Spray park in the rain...

We went to the neighborhood spray park on a cloudy day to play and watched a spectacular set of storm clouds roll in. It started raining, so I told the kids we got the heavenly spray park turned on for us, too. Elijah thought that was awesome and kept running around. The others huddled under their towels under the tree until it stopped sprinkling, and then went right back to playing in the water. WHAT?!?

Oh what do you do in the summertime?

Apparently if you are a Lego mini figure, it's a great time to go tubing.

If you are a Starks child, playing Legos is the number one activity of choice. They disappear for hours to build things. They play quietly together. Excuse me while I go sing "Everything Is Awesome."

Happy birthday to me!

This year for my birthday I wanted to go to my favorite restaurant, a local Thai food place. Since it was a weekday, the kids and I picked Jack up from work and took him to lunch there with us. Skeptics, all of them. Jack wasn't sure the kids could behave in a "nice" restaurant. The kids were convinced that any known restaurant would be better than the new unknown I was forcing them to go to, so they asked if we could go to every restaurant and fast food joint they saw on the way, over and over again.

Elijah whined and cried and repeated loudly, "I don't like this place!" for the first ten minutes after we got there. We ordered for the kids because there were no kids' meals or American food whatsoever on the menu. Pad Thai, Sweet Rama, and fried rice are always delicious options, they just didn't know it yet. I got my favorite green curry. 

Then the soup arrived. The yummy ginger-onion-chicken-carrot soup in a clear broth that makes everything better. Everyone tried the soup, everyone loved the soup, and everyone wanted more soup. Then the food came. By the time we were ready to leave, Ellen, Rose, and Elijah had all repeatedly declared that they wanted to eat at my favorite restaurant for their birthdays, too. Happy birthday to me! 

I really need to remember this when I feel life taking me to a new unknown. Rather than go kicking and screaming, maybe I should trust that by the time it's all over, it will turn out to be a place that I really do love after all.

Another school year over

This year I volunteered to be a room mom for Ellen's classroom. Two other moms also volunteered, so we worked together. We helped with the Fall Fest fundraiser, Christmas and Valentine's Day parties, field trips, and field day. It was fun to get to know other parents and kids in Ellen's class.

Ellen and Jack both started out the year reading well, but they didn't do much independent voluntary reading. I started checking out chapter books and reading Ellen a chapter each night in bed. After a few chapters she asked if she could just finish it on her own because she couldn't wait another night to hear what would happen.

Ellen's self portrait

It worked so well with Ellen that I started looking for books to read with Jack. I read all the Sarah, Plain and Tall books, several Zach Nebulon books, and a few others. A couple of times I read a chapter and then said, "Jack, don't read ahead without me, okay?" I could tell which stories he really got into, because he read ahead anyway (which was the idea, of course). By the end of the year he was reading Magic Tree House books on his own in bed.

Jack's self portrait

Now that it's summer, there is enough light outside when the kids go to bed that they don't even need more than a light on in the hall. When it gets too dark to read, it's time to go to sleep. Summer reading is in full swing currently. One local library requires 20 hours, and another library has the kids read ten books at a time and lets them pick a prize or coupon. So we're doing both, and it has been really fun to read and see what the kids like to read. Ellen checks out Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew books. Jack likes Magic Tree House. Rose loves princesses and Pinkalicious, and Elijah will read/look at anything about vehicles, boys, animals and machines.

I love reading!