Summer has begun

Welcome to Summer - what a great way to start it off with a flip flop wreath for the door.

 This was very easy to make once I found the right glue to use.

6 pairs of flip flops - will make 2 wreaths

Shoe Goo

ribbon

board for the sign

I glued the flip flops together, and thanks to my dad's stash of "stuff" he cut out the rectangle for the Welcome sign and I sprayed (spray paint is my latest friend) it pink.  I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the letters and then Modge Podge the letters to the board

Brody has been so excited to start his summer break.  I have to admit I have been pretty excited as well as I search Pinterest and see all of these great summer activities to do with your kids.  So for the past few weeks Brody and I have been compiling our 2012 Summer Fun list and he is so happy to get started on completing the items.

I am very excited and looking forward to being able to be at home with the boys this summer.  I'm sure it will be a challenge at times which is why we have a long list of things to do to help us keep busy.

Preschool graduation aka Presentation

Thursday night was Brody's preschool presentation from SCA.  They don't have an actual graduation but all of the Pre-K classes put on a presentation of "The Way to Get Heaven" based on the Romans Road.  Boy am I going to miss this type of teaching in school come next year.

Each child in Brody's class was a letter of the alphabet and was to dress accordingly and Brody was A for alligator.  Mrs. Cicero who is a huge FSU fan actually suggested that Brody could wear FL Gator clothes.  I found a FL Gator shirt (not too hard) as well as an actual Gator hat.  Brody loved them both and was very excited about the presentation.  He had his part down as did Trevor.

Getting ready to say his part

Stepped forward saying "A A Alligator"

Nana came out to watch Brody in his presentation and help entertain Trevor.

 He finally saw us in the balcony and was all smiles.

My little Alligator

My crazy child Trevor

After the presentation we came back to the house and watched his video (yeah, the one that made me cry earlier in the day) and had at Brody's request brownies, ice cream, whip cream and chocolate sauce.

It was such a good day and later that evening I told Brody his surprise of where we would be going the next day - Hollywood Studios for Star Wars Weekend.

To Kindergarten and beyond

Last Thursday was Brody's last day of Pre-K and his last day at Sonshine Christian Academy.  It was a bittersweet day.

First and last day of Pre-K

My goofy child with the latest funny face.

I dropped him off at school and headed to get the nuggets for his party.  When I came back for his party, the kids were so excited for their parents to be there.  You could feel summer in the air.  I really felt I was okay with the whole thing of graduating from Pre-K until Mrs. Cicero played a video of pictures from the past year.  As I listened to the song in the video, tears were streaming down my face.  It was such a sweet video and my little boy isn't so little anymore so I don't need to take the time we have together for granted.

Brody receiving his graduation certificate from Mrs. Cicero

Mrs. Cicero's aide, Mrs. Hodges

This was the cutest cake.  Of course the theme of the party was To K-5 and beyond - a Buzz Lightyear theme.  All of the kids' names were on the cake.

Brody and his good buddy Dominic.

This is one of the twins in Brody's class.  Brody was so cute wanting to get pictures with different people - for some reason especially the girls.  He really never wants to have his picture taken but is always eager at his school parties.

I love this picture.  This is a little girl who Jason and I went to school with her daddy.

He has had such a successful and fun year in Pre-K.  He has learned so much and I am so thankful for Mrs. Cicero and her love for the kids and her love for Jesus that she shows the kids each day.  This is definitely one thing I will miss next year as Brody goes to public school - Jesus being taught in the classroom.  I pray Jason and I will be able to continue being able to teach and show Jesus' love to our boys as they attend public schools.

A long road ahead

For Brody's teacher's end of the year gifts, I decided to go with something like this

I wanted to personalize it a little so Brody wrote notes for each of his teachers.  He told me exactly what he wanted to say, and I wrote it out so he would know how to spell everything.  He was pretty excited to start writing the letters and he took SO MUCH time writing them out.

However, there were times when he got tired and sped up and I would say "are you doing your best".  Other times it was like pulling teeth to get him to finish.  I pray this isn't how it's going to be with homework in the future.

