My husband brought home the Sunday comics from work after reading the following Baby Blues strip.

Baby Blues

By Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott

(click image to view larger)

If that doesn’t sum up our ten year old son perfectly, I don’t know what does!

Especially the hanging upside down in the chair.

A enjoying a nice afternoon in the kiddie pool at Grandmas!

I’ve been pretty disorganized all summer, basically ever since I had the new baby.

I need to start planning for the new school year, and I’d like to begin by getting myself organized. I have always used the Motivated Mom’s Planner in the past – absolutely the BEST planner I have ever used – but stopped while I was sick and pregnant.

My goals this week include:

1. Print personal planner pages for remainder of year – DONE
2. Print planner pages for kids – DONE
3. Fill in kid planner pages for first month of school

Almost there, yahoo!

I don’t know how I would survive – sanely – without our planners.

We use the Christian Home School Student Planner for the oldest kids. Makes life super easy for me. I fill in all of their assignments for the week, along with any notes, practices or meetings they may have. The kids simply look at their planner to see what assignments they need to finish. After each week is finished, I collect the assignment sheet and save it for record keeping purposes.

The Motivated Mom’s Planner helps me keep on track with house cleaning, cooking, Scripture study, meal planning and more. I love, love, love this system. I can’t remember how I came across it years ago, but it’s the best $10 I have ever spent.

How do you stay organized with school and home?

The 2010 All-star season has ended for our team, so baseball is now officially over for our family until next Spring.

I almost feel sad. Almost.

I love watching my son play, and will miss the conversations we have on the way home after practice and games.

This Saturday is our last swim meet, and we only have two more weeks of swim lessons.

Summer is coming to a close. I almost feel like I need a summer break from summer.

I need to rest up quickly though, football starts in two weeks!

Ahhhh… socializing is so fun!

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

For you Tucson area readers, you can find fireworks and other family friendly activities at the following local events:

Star Spangled Spectacular
Celebrate the Fourth of July with the Town of Marana. There will be fireworks and fun for the whole family.
When: July 4, 2010, 6:00-10:00pm (Fireworks start at 9pm)
Where: Crossroads at Silverbell Park, Marana, AZ
Cost: Free

“A” Mountain Fourth of July Fireworks
Tucson and Pima County residents may enjoy the “A” Mountain fireworks show from the Tucson Convention Center’s Parking Lot B (off Granada between Congress and Cushing St.). There will be food vendors (burgers, hot dogs, ice cream, refreshments and a beer garden) available between 7:00-9:00pm.
When: July 4, 2010, Fireworks start at 9:15pm
Cost: Free
Tucson on the Cheap has some recommended parking spots.

Red, White and Boom
Food, live music and fireworks.
When: July 4, 2010, 4:100-10:00pm (Fireworks start at 9:00pm)
Where: Pima County Fairgrounds, 11300 S. Houghton Road
Cost: Free, but you need a ticket – for list of ticket distributors go to www.KLPX.com, www.KFMA.com and www.KCMT.com

Tucson Toros baseball game and fireworks
The Tucson Toros take on the Yuma Scorpions. The game starts at 7 p.m. and is followed by a fireworks display.
When: July 4, 2010, 7:00pm (Fireworks begin after game ends)
Where: Hi Corbett Field, 3400 E. Camino Campestre
Cost: $6-$10

We haven’t decided which fireworks we will be viewing yet. We normally spend the day with family but everyone is out of town this year. Bummer!

Our latest addition decided to join us nearly 7 weeks early! Baby T was born on May 7th, weighing in at 4pds 6 ozs and 16 1/2 inches long. We have been blessed with another beautiful daughter, who was able to come home last week after spending 18 days in the NICU. She did great and is continuing to grow bigger every day.

Big brother and sisters are very happy to have her home and jump everytime she cries!

A HUGE thank you to all of our family and friends who helped us TREMENDOUSLY during these last few weeks. We appreciate everything!

Today was the first day of swim lessons! We signed up J (11) and E (4) for the first session. A (2) and B (10) will have a go in the next session. Makes it easier on Mom since different levels are at different times.

J can already swim but wants to get better at the different strokes. At first she was nervous about being the oldest in her class but I think she did fine. Hopefully this will help her gain enough confidence to join the swim team, which has been a long goal of hers.

E has been super excited about swim lessons ever since we signed her up last week. She was up early this morning, dressed and ready to go. I was nervous because E hardly does anything unless Mom is right by her side. But she seemed determined to go to class on her own. When the teacher called her level up, she jumped up and headed on over. I was very suprised! She did great… until he actually had them get in the water!

She withdrew behind my back, refused to get in and said she wasn’t ready for swim lessons. Arrrgghhh!!!!

I tried to talk her into it, but she refused. To her credit, she did make a dozen or so attempts to walk over to the pool where her class was. But each time she quickly came back to Mom.

Oh well! Maybe tomorrow!

I confess, I am not the most earth-friendly Mama on the planet.

As a child/teenager, I recycled religiously and volunteered every Earth Day at a local park cleaning up garbage. I always carried a garbage bag on my bike, and my Papa and I frequently took bike rides with the sole intention of picking up trash along the rode.

I still sing the words from a song we learned in 4-H WAY back when: Recycle, reuse, and revise… it’s the word of the wise!

As an adult though, I’m not so good. Although I use cloth diapers, I also occasionally use paper plates and convienance foods like juice boxes that quickly fill up our garbage can. I stopped recycling  our plastic and aluminum when we left California (where recycling opportunities are on nearly every street corner). And I have never taken my kids to an Earth Day event. Ever.

On the bright side, I HAVE taught my kids to garden, to sew, and to recycle most things. They love garage sales and Craigslist and we work to fix things as opposed to simply tossing and replacing broken items. And I am a FANATIC about picking up garbage.

This year, in conjunction with a requirement my son needs to fulfill for his Weblos badge, we will be walking our street and picking up garbage to celebrate Earth Day. Even though we live way out in the middle of no where, the road to our house is frequently littered.

For those of you looking to learn about Earth Day, here are some free worksheets:

Earth Day Theme Unit

Earth Day Crossword Puzzle

Global Water Supply Lesson Plans for Earth Day

How do you celebrate Earth Day? Do you do anything during homeschool to celebrate? Or as a family?

I had never heard of this before until last week. Apparently April 19th-25th is TV Turnoff Week.

From Wikipedia: TV Turnoff Week was launched by Adbusters magazine and other organizations in 1994 and championed by TV-Free America, which is now called Center for SCREEN-TIME Awareness (CSTA). CSTA is an organization that encourages all people to use electronic screened media responsibly and then have more time for a healthier life and more community participation.

Since we no longer have cable, the TV typically only comes on when the kids watch movies or play video games. And I’d really love to accidentally misplace the video games.

I miss TV sometimes, and will especially during the holidays. On the other hand, it does free up time and “force” the kids to find something else to do. They also miss out on all the commercials, which makes shopping with them more pleasant!

How many of you own/use a TV? Why or why not?