What's My Kid Wearing Today

We are gearing up for a few days of very hectic travel this week.  We are driving up to Columbus, OH on Wednesday for Nationals.  Ashni fences on the 4th.  Then we have to turn around and shoot back to Jackson, MS on the 5th so that Jena can fly to Paris on the 6th. So the last few (and the next couple of) days have been filled with errand running.  Today we got a little down time to hang out with Jena and Ashni's girl scout troop.  We went to one of those paint your own pottery place.  I have never had the desire to go to one of those places, but the kids had fun.

This is what Zion wore (outside of the pottery place).  She decided that she needs to start carrying a bag.  It currently contains chapstick, a bottle of water, a journal and a pencil.  She wrote in that journal all day.

Shoes - previously featured

leggings - Circo ($.99 at Goodwill)

denim shirt dress - Wrangler ($.99 at Goodwill)

bag and headband - handmade by a friend (free)

Total Outfit (without shoes) - approx. $2

Ahhhh, summer.

Tomorrow is the first day of summer!  Yay!  So, I figured I'd share some things that we've done over the past couple of weeks (as well as some cute outfits).

We took a group field trip to a small local farm and look at the sweet little farm girl that I found there!  The girls had a great time.  They picked and ate blueberries, fed sheep and horses, milked goats and fed the babies.  Zion gathered eggs and diligently (and carefully) carried them in the little basket for the rest of the trip.  She was excited to bring these eggs home and have them for dinner.

Summer has provided us with much more time to spend with our friends.  There's nothing better than sweet friends, sprinklers, Popsicles and backyard picnics!

Then there's this.  This girl is the sweetest little human being.  And this frilly, sheer floral top (Guess - $.99 at Goodwill) is one that she LOVES!  Look at that face...

Ashni is discovering her love of accessories.  This fedora gets worn a lot.  She looks so grown up when she accessorizes.

My girls are plagued (ha) with long legs and super thin waists and my husband is plagued with his disdain for them showing too much skin.  This makes buying shorts difficult.  Bijou, on the other hand, is just the right size for her shorts to fit in the waist, but not be too short.  Yay!

pink shoes - Keds ($2.99 at Goodwill)

shorts - not sure of the brand ($1.49 at Goodwill)

tank top - Land's End (free, hand me down)

Total outfit - approx $4.50

Our annual Father's Day spread.  Every year on Father's Day, I make my husband a spinach, portobello and Gruyere quiche.  It only happens once a year and it is a huge hit every time.  This year, we also had roasted potatoes, cherries with fresh whipped cream (thanks Jena) and the girls squeezed two dozen oranges for juice

School, of course, continues over the summer.  Bijou has been working on adding two digit numbers with carrying and Zion is still working on her letter sounds.  She really wants to learn to read.

It's always fun to find pictures like this on my phone.  This is what happens when kids sneak and use your phone while you are getting dressed.  (Notice the stockpile of Girl Scout cookies in the background.)

The playground is a good (free) way to kill time between afternoon activities.  We spent a little time there this afternoon.  I love this lucha libre shirt (Boo Homes - $1.49 at Goodwill) that Bijou is wearing.  LOVE IT!

Zion at the monkey bars

desert boots - Crew Cuts ($2.99 at Goodwill)

trousers - Old Navy ($.99 at Goodwill)

popsicle tank - Gap ($.99 at Goodwill)

Total outfit - approx $5

This is what big sisters are for - to wear little sisters like hats! 

pink sneakers - Vans (previously featured)

shorts - Judith March ($2.49 at Goodwill)

t-shirt - Cherokee (free hand me down)

Total outfit (without shoes) - approx $2.50

We leave in two weeks to take Ashni to fence in the Summer National Championship in Ohio.  Jena leaves for France two days after.  We will go to St. Louis at the end of July to pick up my mother for a visit.  There will be field trips and play days and workshops to fill up all the rest of our long summer days. I'm looking forward to having a great and productive summer!

SCORE!!

Today, we had a yard sale to raise a little extra money for the girls from Jena's ballet class to take to France. Several families brought things and Jena made fresh squeezed lemonade to sell.  I think they did pretty well for themselves (I haven't heard the final count yet).  It took a lot of willpower, but I did NOT buy a ton of things from the yard sale (be proud of me), but I did score an AWESOME dollhouse complete with furniture (porcelain toilet and sink, too) and a family.  I was not thrilled with the color (it was bright purple with turquoise shutters and yellow and blue trim), so I brought it home and painted it a pale yellow (because that's what we had in the garage).  Now, I think it looks like a sweet little island cottage and Zion is thrilled!