The finished product with a beautiful picture on the back (that I forgot to take a picture of)

Summer cupcakes

Everyday at Brody's school they would have a little snack.  One day Brody asked me to make some cupcakes to take to his class.  Well, I had seen these cute little things and I thought what a perfect time to make them with summer approaching and it was water day on Tuesday last week.  

Water day = no bathing suits but wear clothes you could get wet.  The school was having a walk a thon to raise money for covers for their playground equipment.  Brody was pretty excited about water day.  He said Mrs. Cicero put soap on them and they walked through a human car wash.  Brody thought it was great fun.

They were very easy to make and not too time consuming.  Supplies used:

White cake mix and add blue food coloring to look like water

White frosting - tint half blue

smashed graham crackers for the sand

gumballs

Sticks of gum

party umbrellas

I did learn a lesson though, don't put the cupcakes in the cupcake holder the night before or the gum chairs will all be flat from the humidity.  Even with the chairs not perfect, the cupcakes were a hit and only a couple people swallowed the gum.

A Saturday with Trevor

A couple of Saturday's ago, Jason and I split kid duty.  He took Brody to play in our church golf tournament.  You should have seen Brody's face when Jason asked him if he wanted to play his tball game or go play golf with daddy?  That was a no brainer for Brody.  He was so excited the entire week.  Jason's team was our youth pastor, Bro. Todd, his son Austin and his son in law Ryan.  Brody knows all of them so he had a great time.  Of course there are no pictures because dad's don't always remember those kind of things.

So Trevor took off with me to run a few errands.  He has always been so great to run errands with.  Our first stop was my old university - Jacksonville University.

The entrance to the school

I was hoping the bookstore was open because I needed a gift for a future Dolphin.  I have not been back to the school in probably 12 years so there have been some changes, but it's still the beautiful campus that I remember.  I was fortunate to live on campus even though the school is only about 30 minutes from my house and it was 4 of the best years of my life.  My roommate was my Matron of honor and we still stay in contact and I met some great friends while at JU.

Well, the bookstore was closed but Trevor was still able to explore a little while we walked on campus.

 Here's he building where I felt that I lived most of my 4 years - the Davis Business building.  It has now been changed to a student center and they have a brand new business building on the other side of campus.

I really wanted to explore more, but I knew I would be short on time for the day because we had a graduation party to get to that evening.  Trevor was excellent the entire day as we stopped about 6 different places.  He didn't even take a nap until we were on our way to the party, so it was about a 15 minute nap.  I love days like this.

A new way to enjoy the trampoline

Brody does not like to get his clothes wet to the point that he will scream and get pretty mad.  Last week he and Trevor were jumping on the trampoline while I was watering my new flowers on the back patio and I just "happened" to spray the water hose to the trampoline.  Well, they both thought it was hilarious and wanted me to keep spraying.

They jumped and jumped and were soaking wet like they had jumped in the pool.  Brody kept telling me that this was the best day ever.  It made me realize that it's the smallest things that make them happy.

Home grown is the best

Almost everyday Brody, Trevor and I go out and visit our garden.  It is so exciting when we go out there and see new vegetables.  The boys want to both pick the vegetables so it's gets quite interesting to make that decision.

All of our vegetables are growing pretty good except for the zucchini.  We have picked and enjoyed beans, squash and cucumbers.  The cucumbers are the boys favorite.  We have a fresh cucumber almost everyday for lunch - even Trevor loves them. 

My first time cooking fresh beans.  They weren't too bad.

And I have plenty more to practice with.

Since our garden has produced A LOT and we can't eat them that fast OR care to eat beans every night of the week, I brought out my FoodSaver and learned how to blanch vegetables to freeze them.  Well, I quickly realized my FoodSaver no longer worked so I was very thankful that mom and dad's worked.

The ice bath after the beans boiled for 3 minutes

 After 3 minutes in the ice bath and ready to be bagged and frozen.

We now have several bags of beans and squash in the freezer so we can enjoy our garden even longer.