Summer

June 20, 2007
Following an intense discussion my kids came to me the other day and asked how they could earn $3.50.

When I asked why they told me they really wanted to buy a new game for the Wii (they’re expensive! $49.50).

Max would contribute all his birthday money ($40), Elle would contribute all her money ($5—I know, she’s pretty poor) and Grace would contribute her $1, but they were still short $3.50.

I thought it was pretty cute how they had it all figured out, and worked really hard to earn the other $3.50 for the game.

They’ve been doing well this summer…lots of cleaning and jobs as well as a lot of playing. We pulled out everything in our pantry and painted it one night (a gift for Dave for Father’s Day…he LOVES super organization), organized our new bookshelves upstairs, learned to do a really great job cleaning bathrooms, etc. I don’t know how to format these pictures better, but here are some summer projects…I don’t know if you can tell a big difference on the pantry, but take my word for it, it looks awesome.

They’re working hard on their summer goals and are reading and doing math again. But life is still chaotic. No matter how much we clean it seems that we turn around and the house is messy again, and we need to run here or there, and of course, we’re always late.

Life can be so overwhelming thinking of what needs to be done. I need to just learn to relax and let the chaos soak in. I’m just always so worried about who needs what and how to get enough attention to each child.

Claire is absolutely killing me lately! Not only does she do the normal average things for kids her age (repeats things over and over and over and over and over and says “what?” to pretty much everything I say) but she’s really into slapping, hitting and scratching. I don’t know what to do, especially when it’s poor Lucy who gets slapped and hit (pretty hard I must say). She obviously needs more attention, and is getting it negatively, so I’ve been showering her with love and compliments and stories and “mommy dates” whenever I can but it’s not phasing her. Send any parenting help our way!

With that and Dave’s stresses at work we are so darn excited to have a little anniversary get-away this weekend.
We had a surprise visit last week from my English friend Sarah who I haven’t seen in 21 years (man that makes me feel old). We met when we were in ninth grade when we lived in England and I had to go to Rosebury School for Girls and wear a dark brown school uniform every day (the horror of all horrors for me). I thought I would die of homesickness but luckily I had Sarah who became a good friend while we lived there. We’ve kept in touch through Christmas cards all these years…she sends our kids cute presents from Harrods every single Christmas. She’s a flight attendant for British Airways and happened to have a layover here in Phoenix, so the kids and I went and picked her up and had a day together going out for lunch with Dave and swimming. The kids thought her accent was so cool and it was so great to get re-connected.

Father’s Day was great except for the fact that Dave and I had to speak in church. Poor Dave…well, poor both of us, but c’mon, he’s a father…he should get to relax! It actually turned out to be kind of fun to talk and reflect on our great dads and we got some pampering in for him too. As he was sitting at dinner wearing his spanking new cheesy shirt the kids and I made for him with each of their footprints across the front (with an improvised sixth toe for Lucy’s foot…I miss that thing), Josh and Tal made the comment that he looks like “super dad.” Indeed he did. Now all he needs is a bumper sticker that says “#1 Dad.” We’ll have to save that for next year. Some of our best friends, the Zaharises, moved to Utah last week. Although I’m sure we’ll see them up there it was so sad to see them go. We are really going to miss them. We had a few fun dinners with different groups of friends before they left.