleep, rest, and yes, fighting my summer cold. It's inevitable. The summer cold hits, and makes it's rounds among us. Ryan was the first to catch it, I'm getting over it and Ryan's still got it. Jonathan on the other hand...he had to "one up" us all. He decided to skip the summer cold, and go into a full fledge outbreak of POISON IVY from head to toe. Being the good little motivated husband that he is, he worked in the yard this weekend, clearing out the overgrown areas of the backyard, trying to clean up and beautify everything since we're wanting to sell the house. Well, all that work has consequences. He is home from work today because his poor hands and fingers are totally swollen and he can't move them. A trip to the doc yesterday resulted in a shot, and 2 prescriptions, but he is actually worse now. I feel his pain...being highly allergic to it myself, I got it after doing yard wok about 12 years ago, and it was then that I swore if off and promised NEVER to do it again! Landscaper, I aint! Yard Work, I won't! So much for having a pretty manicured yard around here....the weeds will just have to win, I guess.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Today, I actually got out of the house with the kids. We packed a picnic lunch, and headed to the park. They had a blast playing around for about an hour or so. Here are a couple of shots I took today:

Then after the park, we walked into the library and signed the kids up for the summer reading program. I have really been battling Megan about reading lately. I want to encourage her to be a good reader, but for some reason, she went into a phase where she didn't want to read anymore. That was surprising me, since she's always loved to read. I finally figured out that she was intimidated by chapter books because it took so much longer to read them. She prefers the quick ending books, like Dr. Seuss, or her "Gigi, God's little Princess", etc. So, I decided that I needed to be a better example for her, and I need to read more books too. Lately, we've cut the TV off (gasp!), and had reading time. The Rules: both of the kids have to go get books to read, and Megan's has to be a chapter book. They can either read in the living room with me, or they can go to their bed. I tried letting them read outside, but it was too distracting for them because all they wanted to do was jump on the trampoline, or swing in the tire swing. Even though it was hard for them in the beginning (and yes, hard for me, because I really had to stick to my guns, and push it on them!), I can see improvements. Today at the library, we found a curio cabinet that had about 9 of the American Girl Dolls in them. Megan got so excited to see it and was thrilled to find out that they have the books there too. It will be great to check the books out there rather than purchasing them, but today's challenge was finding a book about the girl she wanted to read about, and finding the first in the series...we finally elected to read about "Julie" and unfortunately the first book wasn't available, but she really wanted the second...so who am I to say "NO" when she's BEGGING TO READ!? Wooo Hoo! VICTORY FOR MOM!
And what is my little angel doing right now?


Watching the dvd she checked out at the library...

Apparently, it was a small victory-and I still have some work to do. haha