Have My Cake, And Eat It, Too

Today, Becca turned one!  I sang her "Happy Birthday" when she woke up this morning, and she seemed to like it.  We unpacked from our family reunion (more on that in a later post) a bit, frosted her cake, straightened up the house, and then spent the afternoon swimming at my parent's. Then we came home and had a quick dinner and cake before Brian had to take off for mutual.

Rebecca is our only child to not be a full walker before turning one, and it's not because she can't, it's really because she prefers to tease us when we practice.  Last week, though, she decided to start practicing on her own, and she's toddling around a little bit more.  She loves to pick up the phone and say "Ay-oh!"  She loves t.v. remotes. She loves playing in the water.  She's down to only waking up once or twice a night, which is nice.  I think her favorite thing to eat is bananas, but really, she puts everythying she can get her hands on in her mouth, so I really can't say what is her favorite.  She's sweet.   She is just such a sweet, friendly, happy baby, and we love her a lot.

Here's her cake eating progression.

Poking it.

Tasting it.

"This really is yummy."

"Seriously.  Leave me alone; I'm eating my cake."

All done.

Busy, Busy Weekend

Wow, it's been an action packed weekend!  On Friday the kids and I went to see the Reptile Man at the public library, then Brian and the boys went to the Father and Sons camp out at Teancum Timbers while Alyssa, Rebecca, and I went to see Brave and then headed to Spokane, to help my sister move, and last, we spent the afternoon at Brian's parent's house for after church dinner.

This was our first time seeing the Reptile Man, and it was really fun.  I was surprised that he talked in a calm, almost quiet voice, but the kids all listened to him and were interested in learning about all the different reptiles.  I touched an alligator!  I never thought I would ever do that. 

Brian and the boys had a fabulous time on their camp out.  I prayed the entire time that they would all arrive home safe and sound with all their limbs and appendages, and thankfully Heavenly Father listened to my prayers.

The girls and I had a fun time in Spokane as well.  We brought Sadie along, and she stayed with Kim's new across-the-street neighbor and their dog, Molly.  We were originally going to leave Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon, because we couldn't leave Sadie at home for so long, so Kim's friend, Jamie, offered to have her stay with them, and it turned out great.  Sadie was so worn out from playing with Molly that she slept the entire drive home.  Alyssa also had a fun time with Jamie's kids. At first they were "Elijah's friends," but they soon became, "my friends."

We all met up back at home yesterday afternoon, cleaned out the cars, and spent the evening relaxing.  After church today the kids and I went to Brian's parent's house for dinner, then he joined us when he was done with his church responsibilities.  Aunt Karen made yummy enchiladas, and I burned one of the pans of corn bread muffins.  The were pretty crispy on the outside, but they were still moist and fluffy on the inside.  Over all, it was a good dinner.

As we were getting the kids in the car, Diane was telling me that Grandpa Jacks is not doing very well at all and that things might get bad enough to affect the family reunion next week.  She was trying to be discreet with her words in front of the kids, but Alyssa caught onto the bit about altering the family reunion, and she asked me about it as we were driving home.

The kids and I talked about how old Grandpa is and how he's been sick for a very long time.  We talked about the Premortal world, coming to Earth to gain bodies, and then leaving our bodies to go to Heaven.  (Imagine me holding up my hand as I'm driving and saying, "Now, pretend there's a glove on my hand...")  We talked about who is waiting in Heaven and must be excited to see Grandpa Jacks again.  Alyssa caught on real quick and said, "Great Grandma Jacks!" but we also talked about his parents and other family members.  Then we talked for a bit about things we remember about Grandpa Jacks from before he started getting Alzheimer's.  Ethan said, "He is so nice to us," and at that moment I could feel the love our Heavenly Father has for us, and how much He must love Grandpa.  I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for helping us to feel His spirit in those teaching moments - I hope my kids felt it, too!  I am also thankful that my kids only have good memories of their great grandpa, and that he's always been happy and optimistic every time we've visited with him.  I don't remember any of my great grandparents, and I'm so glad that my kids have been able to spend so much time with Grandpa Jacks, Grandma Orton, Grandma Yeats, and Grandma Harris.  I really feel that it is a blessing to their lives to have been able to feel loved by their elder relatives.

