How we are spending our Summer Vacation...

When Preston had his last day of school I felt a little bit guilty that a lot of moms on Facebook were saying things like "I'm so glad its Summer, I missed having my kids home!" and I was over here counting the days till school started again....
Not that I don't love Preston, but school breaks up our day, stimulates him, calms him and is just fun.
So once I stopped feeling like a bad mom I sat down and researched some fun cheap things for us to do this Summer so that when school starts in 63 days we all can look back and think of what a fun Summer we had. 

Mesa Public Schools offers a free breakfast and lunch for kids under 18 so we have been taking advantage of that. The boys love going to the "big kid school" and the fact that they get extra fun cereal that we don't normally buy is a great bonus. Maybe someday they will try one of the other breakfasts but for now they are happy with Trix and Cocoa Puffs. 

And I guess Preston is giving me that "im so cool" look because he's in a Junior High. 

We, meaning Jaxton and Lucas, spend a lot of time doing "water play". Bath time for Lucas resets him when he is fussy during the bewitching hour and Jaxton loves to play in the water with him. Bonus for me is that I can clean the kitchen or do something else in there while they play. 

We are working a lot this Summer on fine motor skills for all the boys and Sensory objects. I put together a little board for Lucas with all kinds of fun textures and noisy things. He really likes it. So much so that he's already bitten a chunk out of the top and ripped off the flower, paper clips and the key chains. 

Seriously his eyes are huge. 

Picture those eyes filling with tears when he wants something he shouldnt have.
Kills me. 

Jaxton is a fan of pipe cleaners and so he works on putting them in the bottle and out. Yesterday he discovered that he can bend them around his fingers and that pretty much rocked his world. 

Sometimes there are shark attacks. 

"Shark eat you. Nom nom nom."

They love playing with shaving cream which I also love since cleaning it up is SUPER easy. 

Preston practices writing his letters. His goal this summer is to be able to write out his last name not just his first. 

One day they dug for "buried treasure" in a pan of rice. 

We try to do different things for lunch since Jaxton isn't a sandwich eater & they loved the ice cube trays.
It also taught them about bartering. I believe Preston traded his marshmallows for Jaxtons hotdog and then traded his string cheese for Jaxtons crackers. Meanwhile Jaxton just ate his chocolate chips. 

We made popsicles which were a big hit and got them to eat their dinner really quickly that night. 

We spend a lot of time cuddling and reading books. 

We made moon sand (baby oil +flour) which is really fun! We made snowmen, walls, towers, volcanoes and buried cars. The only downside to this one was that after we cleaned it up off the floor it was still pretty slick thanks to the baby oil and there were a few wipeouts as a result. Worth it. 

And of course every night we go out to water the gardens and Lucas gets his pre-bedtime swinging in. 

Its been a really fun Summer so far! And LOTS more fun things are planned in the future. The library is doing a lot of fun things this summer that we are signed up for. Home Depot & Lowes have Summer workshops on Saturdays that the boys really like. We might try going to the movies on a day I feel brave. Preston has a 4 day day camp next week. We picked up lots of supplies at the Dollar Store the other day to make more crafts, work on schoolwork and other stuff but we are having a really great time!