What's My Kid Wearing (in 95 degrees)

It hot.  There's really nothing more that I can say about it.  We went from early spring weather to mid summer weather over night.  Today, we did a lot of running around and carting kids from place to place (library volunteer hours, ballet supplement classes, writing workshop, fencing, garden work).  Apparently summer will NOT be the time that I get to slow down (or stay cool)... Here's what Zion wore today.  All of these pieces have been featured before except the shoes.  We just got those at Goodwill yesterday.

Desert Boot - Crew Cuts ($2.99 at Goodwill)

This outfit was super cute with her pink checkered hat, but it was WAY too hot to wear a hat today.  I think it may be shoved under the car seat somewhere...

What's My Kid Wearing Today

We took the kids to breakfast (well, brunch really) yesterday.  It is becoming a Sunday routine because it seems that we are too lazy to get up on Sunday mornings and cook.  Eh... Anyway, I thought the girls looked pretty cute yesterday.  I showed Ashni how to put her hair up so that she could wear the fedora that she has.  She was pretty excited to finally get wear it.

Ashni

pink shoes - Vans ($3 at Salvation Army)

jeans - Gap ($1.49 at Goodwill)

blue and white striped t-shirt - Ralph Lauren, I think (free from a hand me down bag)

blue button up shirt - Gap ($1.49 from Goodwill)

fedora - Not sure of the brand ($.59 at Goodwill)

Total Outfit - approx. $7

Bijou

sandals - Elephantito ($2 at Salvation Army)

shorts - Cherokee ($.99 at Goodwill)

orange t-shirt - Roxy ($1 at Salvation Army)

Total Outfit - approx. $4

Completely NOT staged room redo pictures

I feel as though I am turning into my mother.  When I was young I could guarantee that I would come home from a friends house or the mall and our house would be completely rearranged.  I used to say that was the reason that I never snuck out.  I wouldn't be able to find my way back through the house when I came back in.  I, on the other hand, despise rearranging furniture.  My furniture will be in the same position for YEARS. But as I get older, I find myself waking up in the morning with these brilliant rearranging plans.  It's like my subconscious is drawing up blueprints while I sleep.  Well, on Monday, I woke up with the brilliant idea to pair and older girl with a younger ones in their bedrooms.  To my surprise they thought this was a brilliant idea too and actually decided who would sleep with who WITHOUT fighting!  Bijou and Ashni chose to share and room and Jena and Zion share a room.  So we set about shifting toys, clothes and shoes between the two room.  We separated the little girls' toys so that they each have 5 or 6 bins in their rooms (and they can play together in either room) and did the same with the older girls' things.  So far, it is working like a CHARM.  The little girls are going to sleep faster at bedtime because they don't have the other to keep them awake (they go to bed an hour before the older girls).  And the older girls have been making sure that their rooms stay tidy, which has never happened.  I think my mother would be proud.  These pictures are not staged, so it has its "lived in" feel.  But, this in the neatest either of these rooms has been (without my constant nagging) in ages.

Jena and Zion's Room

Jena and Zion share a full sized bed, which you would think would be a pain, but they all really like to sleep together.  They certainly didn't get that from me, but it's cute to see them spooning in the middle of the night.

Zion's tiny boots next to Jena's boots are just the cutest thing ever!

Bijou and Ashni's Room

Why yes, that is a ballet barre in their room.  It was given to us by a friend.  You can't see it in the pictures, but there's a dance floor there too.  They should never be out of practice!

Crates make great, free book storage and also works as stairs to get into the top bunk.  They are attached to one another with zip ties.

Keeping the wee one busy

We officially have a 6th grader, a 5th grader, a 1st/2nd grader and a preschooler in our house.  That means four different abilities, four different learning styles and four different personalities.  Zion is just getting to the stage where she wants to "work" like her older sisters.  I've made sure to provide lots of things that she can work on independently.  This way, she can keep busy while I give lessons to her older sisters.  She has been working with Cuisenaire rods for a while now.  She loves just playing with them and building towers.  She know that they represent certain numbers, but for the most part, she just enjoys playing with them.  For the past few days, we have been working on making numbers with the rods.  I write a couple of number on a piece of paper and she makes them.  We have been working on the teens.  She uses the pink ten rod and then adds the ones to make her number.  Once she had made all of the numbers with tens and ones, we replace the ones with the rod with the matching value (four ones cubes for a four rod, six cubes for a six rod, etc.).  She really enjoyed measuring the various rods with the little one cubes.

She also has been exploring tangrams.  Mainly, she has been making her own shapes and creations, but today she discovered that she can use to book and copy the shapes in the book.  This kept her busy for a good 30 minutes once she figured it out.  We have several sets of tangrams, so of course she had to make each puzzle with every color that we had.

And, apparently, pants are frowned upon in our house...