Family Pictures

Megan Anderson took our family pictures at Pacific University the week that Brian graduated, and then she was nice enough to move to the Tri-Cities so she could take our family pictures again, three years later.  I'm so excited to get them printed up and put on our wall!

Lesson Learned

It's raining here in the Tri-Cities.  Summer just doesn't want to come.  This picture that's been floating around Facebook sums it up perfectly:

I woke up this morning and heard the rain rushing through the rain gutters by our window, and thought, "I don't want to go running in the rain," but then I thought that I wouldn't mind walking in the rain if I had an umbrella, so I got up and got dressed.  I couldn't find the umbrella, though.  Alyssa took it fishing yesterday, just in case it rained, and apparently she didn't bring it back.  So I went back upstairs, and went back to bed.  Then I started thinking of my book, and I decided to work on that a bit.

One thing that's been stalling progress on my book is that some of it is in a notebook, some of it is on the computer, and some of it is on loose pieces of paper.  Plus, some of it is written, some of it is planned, and some of it needed to be scrapped and rewritten.  The big hurdle to cross with all of this was that I didn't know where I was at and what needed to be fixed, because it was all just one big jumble.  So I got out a binder and put some dividers in it.  I took the already written and printed prologue and first two chapters, and put them in the binder, with the dividers between them.  Then I took the pages I had printed with the plans, and put them in the binder as well, divided by possible chapters.  And last, I put in a bunch of extra paper in the back.  So now I have everything in one place, and it's easy for me to look back and look forward all at the same time.  So hopefully there will be some progress soon.

Anyway.  My point:  I felt very creative this morning.  Alyssa woke up and started putting together a book of spells and healing potions and such, and I was glad that she was being creative, and it was raining.  So I called a delay on summer school due to rain and creativity.  "Good idea," I thought.  I was wrong.  Bad idea.

Alyssa got on the computer, wanting to research healing potions.  Her research led her to a website where you could buy healing stones.  Thank you, Google.  So instead of being creative and cute, she spent the morning begging me to let her buy healing stones, and even after I convinced her that it was not going to happen, she went back to the computer to dream of all the healing stones she would someday buy.  (Please note that this girl already has 30-50 really cool rocks in her collection that she could have easily pretended were healing stones.  She didn't like that idea, though.  Remind you of anyone, Mom?)

The boys took advantage of the morning by dumping out every single toy box in the family room, then they went outside, in the rain, and turned on the hose.  Thirty minutes and three wet kids later (Alyssa joined them), I finally gave up on starting the next chapter in my book, and I realized that not following a routine does not work for us.  I'm also pretty upset that it feels like every time I try to do something for myself, not only am I not able to do that something, but everything else falls apart as well.  It was pretty depressing there for a little bit.

So I guess I've learned that we need to start our day by following our routine.  If we would have had summer school and done our chores, then it wouldn't have bothered me so much that the boys made a mess and Alyssa was whiny.  I would have been proud of what we had accomplished, and those things would have seemed smaller and less significant.  Plus, we would already have the momentum of getting things done, so it wouldn't have been that big of a deal to say, "Woah, boys, that's quite a mess you've made!  Let's clean it up."

I've also learned that I just need to be patient with my book.  I'm glad that I now have my binder for it, because it means I can work at it little bits by little bit without losing my place.  I just need to remember that I can still finish it, even if it takes a while.  Going slow does not mean that I have to stop.  I just need to be happy with slow.

Now I need to get back to the kids.  Alyssa just came upstairs with a wet and muddy Becca, and she says the boys are playing with the hose again.  I think it's time to bring the boys in and get them cleaning up their messes.

Piano and Summer School

 We've been having fun having a piano for the past week.  We had a piano guy come over last week to fix the wobbly leg.  Before he even looked at the leg, he played a bunch of keys, and tapped and tightened things inside the piano.  When he was done, we found out that he was making sure that it was worth fixing and tuning.  Apparently our little piano passed the test, because he's coming over to tune it next month.  Then Brian and I stayed up late Saturday night putting a special stain and wax on the piano, and now it is just beautiful. 

Summer school has been going very well.  The kids are doing a great job of following their work boxes, and I am so impressed with how hard they've been working with very little complaints.  Alyssa especially.  She just dives right in each day and get's everything done.  She's fabulous!  We've been having summer school each day during Becca's morning nap, and then we've spent the rest of the day having fun.  Today Brian's parents took the kids fishing while Becca and I stayed behind to have some quiet time.  (Apparently Becca needed it, because she would not let me put her down, even when she was sleeping.  I didn't mind, though, because I read a good book while she was asleep on my lap.)

