I was thinking . . .

Summer was supposed to be, going to be, meant to be . . . slow, relaxed, restful. Hmmmm. So far, not so good. But, we've had lots of adventures. I guess that's maybe what summer is supposed to be.

The birthday king with his court

I had a big, long to-do list to start out my week.

My big girls had their hair straightened and cut (it didn't last)

But then: My neighbor/friend had a major crisis, Ellie had day camp, Erin got sick, Emma had a birthday, we had a Sunday school class farewell for a member going to Colombia for 3 years, Everett & I had an anniversary, I had a t-b test for my new job (!!!) . . . oh, and the van had an oil change.

Emma decided to manually move the fan while the electricity was off

So, one little thing has gotten crossed off my big, long to-do list.

Tie-dying adventure (not on the list :)

But right at this moment. I'm at peace with that :)

Our table during the electricity outage . . peace!

My Favorite Things

I think I'll do a weekly post, for the summer anyway, called My Favorite Things. I have lots of favorite things, depending on the day. Today is my husband's birthday, but my post has absolutely nothing to do with that, although he is definitely right up there at the top of my favorite things list. (I was going to post a photo of him, but blogger doesn't seem to want to put photos in right now). I'm not really thinking people-"things" though.

Anyway, right at this moment in time, the recipe below is one of my very favorite things. Our kids, especially the youngest, love sub sandwiches. They like going to that restaurant that specializes in sub sandwiches, but it hurts me to pay almost $4 for a turkey and cheese sandwich. Plus, when we had a garage sale last summer, my sister was selling this cool baguette pan and it works great for this recipe. Anyway, I tried buying lunchmeat and "sub" shaped bread at the store, and that was somewhat successful. We found a bread called Sweet Italian Subs at one store and the kids loved it, but it wasn't always available and was, again, kind of expensive. So, I found the recipe below at Recipe Zaar. It's a hit, and it's so easy! If you have a bread machine with a dough setting anyway. Give it a try. I'm going to use whole wheat flour next time (to which the kids yell NOOOOOOO, but I'm going to do it anyway :).

Sweet Italian Bread

1 cup water
1 T. olive oil
7 T. sugar
1 egg
3 1/2 c. flour
2 t. yeast

Put all ingredients into bread machine. Mix on dough setting. When cycle is complete, put dough onto greased surface and let it rest for 20 minutes. After dough has rested, cut in half (or however many loaves you want . . I made individual sub loaves). Form into two long loaves (I like to cut little slits along the top of the loaf to make it more like that sub restaurant). Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes. Brush with butter.

Yum. It's even good by itself.

It was!

Fun, that is. Everything didn't go exactly as I thought it would in my head.
But I think everyone had fun. I love the group color experience paintings. We used only yellow, red and blue. And we got messy, very messy. There is carpet in the room we used. It has paint on it now. And some of the walls do, too.
The chalk balloons . . . fun. I'll do it again. It, also, didn't go exactly as planned. I would do it a little differently next time. Cars had some chalk on them :) It'll wash off easily.

We made most of our own liquid chalk. Very fun. Equal parts water and corn starch. Mix well and add food coloring. We used neon and regular food coloring. Filling the balloons with chalk was a challenge . . we ended up using bicycle water bottles and stretching the balloon over the opening and sqeezing. It was pretty messy, especially when the balloon broke or there was a weak spot. I'd recommend doing it outdoors, although we did it at our kitchen table after it started to rain. It washes out easily. Not sure how I'll get it out of the kitchen carpet, but I really hate that carpet and want to pull it up anyway. One more reason to do it sooner rather than later, right? I'd also recommend not filling them as far ahead as we did as the chalk all settled and the balloons needed to be shaken well before throwing, otherwise they were chunky. I think the kids had fun, which is what it was all about (the grown-ups/big kids having fun was just an added perk). It's all about the process.

Fun!

Our summer has started out so busy I'm thinking in one word, one syllable sentences.

I'm preparing, with my kid's help, for an art experiences (music, drama, movement and visual arts) camp for pre-schoolers this week.

We're ending each day with a group activity and I'm in charge tomorrow.


We're going to do water balloon sidewalk chalk "performance" art ala Jackson Pollack.

Tonight we got the balloons ready. It was messy work. Can you see the speckles of liquid chalk all over her?
That was only the beginning.

Hopefully, it will work, and hopefully I'll have pictures.