Bailey Family

Week 5 - finishing... July 4th, Wednesday -  The tie dye went just fine - no pictures still :( & Fireworks -    should have skipped it - even patient Will & Hannah had just about had it with a few of my teenagers  (I mean, children) by the end of the night! Thursday - well, we do have to clean up sometimes. Friday - movie afternoon w/ Mom   (skip quiet time) - Percy Jackson, Lightning Thief (Seth had recently finished the book and wanted to see the movie version)   1st Weekend - I have no weekend activities this month, but the kids each take a turn going to visit Rob's parents for 1-on-1 time with them. Seth got his weekend alone with Grandpa and Memere first - they went to Legoland Discovery and by the LDS bookstore in Atlanta. no sisters - how nice! Week 6: Mommy got a 2nd wind... Monday night - Sleepovers-  for a total of 8 children in the house. Tuesday - Library - a magic show - how fun! ...

The first two weeks' activities couldn't have been more perfect. The third week's activities couldn't have been more aggravating. Fortunately, it went up from there. Week 3 Most of the outside game day (which was only about an hour) was spent fighting...oh, well, everything can't be perfect. But the pictures can make it look like it was! (I included one Alee being a pain picture in case you can't imagine my children being aggravating.)  We're still library-going. I nearly cancelled the zoo day for their aggravating-ness and fighting! (Check out Carolyn's face for a glimpse into the attitudes I was working with.) No pictures of experiments...I'd had it by then and was fighting with them.  I was concerned about taking them to a drive in movie, knowing it wouldn't start til probably 9 or 9:30, the double feature ending after 1 AM, then the drive home....but much to my surprise it was a lot of fun, the kids slept throu...

 First, David graduated High School- so we went to that...  And we had to make a quick trip to the beach while we were down there... When we got back, our calendar fun started - with craft day for the girls (while Seth was at cub scout day camp)... Our weekend was a trip to visit my brother and his family - who live at least 4 hours away  and "never get visits" - we went to a park while visiting and Rob initiated challenges for the kids to try and compete. Our visit got cut a little short thanks to Beth's crazy headache :( but it was still fun to visit and see their new house and watch Thomas crawl. The next week began with experiments (simple experiments - a list of ideas obtained from a school handout that used around the house stuff - we choose about 8-10 off the list that we had stuff for)  The big hit of the summer so far has been star gazing/sleepover night, which included some water fun while waiting on the stars to ap...

Every summer I try to do something to make it different and more fun from the rest of the year (as if a break from school doesn't do that already). Skip the next few paragraphs if you just want to see the idea. Last summer we had one-on-one days of the week (each kid got to skip rest time on 'their day' to have one-on-one time with me...I did a lot of sewing of doll clothes and ammo belts.)  We'll fit in the one-on-one time somehow, but I need daily rest time this summer too! So, this year, I got poster boards (dollar tree) and cut up colored paper (free from my stash) and have made an activity for every day of the week (and some Saturdays).  I used paper/tape rather than just draw directly on the poster board so that I can rearrange as needed...and I have already. I also decided to 'hand draw' the pictures because I thought it would be cute - and to save ink...and to produce laughter from my brother and children at my artistry. :) None of the act...

I AM going to do the April Spotlight (it's Natalie), but it's on Will's video camera and I don't know how to get it from there to here...so he'll do it for me later. :)  These are just a few of the over 700 pictures I've taken in the last month trying to improve my photography skills! (I'm still having issues with focus when I have a shallow depth of field - for all those photo-savvy people out there who know what that means, so disregard the little blur in some- I'm working on that.) Here are the "just pictures": I didn't actually take this one (Mom did with her phone) - Alee needed to clean her face/hands with a wet wipe, so she "held" her pacifier with her toes in the meantime! (go ahead, throw up)