I still haven't finished the school room all the way, and it's dirty, but I decided to take pictures to show anyway, because if I wait until the room is completely finished, I may never get the chance.  I still have to hang some of the curtains and put up some Alice in Wonderland wall quotes, then I think it will be done.

This is the kids' working area.  They each have a desk and a shelf for their work boxes. You can't tell from this view, but the green door matches the green leaves in the curtains.  Actually, I don't even think I took a picture of the curtains.  You all will just have to be impressed by the curtains when I take pictures after I put the quotes on the walls, which will hopefully be soon.  I bought the chandelier (it's purple!) at Habitat for Humanity, and it has an almost matching buddy on the other side of the room.

These are Ethan's work boxes.  You can tell, because of the two boxes that have cleaning wipes in them, that I haven't moved the downstairs bathroom chore to Marcus' boxes yet.  You can also tell that Ethan read the Book of Mormon today, cleaned the upstairs bathroom, then didn't put his worksheet back when he came to box three.  He was very excited about going fishing, and it was really hard for him to pay attention to his work today.  Not a big deal though.  He did great.

Rebecca's favorite thing to do lately is to empty boxes or drawers or bookshelves.  You can see the pile of books I collected by the shelf, along with the scattered library books on the floor.  All done by Becca.  She's fun.

Anyway, I love how this room is turning out.  It's such a bright and happy place to spend our mornings, and I know I'm going to be so thankful for it when we start spending more time in it come Fall.  I feel so spoiled to have a room just for our school work (and my crafting stuff) and I really am thankful for the space.

Catch Up Post (Get Ready for a Lot of Pictures)

Summer vacation is here!  I was counting down the days until the kids would be home, and it didn't feel like it was really coming until the very last day of school.  I'm so glad that they're home now, and we can follow our own schedule.  That really is my big beef with public school - that they set the times and I have to follow.  Silly, isn't it?  But really, what I didn't like this year was having to get everybody up and ready and out the door, then picking up Ethan right in the middle of when Becca wanted to take a nap, then having Alyssa come home each day after four o'clock.  Now that I'm in charge again our house is staying cleaner, we're having better, more planned meals, and we're doing more things as a family.  It's great!

So here's a recap of everything.  I think I'll go backwards to help me remember.

Yesterday we went to go pick up our fruit box from Fresh Picks, and we met our cousins at the park, who were also picking up their fruit boxes.  My mom was watching Tallia's kids, so she brought them, and then after we were done playing we went to her house to have lunch and to swim.  We stopped at Wal Mart on the way to get some pool toys and sidewalk chalk for the summer, then we just played all afternoon.

She doesn't like the feel of the grass, but that doesn't stop her from cruising around.

When Brian got home we left the kids swimming for a bit and went to look at a baby grand piano that we saw go by on Craigslist.  It's over one hundred years old, but still in good condition, so we bought it, and once we get it moved on Monday our quiet room will turn in to the music room.  That room has limited wall space, so we knew that any piano we got would force us to move furniture out, which is why we went ahead and looked at this one, even though we were originally looking for an upright.  The kids are already lined up to take piano lessons in the fall, so now they'll have a piano to dink around with over the summer before they start.

Last week we had Alyssa's end of the year ballet recital.  Our summer weather has been reluctant to show up, and it was cold and rainy for most of the day.  Alyssa, Becca, and I went to the rehearsal in the morning, and then we went to the actual recital as a family that afternoon.  We were late in getting there, and we were actually walking up just as Alyssa's class was about to go on, and they were calling her name, wondering where she was.  She ran up to the stage, hurried to put a skirt on and flowers in her hair, and then they announced, "Beginning Blue and Alyssa Jacks," so we're pretending like she was the star performer for their song, even though she was in the back row for most of it.

I had a lousy spot, being the last parent to make it to the picture taking area.  Guess where the recital was - you got it!  The Columbia Center Rotary Charity Stage at WSU Tri-Cities.  You can see Alyssa doing a really cool jump in the background, though.

And this is my camera dying, not special effects.

After the performance.  She's such a cute ballerina!

