Christmas in July ~ Summer Loves

What are your Summer Loves? Mine are:

Lazy Days ~ Summer Heat ~ Swimming at the Y

Watermelon and Cantalope ~ Sewing in the Summer Rays

Wet Hair and Reading a Good Book

The Kids and I have been reading quite a bit this summer. Arbordale Publishing has a FREE Summer Reading Program where we can read 25 of their ebooks for FREE and once we have Gigi will receive a FREE book to keep. The kids love FREE books! They learn all about different animals around the world, their habitats, what they eat, who their predator is and how they keep safe. Many of the ebooks make the animals sounds when you touch their bodies and well I never knew that the sounds of a zebra aren't anything like a horse or a donkey, or that giraffes make the sound they do. We've truly been enjoying their books.

Some of the books we've been reading:

         

Garage Sale Fun:

Friday we stopped at a kids & teacher garage sale. It's a good thing I didn't take more than $10. Books were .50 or $1 and there were a few toys too. I gave each of the kids a dollar and told them I had the right of veto. Usually I'll let them buy what they want but I can veto the sale if it's broken or sounds awful. If I see something usually I'll have them check it over in case I missed something that is broken. It works well for us. The car track thing has been our best purchase this year. It was $3 and they have used it as a marble run, a car track, a little people race trace, a water slide and more. They love it. So far, I've only had to confiscate it once because Miss G was throwing marbles....

Swimming at the Y:
We have been making an effort a couple times a week to go swimming at the Y. This year I had the option of raising my daycare fees to help cover the summer expenses & then I had a GREAT brainstorm: Parents can purchase each child a Monthly Youth Membership for $15 and we can go swimming as much as we want. It has been so nice knowing we can go swimming in a clean pool and we don't have the rough kids who plow everyone down at the splashpads nor do we have to deal with huge daycares/schools who bring 20-30 kids who take over. There are usually only about 10-20 people there and it's a wonderful pool. I only have 2 kiddos this summer right now - Connor (almost 10) and Gianna (3.5) so it works out great for us. She has gotten so much more comfortable in the deeper area of the pool and getting her hair wet. Loves to crab walk in the 0 Level entry. It's been perfect for us and it's one of the few places Gianna doesn't throw a fit for me. I do make her take a nap before going tho. Non-Negotiable!

What have you been doing?