Humming Bird ~> Photo 38

Have you ever seen a Humming Bird nest?

I'm trying to think back to all the animal shows I have seen and all the animal/nature photographs in magazines and I don't recall seeing one so stumbling onto one in the yard is very exciting!  If you search the web you will find tons of pictures of humming birds and their nests but I never thought about searching for what one might look like till we saw this little guy flying in and out of his tiny little home.  I am quite curious on how it was made, what it is made out of, and did the humming bird make it?  I wonder if there are eggs in it!?!  How cool would that be to watch little humming birds grow up!  I really wish I could get a better angle on the nest to see inside it.  Oh well, this is a pretty cool find and snap shot!

~Love~Smile~Enjoy~Happiness~

~Ra~

Photo # 37 ~ First Day of Summer Vacation!

We are FREE!  Free as a bird!!!

Well for a little while since school is out for summer vacation and now we struggle to entertain the kids.  On the plus side I get to sleep in a little which helps since I am a night kinda of person not a morning one!  Lol.  

I did jumped right back into something I started last year, them waking up to a notebook at their spot at the table with a list of what I expected out of  them that day and this year Lila gets a "Chore Notebook" too!  And there was a smidge of grumbling but it was amazing how fast they went through it so that they could have their precious "1 Hour Of Game Time" (yes we are mean parents and crazy)!

(Lila's first chore list and she was excited to have one like the boys!)

I am also going to change the dinners the boys do once a week from they help me make a dinner they pick to me helping them!  I will also now include Lila in helping me make a dinner once a week which means she will pick out a dinner and have to get a shopping list together, go with me to the store and like her brother learn to shop with coupons and/or good deals, and then take those items and make a meal!  The boys have been doing this every summer for the last couple of year and I hope that they have learn enough to now be in charge of the kitchen giving me a little bit of a cooking break.  My goal is to have them more knowledgeable than I was when I went out on my own and they will be able to feed themselves without the help of the fast food industry.  

I just hope we get into a good grove over the summer, routines are very helpful and are very hard over here.  It seems as soon as we get into a good routine something throws us off, camp or the start of a new school year.  Once upon a time, before we had Lila and the boys were very young, we lived an apartment with pool and I was watching a neighbor's son over the summer, we had an awesome routine!  Now it seems I just can't  achieve the same consistent productive routine and it has been 6 summer since we moved from that awful apartment!  Lol!  So wish me luck!!!

It is going to be another very busy summer.  As the kids get older there is just more to do!  Jesse will be taking Drivers Ed, Lila will be doing Summer School, and Cole starts a new calendar as he start middle school.  I hope to add play dates and pool dates (and maybe a date night or to with my hubby since I loved doing that for my bday and want to do more with just him) and if we are lucking a camp or 2.  But we will have to wait and see as the dust settle from our 2012-2013 school year!

Thanks for reading my very long post today 

(if you got this far!)

And remember

~Love~Smile~Enjoy~Happiness~

(a daily struggle for me)

~Ra~