Alyssa and her cousin, Kenna, were in the McGee Talent Show.  They danced to "We've Got the Beat," and they were so cute.  They even got crazy with their pretend guitar playing skills during the guitar solo.

We went to the cabin to go mushrooming a couple of times.  Brian's parents were too busy to go with us this year, but we still had a great time.  One time we went up for just the day, and the next time we went up for a few days.  The kids are getting really good at finding mushrooms.  We usually batter and fry them, but this year we read in one of the books at the cabin that morels make great soup, so we found a recipe for Morel Bisque when we got home, and gave that a try. It was so yummy!  We kept trying to figure out how much a bowl of the soup would cost in a restaurant, because morels are actually pretty spendy, and we felt quite cultured and cool as we ate our mushroom soup.

the kids on the cat walk

pure joy

I think Ethan is about to say, "Marcus go to sleep!"

Then he just gave up.

I think that just about sums it up.  We've had a couple of summer school days this week after school got out on Monday.  The kids each have a service (chore) that they need to do as part of it, and they're doing a great job of doing their worksheets, scripture reading, and book reading along with that.  I'm really excited about what this summer will bring!

The Morning After

Well, I didn't succeed in not nursing last night, but at least putting Becca to bed without it helped a ton.  She only woke up 3 times last night!  And that is an improvement!  She woke up around 12:00, 3:00, and 5:00, and it's 7:08 right now and she's still asleep.  Love it!  I know if I keep working at it, it'll only get better.

Sleep Training and Scripture Study

We've reached that point that I'm so tired that I'm basically a living zombie.  I have dark shadows under my eyes, and I don't think I've ever really gotten those before.  Brian even remarked today that I look tired, and being a man, he doesn't usually notice things like that.  (Example 1: When Ethan was a baby and he was up a lot one night, Brian said the next morning, "Wow, Ethan must have slept through the night!  I didn't hear him at all."  In Brian's defense, since he's not the one getting up with the babies, his ears aren't tuned to their cries, so he usually just sleeps through it.  And Example 2:  Again, when Ethan was a baby, he was up all night and in the morning Brian said, "You know, with you getting in and out of bed to get up with Ethan all night long, I did not sleep well last night."  The funny thing about that one is that he didn't realize just what he was saying until he had said it, and he felt really bad once he realized it.)

So I'm tired.  Becca is up a lot at night.  She usually goes down around 9:30, then she's up around 11:30, then 1:30-ish, then sometime around 3:00, then she's on a pretty set schedule of waking up at 4:30, 5:00-ish, then just before 6:00.  Yeah, you can probably understand why I'm so tired.  It's gotten to the point that I sleep half the night nursing her in the recliner in half-hour long increments, then I wake up, put her in the crib, then go back to bed until the next waking, where we start the cycle all over again.  I'm so tired that I've been too tired to even try to break the cycle, which has just made everything worse.  And that's the whole problem, really.  Rebecca thinks that the best way to fall asleep is by nursing, and even though it's not the only way that she knows how to fall asleep, it is her preferred way to fall asleep, and now it's gotten to be so frequent through the night that it's time to teach her to fall asleep on her own. 

The other problem that she has is that she goes to bed too late for a baby, but I think that's just because she inherited Brian's night owl gene, because even when she was a newborn, she didn't really hit her night-time sleep until around 10:30.

So tonight was the official start to getting Becca to sleep longer through the night.  I started by beginning the whole bed time routine earlier, because she really should be going to bed before 9:30 pm.  I got her in her night-time diaper and pajamas around 7:20, then cuddled and nursed her for a while, which will hopefully be the last nursing until tomorrow morning.  We'll see if I stick to it!  Then I rocked her and sang our bedtime songs: "I Am a Child of God," "Jesus Once was a Little Child," "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus," "Teach Me to Walk in the Light", and the "Go to Bed" song.  (Notice how the order of these songs are even "sleep-deprived mom" friendly.  "Jesus Once was a Little Child" ends with, "try, try, try," which leads into "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus."  That song ends with, "for these are the things Jesus taught," hence "Teach Me to Walk in the Light."  I came up with this order when Marcus was a baby, and now matter how tired I am I can always make it through.  Usually.

