Busy Times

Here we are, half way finished with summer. I've accomplished a few things on my mental goal list; other areas are slacking. Kudos to being consistent with Analise's responsibility chart. In fact, last week she slacked, and I didn't give reminders (Kevin Leman would be so proud. :)), and she didn't earn any rewards. She was bummed, but she's also been more responsible since!
The girls are still excited to earn a stone for good behavior. We celebrated Friday evening with a really simple activity. We didn't have lots of time, so we went out to a local attraction where you can feed big fish from a neat bridge. I didn't buy the fish food there; I took our own loaf of expired bread. All three girls enjoyed sharing the bread with the fish.
Maisie is more responsible in getting herself dressed all the time. Yeah!
Now things I still need to work on...working with Maisie on holding a pencil and doing some fine motor skills with it. My goal of doing this weekly is slacking...
I still need to teach Analise how to tie her shoes. Here she is 6 years old, and I have to tie her shoes. I purposely bought shoes with laces to motivate me to teach her. I tried passing this task along to dad, but that hasn't worked. :)
So last week was kind of crazy. We had something every morning of the week. Brandon is working a lot and coming home later than normal. Weds. night as soon as he walked in the door, I left for a meeting at church. By the time I got home, he was in bed.
Thursday night was the same thing. Hello and goodbye. I went out to eat with my MIL and two sister in laws. It was a refreshing night hanging out with the girls. We enjoyed dinner, a movie, dreaming of the future and talking until 1 am.
Friday morning was park day with friends. Saturday was lake day. One of these days all three of my girls will like to be on the boat. Analise enjoys it all for the most part. She learned this weekend that she is brave enough to float in the water with her life jacket; she didn't hold on to anything. She was so proud!
Sunday after church we went over to some friends for a cookout, and the kids (11 of them under age 6) played in their new inflatable pool/water slides. They loved every minute of it. I loved being with my friends that feel like family.
Sunday evening kicked off VBS for church. So now I find my thoughts on that a lot. It's good to be with kiddos again, I will admit. But I will miss my evenings with my hubs. However, it's exciting for him to have one on one time with Sadie. I better keep moving...