Summer Scrapbook: Super Cheap Week

This week I decided that we would be keeping our entertainment super cheap, as in FREE. I had two reasons for this decision. One, because I spent too much on Alyssa's birthday party and I am officially broke until tomorrow. Two, because my kids are starting to act very entitled. Every day they ask to go out to eat, to the zoo, to Six Flags....AND if I tell them I don't have any money they tell me to go to the bank and get some. It is becoming very obnoxious. So this is how we stayed busy without spending any money (okay, I spent $2) this week.

Monday July 26th

Monday was piano lessons. My visiting teacher, Kira, had asked if she could come over, but her visit would have interfered with piano. Since she lives right by piano lessons she asked if I just wanted to come to her house this month and visit. Since she lives over 20 minutes away, I thought it made sense for me to swing by while I was in the neighborhood. She made us lunch and then her girls kept my kids busy and out of sight so nicely, that I totally lost track of time. Two and a half hours later we finally left. I know VT appointments are supposed to be 15 minutes but I so enjoy chatting with Kira.

The rest of my afternoon was spent chatting with Valerie on the phone. She remarked that I am never home anymore and that it is crazy that I drag three kids around so much. It is crazy, but if I get my wiggles out now I may stay sane this winter? I have months full of days when I don't take them anywhere. I feel like we can't let a summer day pass by unlived. It was good to catch up on my Valerie chat time though.

And sadly, I have no pictures from Monday to share with you.

Tuesday July 27th

Tuesday we went to the beach. We were going to go to Lake Michigan but the kids voted to go to the little private beach again, with the Hawley girls. I told them that was fine but that it costs $12 to get in and I only had $2 in my wallet for the week. Alex and Alyssa each quickly offered to give me $5, and I took it. Is that evil? I had said I wasn't going to take any more money out of the bank, and I wanted them to see how quickly money goes. I think they even liked walking up and paying for themselves. Later Alyssa even snuck up to the concession booth and bought herself a treat. Maybe I need to give them each a certain amount every week and let them decide how to spend it, so that they will be the ones telling me when we're out of money.

I didn't take pictures of the beach because it was so crowded. I was focused on just keeping all the kids in range. I should have kept one eye on the sand toys too because we came home with less than half of what we had when we arrived.

After we got home and bathed, the older kids were watching a Spongebob movie while Chloe slept.

When it was over, Alex kept putting a parking cone on my head. I asked him to stop and he told me it was my costume. I turned to ask him what I was supposed to be with a parking cone on my head. That is when I noticed that he was covered in parking cones as well. He said , "I'm Patrick Star". What a nut! I videotaped him using his voices for Spongebob, Patrick, Mr. Krabs and Squidward but it keeps telling me an error occurred when I try to upload it? I guess the pictures will have to do for now.

Alex as Patrick Star (starfish)

Alyssa as Patrick. She claims that Patrick sometimes sucks on his hand like that?

And apparently she was feeling some post movie Spongebob creativity as well...

Wednesday July 28th

Wednesday we had a nice long library day. They were hosting a pirate party. We came home looking like this. Alyssa and Chloe look miserable but they were actually trying to make pirate faces. I promise they had fun.

After the pirate party we went and picked books, played on the kiddie computers and then in the ready to read room. When it was time to check out, we went and got Alyssa her very own library card. Of course then Alex wanted one, so he got one as well. We have always just had a family card. But the library says I have a book that I know I returned. This has happened before so now I make a list of what I have and check off books as I put them in the return slot. Another time they said I had a book so we stayed away from the library for several weeks looking for it. I finally went back to just pay for it and they said it had been returned the previous day. How is that possible when I hadn't been to the library in weeks? They thought it was probably reshelved without being checked in properly and then once someone new checked it out they finally took it off my account. I was happy that I didn't have to pay for the book, but not thrilled that I had to pay a massive late fee on something I turned in weeks earlier. I am not doing that again, so until they find this phantom book, we will use the kids' cards.

Thursday July 29th

Today we were going to go to Lake Michigan, but everyone was feeling lazy. The kids borrowed 2 DVD's of Harold and the Purple Crayon (or SuperHarold, as Chloe calls him)episodes from the library yesterday and they were watching one after the next all morning, occasionally taking breaks to play in the basement.

Chloe loves to ask Alyssa to play dolls and I love when Alyssa agrees.

After I heard the intro to Harold for the 8th or 9th time I was ready to move on to something else. I asked the kids if they wanted to make their own Harold story. I rolled out paper across the table and gave them each a purple crayon. Alex made Harold a treehouse with a giant ladder, a swimming pool, an airport, and a giant slide.

Alyssa said drawing a Harold story was boring and retreated to her room to read. She loves American Girl books and just started the Kirsten series. When she read that Kirsten is a Pioneer she said "Cool, I wonder if she knew Joseph Smith." I had to explain that Pioneers are not specific to the LDS faith, but I still thought that was cute.

And what about Chloe? Well...coloring all over the table was her cup of teas for 8o seconds until she noticed what I was doing on the other side of the room.

Notice the purple crayon still clutched in her little hand?

I tried to cut some crayon shapes out of the cookie dough so that we could decorate Harold's Purple crayon. The kids left all of their crayons plain. When I asked Alyssa if she was going to try to draw the wrapper she reminded me that Harold's crayon is unwrapped, and that I had done my crayons all wrong.

After cookies, I recruited Alyssa to help peel wrappers off our crayons to make crayon art. This was a good way to get rid of last years crayons. We always throw out our old crayons every year and restock when they are 25 cents a box during back to school sales.

Since we played inside most of the day, after dinner we took a bike ride and had our (almost) daily ice cream cones on the porch swing. My kids have got the ice cream cones down pat, but the biking is still SLOW going. I had visions of Alyssa and Alex being able to ride so well this summer that we could ride the bike trail for miles and miles. We are still just poking along with the training wheels, but I will say they are getting faster. I don't tip over trying to go slow enough to keep pace with them anymore. So yay for progress, and messy ice cream cone faces.