Anyway.  After we sang and rocked, I put Becca in her crib and used the sleep cue, "It's time to go to bed."  (Right now that sleep cue doesn't mean anything to her, but hopefully it will soon!)  She wanted to play in her crib, so I let her.  I used the opportunity to catch up on my scripture reading and browsed Pinterest on my phone until she got upset and started to cry.  Then I went and picked her up, said "Mama's here," rocked her for 30 seconds, then laid her back down, saying some form of "Time for bed."  And then we did that over and over again, sometimes with her being happy for a few minutes, sometimes with her not being happy to be laid down, until she finally fell asleep just before 9:00.  The rule I give myself when I do this is that I don't pick her up until she's pulled herself to standing and reaches for me.  (I was standing beside the crib the whole time.)  I do this, because I think - hope! - that it tires the baby out faster to have to pull themselves up to standing in order to be held.

I didn't say anything but our cue words - "Mama's here," and "Time for bed" - the whole time, unless you count the times that Alyssa or Ethan tried sneaking in the room and I had to whisper, "Please leave.  I'm getting Becca to sleep," but I don't think Becca noticed any of those.

And now we get to the whole point of this long, winded post: that blessed moment when I laid her down, and she stayed laying down.  She pumped her arms up and down a couple of times, and then all of a sudden, in just about a matter of 5 or so seconds, her body slowed down, and she started to drift off to sleep, and then in about 10 more seconds, she was still and had gone completely to sleep.  It was the sweetest thing to watch, and even better, it meant that all that hard work paid off, and hopefully by doing this we'll both end up getting better sleep at night.

(FYI: a lot of my philosophy and strategies come from Elizabeth Pantley's book, "the No Cry Sleep Solution."  I love that book!)

And now, to make this post even longer, we'll talk about my scripture study.  Really, though, I'm contemplating staying up all night, because I think it will be easier to deal with Becca waking up if I'm already awake and not groggy from having to pull myself out of bed.  I'm in no hurry to go to bed, so I might as well keep typing.  I'm also still thinking that the edges of the school room walls need another coat of paint, so I might do that also.  Who knows?

So I've mentioned before how our Stake Presidency has challenged, or rather "encouraged," us to read the Book of Mormon every day this year.  I've been doing fabulous at following my plan to be finished reading through the Book of Mormon by the end of June, although I did miss one day - the Sunday of General Conference, because my daily schedule was completely thrown off, and I didn't even realize I had missed it until the next day.  Then, a few weeks ago, I had to take my phone into the shop to get the microphone screen replaced, so I was without it for a few days.

It's funny that being without my phone was such a big deal, but it really was.  I always read my scriptures when I put Becca down for her morning nap, and I read on my phone, because it's a lot easier to hold a phone while rocking a baby than an actual book.  The first day without my phone I put off scripture reading until I went to bed, but by then I was tired (sleep deprived - remember?) and I only read a couple of verses, instead of a whole chapter.  The next day I just didn't make it a priority, and I think I read a verse or two, and then the next day I don't even think I read at all.  It amazes me that in just a couple of days, something that had been a regular and important part of my routine for almost 5 months, suddenly became unimportant.  I went three or four days last week either not reading at all or just reading a few verses.  I've spent the last couple of days trying to get caught up to where I should be to be on track to finish by the end of next month, and I'm almost to where I'm supposed to be.

It just amazes me to look back and see the changes in my attitude and my patience level when I was either reading or not reading the scriptures.  (Although that could have been affected by the whole sleep deprived thing, too.)  I've finally truly realized just how important it is to get that daily feasting on the words of Christ, because I could feel the spirit of the Holy Ghost lessen on the days I didn't read.  I would wonder why I was so grumpy and short-tempered, and I would realize, "I really need to read the scriptures."  And now that I'm hopefully back to reading regularly, I feel so much better.  I'm still sleep deprived.  I'm still incredibly tired, and I probably have more right than anybody to be grumpy and short-tempered, but tonight I was able to lovingly get my baby to sleep (by herself!), then have family scripture study with the kids (by myself, because Brian had fallen asleep on the family room floor - guess I'm not the only one that's tired), and then tuck those kids into bed - all without losing my temper, or even feeling the urge to lose my temper.  And I attribute those successes to the added happiness and patience that the Holy Ghost brings to me when I choose to bring the Spirit into our home by reading the scriptures.

