Summer Wrap Up

School starts in a few days. I feel as I do every summer at this time: So happy to have the kids go back to school. AND so sad that they have to go back to school.

So- to sum up the summer- when we were not doing big events (shown in the other blogs for this summer) we tried to just do stuff.

Here are a few pictures of summer...

Splash pads

Making giant bubbles

Science experiments

Making cookies

Lots of trampoline- especially with water balloons

More science experiments

Every morning the boys were supposed to play the piano...

do math facts, and write in their journal.

This happened a lot but not every day. Tanner had Maps instead of Math. We found a map game on the computer to help him memorize the states. Jaxon had less to do because he had so much other stuff to do this summer. I tried to get him to write in his journal at least.  For some reason he finds this the worst form of torture and fights me on it every summer.

They were supposed to clean their room every morning too. Some kids were better at that than others.
Reading is required every day summer or school time. I have three kids who love to read. One... not so much.

Water balloons on a tramp again!

We did some crafts- this was wax crayon creations.

Have I mentioned water balloons on a trampoline?

We took care of my sister's dog Daisy while she was out of town

...and took care of my moms house while she was out of town- sleepover! Its like a hotel- where the smoke detectors go off in the middle of the night and you can't reach them even when you stand on the ladder and you can't find 9 volt batteries anyway.

My kids like to take apart broken electronic things.

Chase made himself into a cyborg with the pieces.

Ooblick- That is always fun.

Volcanos! (Oh, that's why I had no baking soda when I went to bake something...)

Balloons on a trampoline again.

Mowing lawns- always a favorite summer activity.

Cheese Day! We had this to celebrate Joanna's birthday this year. She loves Cheese day too.

But mostly- the kids were doing this

and this. 

Screens reign in our house. The kids can't think of anything else to do. They must always be on a screen or asking to be on a screen. It is my job to constantly remind them to do other things.

There is always swimming...

More crafts (we had giant boxes and found a fun craft on pinterest to use those boxes. Have  I mentioned that I love pinterest?)

Plinko!

It was fun to figure out how to get them to work better.

Chase made a shield. Like a riot shield. Now we just need to have a riot so he can use it.

We helped Joanna get her classroom ready- She is a first grade teacher and spends hours and days getting ready for school to start.

Tanner won a gift card to a trampoline place so we got to use it!

The Olympics started!

We don't have TV (just netflix) so we watched it at my moms.

A Jamison Reunion... My moms side of the family.

and we took my cousin and her kids to our favorite place in the mountains- Millcreek Canyon.

We made bottle boats and just played in the water.

And we had hot dogs and smores. Yummy

And Jaxon has been marching. Can I just remind you how brutal it is. 12 hours of marching a day for 10 days. It has been killing him. But he is tough.

Somewhere in this picture you might see a B5. That is his number this year. It's hard to put in all the work. I keep reminding him that he did have fun last year (after band camp) and he made a lot of friends- so band is a good thing in Jaxon's life.

It was also Alex and Chase's turn turn swimming lessons. Everyday for 2 weeks.  It was called stroke school. They learned how to "dive"...

 look at that form- olympic quality.

and they did great with the strokes- backstroke, breast stroke

 ...and front crawl. They learned a lot and are quite good swimmers.

and I don't know if I told you but my kids really like water balloons on a trampoline!

Now the summer is setting. We have 2 more days of summer for my 3 younger.

We have the school supplies and new shoes purchased. One kid is sooo excited. One kid is really mad about the whole thing. One kid is half and half excited and upset. My oldest is just trying to survive band camp- he does not have time to think about school yet.