Summer Stage and Peter Pan!

Since Matt and Josh were four Patsy and I have been taking our boys (and the others as they have grown) to Upper Darby Performing Arts Center for their Summer Stage program. The first show we went to was Peter Pan. We loved it and we were "hooked" (ha!ha!) on Summer Stage. This year we are only able to attend one show (this is a repeat year as we have seen most of the others presented this summer) and that was today! We went and saw Peter Pan! It was so much better than I remembered! I think as their stage productions have grown, so have their skills! This year they flew in the air!!!!! It was great! Matt and Sarah enjoyed it so much! We went with Patsy and her kids, Josh and Rachel and with Carisa and her son Paxton. The kids in the production were AMAZING! I am always surprised by their skills and abilities. It really is a first rate production and the tickets are so reasonable, $8 a seat! Well worth it for the live performance. What I also enjoy about Summer Stage is that the actors go outside so that everyone can meet them, get their autographs, and get pictures! They are great! Can you tell I love this activity?

Staples Update

Well, the sales at Staples ended Wednesday and since Daniel was with Daddy camping up at the Schultz farm, I drug Matt and Sarah with me to two more Staples. I have to say that of all the Staples I have visited, our Staples on Roosevelt Blvd. is the friendliest and most well stocked of them all! Since it was the last day of the sale they didn't seem to mind how many times you went through the line. They still had oodles of folders and pencils. All three of us went through three times!!! My final count for this weeks sale was: 420 folders, 84 packs of pencils and 60 bottles of Purell! And my grand total spent was........$6.06!!! I just find that amazing! And I still have all my army shopping. I know many have made several trips. It looks like we will be well set with folders and pencils. God is so good!!!

Science in the Summer!

Every year since Matt and Sarah have entered second grade they have been attending Science in the Summer. It is a great program and each year they look at a different study of science. This year was Chemistry and both kids were beyond excited! Depending on the library that it is held at it can be a 4 day/one-hour session class, 2 day two-hour session class, or a 1 day/four-hour session class. Today it was a 1 day program so they were gone from 10:00 am until 3:00 pm (they gave them an hour for lunch and library time!). They did all kinds of experiments, some we have done at home and others were new to them. They came home with "gack", something made with baby powder, borax solution, glue and water. It is pretty neat stuff - it's like silly putty but a bit slimy. A highlight was that Mr. D returned as their teacher. Matt has had him at least three times and really enjoys his style of teaching. Matt was disappointed this year, however, because this is the last year he is eligible to participate as a student. He can, however, volunteer to be a helper and earn community service hours. He is excited about that!

Andy and Daniel are spending the night at his parents house as Jen and Trish, two of our co-workers, took 12 girls camping. They left around 1 p.m. so I had a couple hours to work on the house with NOBODY around! It was amazing! After I picked up Matt and Sarah we headed out to......you guessed it, STAPLES!!! We also headed off to WalMart as I had heard that they had one-subject spiral notebooks for .05 ! But ours had them for .10 :-(. That's still a great price, so I picked up 50 to get us started. $5.35 isn't too shabby a price for 50 notebooks! I also got a sneak peek at some of the backpacks for the year! OH! Some are just soooooo cute! I talked with Carisa and we are upping the price to $10 per backpack. I guess I always had $10 per backpack, but I found some great deals last year for under $10. With the money that we are saving from Staples doing their deals we can spend a little more on the backpacks themselves. I am going to start picking some of them up tomorrow. Just in case you are interested in donating a backpack, we purchase ones without characters - it just makes life easier for us!

Let the shopping begin!!!

Many of you know that we have a program called Reading Rocks! For those of you who don't know Reading Rocks is our summer reading program in which the kids that attend can earn points for reading and answering comprehension questions. It is a program that we hope will help kids retain their reading skills throughout the summer. At the end of the program we have a huge party to celebrate their accomplishments and give each child a backpack full of school supplies. Last year, as a favor to Carisa, I started shopping for the Reading Rocks Party while she went on vacation. While doing the shopping I discovered that I LOVED shopping for the supplies and finding the best deals! I think I managed to put together over 50 backpacks for about $15 a piece! One of the reasons I was able to put together the supplies so cheaply was because of Staples one cent deals! Last year they ran incredible deals for different things like folders, rulers, pencils, etc.! I also had a small army of helpers (Thanks Pat, Aunt Louise, Mom Schultz and others!) raiding their local Staples for the deals.

Well, the deals have returned and I have once again signed up for the responsibility of putting the school supplies together!!! Yesterday, on my way to and from visiting my friend Donna we hit three Staples! This week they have two pocket folders, 8 ct. Dixon pencils, and 0.5 oz Purell Hand Sanitizer all on sale for a penny each! You are able to get 10 folders, 2 packs of pencils, and 2 Purells costing a total of 15 cents! I had all the kids, including Daniel for a few, go through the line with their fourteen items! Look at all we got for $3.00!!!!We have 200 folders, 40 packs of pencils (320 pencils!), and 40 Purell! It was so much fun! Matt and Sarah are totally into it! We are planning on hitting some more Staples tomorrow as the deals are only good through Wednesday. I can't wait to see what all I'll get next week!