(I also read this article while Becca was playing in her crib tonight.  One of my friends pinned it on Pinterest.  She pinned it to be board titled, "a beautiful me," and I love that she's trying to be beautiful on the inside as well as the outside.  The article has guidelines for great scripture study, but what I really love about it was the part about how our brains are becoming hard-wired to respond to Facebook and email and blogs and such, and we need to spend a sufficient amount of time in the scriptures each day to re-wire our brains to think spiritually.)

Might as well make the post even longer.

In other news:

1. We went on an ice cream picnic with the Hollidays at Howard Amon Park, and we ended up throwing all our kids together in one house with one baby sitter while Brian and I and Dave and Adrienne went to go see "the Avengers."  We had so much fun at the park, and even though going to the movie was incredibly last-minute and definitely a bit of a crazy thing to do, it was so worth it.  It was an awesome movie!  Of the super hero movies of these characters, I've only seen the Iron Man movies, so now I need to get caught up with "Thor," and "the Hulk," and "Captain America," and then watch "the Avengers" again when it comes out on DVD.

Edited to add:  What do people who stay up all night do?  It's only 11:10 and I'm bored out of my mind.  I don't want to paint, because if Becca wakes up I'll have to leave a wet paint brush.  I started to upload our pictures to one of our picture blogs, but I'm tired, and that just wasn't exciting enough to keep my attention.  I'm going to bed.

Ditching School for Mushrooms

Yesterday morning Brian and I decided to keep the kids home from school, load them in the car, and drive to the Blue Mountains to go mushrooming.  We got doughnuts from Viera's Bakery to start the morning, which, in my opinion, is a very fun way to start the morning.  Brian and Ethan both found mushrooms within thirty seconds of stepping out of the car, and after I had Becca dressed warmly, I found two more after taking about ten steps.  Alyssa was the one who found a group of them all in the same area.  It was so fun to hear her yell, "Found one!  Two.  Three!  Four!  Five!  Six!  SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE!!!"

We wandered through the trees near Brian's parent's cabin for about four hours, then stopped at the Oasis in Milton Freewater (Muddy Frogwater) for dinner, then headed home.  The best part about the Oasis, besides its yummy, yummy food, is that it has a treasure box for the kids to pick a prize from.  It's filled with all sorts of goodies from the Dollar Tree, and each of our kids ate every single bite of their dinner to be able to pick a prize.  That was nice.

Alyssa took a picture of Becca and me, because I'm always the one taking the pictures.

Ethan saw that I was taking a picture of him, so he did a strong man pose.  He was also hopping around, which made capturing the strong man pose difficult.

Three of the four

Number Four

Alyssa pointing to a mushroom she found

Here's some of the mushrooms that Alyssa found in a group.

Can you find the morels?  There's two in this picture.

Brian kept sharing that blueberry sucker with Rebecca.  She loved it!

In other news:

1. Brian bought "The Phantom Tollbooth" for Alyssa to read, and she is loving it.  She read it on the way home yesterday, and she kept taking breaks to tell us about all the funny things in it.

2. Our big backyard projects for the year are almost done.  We planted some arborvitaes behind the rose bushes, to help add a backdrop for the pergola.  I'm still dreaming about the fountain Marcus and I saw at Lowes, but I don't know if we have enough money in the budget for it.  We have one more flower bed that we've gotten edging stones for that we need to work on, but even when we finish it, we probably won't plant anything in it until next year.  Today I'd like to get outside and take the dirt that piled underneath the pergola and put them into our boxed planters, finish putting the ground cloth around the arborvitaes, and then take pictures of it all.  It's almost all ready to just sit back and enjoy for the summer.

3.  Our other big project, or really, my big project is the school room.  I put a second and third layer of yellow paint on the walls last week, and now I think I need to go around the edges one more time.  I can't tell if the faint blue coloring is because it needs another coat, or if it's just a reflection of the blue painter's tape.  Anyway, I'm excited to get some stripes put in, but I don't know exactly when that will happen.  Painting with a baby is tough.  I don't normally let my painting projects sit for so long.    I really want to get things finished before school get's out, because I have some fabulous ideas for summer school.  I have service zones (chores) planned for the kids to do each day, I have a ton of ideas to put in the kids' work boxes that are both education (math worksheets, writing assignments, etc.) and fun (have Mom read a book to you, play a game on the computer for fifteen minutes, etc.), and I have ideas on how to spend our afternoons like going to the library or going swimming or going to the park.  My plan is to do summer school for June and July as kind of a practice run for home school in the fall, and then we'll take August off completely.