Weekend Recap

Whew! This weekend was a whirlwind of activity! It seemed as if we just went from one thing to the next to the next! Friday, July 4th, we went up to Andy's parent for the day. Even though it was damp and rainy, the kids had a great time running around. It was just us, Andy's brother, and his parents for a quiet indoor picnic - but the food was great! Corn on the cob!!! I LOVE it! Since it had drizzled all day we decided to head home and not stay for fireworks. We went home by way of the Schuylkill and while listening to KYW they kept announcing that the fireworks at the Art Museum would begin "any minute". We have always wanted to see the fireworks at the Art Museum so we decided to try it. We found a great parking spot and walked to the Central Library/ Franklin Institute area where we proceeded to wait for about an hour. So much for "any minute"! We did enjoy seeing them and Daniel LOVED them. He cried when he found out they were done! We headed back to the car and thought we were in good shape to get home, but it took us 1 1/2 hours to get home! We decided we would never do that again! If we would ever go again we would have to take the train!

Saturday I took Sarah and her friend Eliza to see "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl". They loved it! It was a really cute movie. It was so nice to relax and not worry about anything inappropriate showing up! A true "G" movie. We came home and Andy picked Sarah up to head off to the huge "Block Party" our church hosts every year. It was a huge success! I headed up at about 4 p.m. after Daniel woke up from his nap. There were so many faces many of us didn't recognize! That's a good thing! I left around 6 p.m. - just as the rain started coming down. It only lasted a few minutes, but Daniel was getting tired. Andy, Matt and Sarah came home around 8:30 p.m. after helping to clean up and get Frankford Avenue opened again. Needless to say, church was PACKED the next day. Please pray that those that made commitments will get the follow-up that they need and continue to come to church and Bible studies.

Sunday was a sweet time of rest! After church, we took the boys to get their haircut! Daniel's is SO short! I will post a picture as soon as I find the camera (Andy has taken it to take some ministry shots). Matt hates his haircut - too short for him. I think it will be good for camp next week. Easy to spy any ticks running around there! After we came home from the haircuts I took a nap with Daniel! I love Sunday afternoon naps! I haven't taken one in ever so long! It felt so good! It really helped get me ready for the week!

I finally was able to visit my friend Donna today! We have been trying to get together since the end of May! It was so great to see her and talk with her about what we have planned for our coming school year. We both plan to start August 1, 2008. Our kids can commiserate together! I usually start the school year with a field trip and then slowly bring the school work out the following week. I am starting to get excited about getting back into a routine and teaching again. My kids are NOT looking forward to starting up in four weeks. Pray for all of us to get on the same page and have positive attitudes for this coming school year!

Look at me!!!

Yes, he is wearing underwear! He managed to stay dry the entire morning yesterday! The afternoon was a bit rough, however! But we are officially potty-training! He will be 3 in 10 days and both Matt and Sarah were mostly trained at that point. I know each kid is different, but he totally knows what he is doing and can do it if he chooses - he just mostly chooses not to! He is really funny, though as he announces to everyone that he is potty-training! He really likes his Cars underwear. Mater is his favorite! He was very sad when he had an accident and though Mater would be mad at him. I assured Mater would forgive him and would give him another chance! I am really hoping by May 2009 he will be completely trained (night and day) as we are planning a big trip with my mom and I would so love not to drag Pull-Ups with us!

The Curry's were moving into their new house today and I offered to watch their kids. They arrived around 1:00 pm and stayed the afternoon. The kids had a great time playing in their rooms, with the Wii and then in the pool! They are all fish. Daniel was so desperate to get in the "big pool"! He kept assuring me he was big and could go in with the big kids, but I made him wait until Daddy got home to watch him. "Sweet relief" when Daddy finally did arrive! See his big smile?!?! He is really getting good about swimming around in his tube and not depending on Daddy to carry/ hold him.

Reading Rocks was great yesterday! We had 22 kids out for the first day! We will get new kids each week as they remember and friends start bringing one another. The first day is always crazy as we try to figure out where kids need to start, but it went incredibly smooth! I think Carisa and Trish have done an amazing job building this program up and making it totally applicable to the kids in the neighborhood as well as challenging to staff kids who benefit from a better education (most of them are homeschooled) than Philly generally provides. It is fun to see the kids progressing in just the short time (5 weeks) they are with us. Please pray that this program would really help the kids in the neighborhood build the necessary reading skills to progress in their education. Carisa is also in the midst of developing a more personalized tutoring program to help some of our more "at risk" kids. These are kids we know could do better if someone were to just help them along in the process. Please pray that we would find the right kids and the right tutors for the program to start in the fall.

My last month....

....of summer vacation! Where on earth did June go? It really flew! Of course the kids were sick for almost two weeks, but hopefully that will be the end of it for the year! July is looking as busy, if not busier, than June! I know August will be here in the blink of an eye and school will be starting up again! Please pray that I make the best use of my time in the next five weeks and get many of the projects I have on my list of things to do completed.

Reading Rocks starts today! I LOVE this program! I am so glad we have something to encourage the kids to better their reading skills throughout the summer. Carisa and Trish have allowed me to become part of the team and I am so excited! The program is Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30-2:30 pm. I will be helping out on Tuesdays. Andy will be coming home during that time as that is when Daniel takes his nap. The program has been totally revamped as many of the kids have grown-up and are now beyond the picture book stage. The program was getting too easy and they were racking up the points without really having to work for them. This year they are going to have to work - but I think the goals are totally obtainable - if they work! We have brought in chapter books and are requiring the older kids (at least most of the staff kids!) to read them. Matt and Sarah are excited about the new changes - what I have told them - they don't know everything yet! I hope it will be encouraging to Matt as he struggles with reading fast, and is constantly reminded of that by a friend who reads a lot faster. Pray that he will view this as a way to meet his own reading goals and not be discouraged and focus on those around him.

A note about Daniel - he has taken to calling Sarah "Honey"! I think this is hysterical! Andy and I occasionally call her honey and he has picked up on that. He is just too funny!