Monday is Picture Day!

Samantha Jane Atkins

May 7th was...

Sammie's 9th Birthday!

Sammie and my parents at grandparent's day. It fell on her b-day this year and she was so excited!

Sammie with her teacher on her b-day- Mrs. McCall. She was amazing.

We went to Nick and Elena's Pizza place in Overland, MO Friday night for her b-day dinner.

At the pizza restaurant- Sammie's expression over a kit kat bar from Tyler... easy to please. Looks like Tyler is having second thoughts about not keeping it for himself. Spencer's just plain trying to steal it.

Welcome to our world.

Sammie and her best friend Anna with a cute little penguin stuffed animal. Anna and Sammie have been friends since they were 3!

Hannah Montana Lip gloss! Every 9 year old girl's dream.

Meghan and James at the party.

All of us!

Thomas was there, he just didn't make it into any of the pictures.

It was great to see Laura Bridges.

Every now and then she makes an appearance at one of my kid's birthday parties. :)

Then on Saturday we had a family party at Godfrey Park in Jacksonville.

Here's Sammie and Grandma Atkins freezing at the park.

Grandma Burnett and Sammie freezing too!

Since it was mother's day weekend we went out to dinner with Darrin, Alexis, Parker, and my parents at Steak N Shake. Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's to visit.

Parker and Mom making the same face while Tyler sneaks into the picture. He just can't stand not being apart of a picture.

Very cute pic. of Sammie and Parker.

I love this little guy!

Also, Brian and Laura came over on Brian's b-day on the 5th and we celebrated Cinco De Mayo with a taco bar and had chocolate cake and presents. We don't see them as much as we'd like with everyone's schedules, but it is so great having family in town.

Sunday: Week of fun!

First things first... my favorite thing of the week:


The most fun thing for me is that I instituted my new Harry Potter inspired "House Points" for the summer. Each kid gets a point for every good thing they are caught doing and get a point taken away for bad behavior. Around here that means that if I have to count to 3 for you to stop doing the dopey thing you are doing then you get a time out and a point taken off. Too bad I can't magically keep track. I actually have to manually pull out the magic marker and put a tally mark under their name. sigh.

So, other than that amazing idea here are the highlights:

Monday night Meghan and James came over for Family Home evening with their twin dogs Nipper and Indiana. Gizmo had a blast with them! I've taken to using our 1970's manual the church puts out. The pictures are funny, but it makes it easy to choose what lesson to do- something that I have issues with.


Wednesday was the last day of school! This marks my final day of being room mom for Samantha's class.

Celebrate good times COME ON!

It actually was not as bad as I thought it would be. I was actually fairly good at it and it is way cool to walk into the classroom and have 18 kids yell- "Mrs. Atkins!!!! Yeah!" It's quite a confidence booster. (especially when I am carrying 7 pizza's like I was on Wednesday for the end of the year pizza party)

Thursday was our first official day of summer break and I celebrated by barely being home. I had 2, count them, 2 babysitters! I was gone for a brunch for the morning and for a few hours with Sammie in the afternoon to get her head looked at.

(by the way- it was good appointment- we go back in 6 weeks and everything is lookin good. I'll post a new picture of what it looks like tomorrow)

Friday started Thomas' vacation!

We celebrated by going to the opening night of Aqua Port! We all had our first swimming headaches of the season-or maybe it was because we stuffed ourselves with free ice cream pops and snow cones and hot dogs. Good times.



Saturday we went to Grandma Hembrough's 87th birthday party.

I should have bought her this shirt:


I'm sure there's much we don't know about sweet grandma, but I'm pretty sure this is true.

What a great lady. She's pretty amazing. We all gave her cards and this is what the kids wanted to put in her card about what they liked best about her:

Tyler- "She's beautiful"
Sammie- "She's nice"
Spencer- "She's my grandma!"

I love Spencer's because he says it with so much enthusiasm and with a slightly "well duh" tone of voice. I love her because she's my grandma- Duh!

I really enjoyed seeing all of Thomas' extended family on that side. Beth was a master knitter and showed me some great new tricks and I found a kindred spirit in Cory- we must have talked about books for a good hour. He was wearing a Ravenclaw t-shirt. I want one in Hufflepuff. That's the house I always thought I'd be in. He's not a Twilight fan, but I won't hold that against him because he loved "Hunger Games" and "Catching Fire" and the Percy Jackson books (he was actually reading "The Red Pyramid"- the first novel in the new series by Rick Riordan) I am so jealous.

Thomas bonded (drooled) over motorcycles with Jeff.

Saturday morning a few exciting things happened around here before we could get out of town.

There's a new camera in the house:

#1. Sammie and Thomas hurried up and practiced piano together about an hour and a half so she could take her new birthday camera to grandma's party. She had picked out a camera to spend her b-day money on, but was about $15 short so we covered the cost, but she had to earn it. She had done everything on the list except practice 5 times on the piano without complaining. The camera came like 2 weeks ago and has been sitting on my desk in the box. I'm excited because now someone else will take some pictures around here!

#2 Sammie has to get glasses! I have a picture of what they look like on my cell phone camera, but it's grainy and weird so I'll just wait to post a picture when we get them next week, but WOW. Carrying on the Atkins family tradition of getting glasses in 4th grade I see. Let it be said that it is all Thomas' genes at work here. I didn't get my glasses until jr. high.

This was an exceptionally long post. I'll try to stream line this in the future. Apparently it's a good idea to set aside a half an hour to read the Sunday posts on our little blog.

I'm a Weight Watcher, I'm a Weight Watcher!

Whenever I say the phrase: "I'm a Weight Watcher" I have a little laugh to myself. Do this with me: Sing "I'm a Weight Watcher" to the theme to Wheel of Fortune 1989 promo! Link up below: "I'm a Wheel Watcher" I'm easily entertained.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y97ou3CAF8c

I don't know if that's taken from a real song or not, but I love it.

Anyway, I am a weight watcher member and have struggled with weight my whole life. I am trying to loose 20 pounds. So far I'm only going up instead of down. I set very complicated goals for myself and then when I don't follow that plan exactly I get frustrated and down on myself. So, my goal for this week is to set doable goals. Eat less and move more sounds like a good place to start. Where have I heard that one before?

Another thought - Maybe if I stop thinking about (obsessing, focusing, avoiding) food so much I'll stop eating so much. It's worth a shot!

My exercise log from last week:

Monday- 75 minutes cardio combo of elliptical machine and treadmill

Tuesday- 45 minutes treadmill

Wednesday- 30 minute walk with Gizmo

Thursday- 20 minute walk with Gizmo

Friday- Cardio Dance workout at home 45 minutes- that was interesting! No injuries though. Whew! There was a close one with Gizmo at one point. Almost cha cha cha'd on his tail!

Saturday- OFF! * still walked the dog

Friday: What I like about YOU!

As the first post of this category I was in a conundrum about who to choose for this coveted spot of first Friday post. I've decided to go the unconventional route: I choose *gasp* MYSELF! (this picture is 2 years old. It's the only one I could find on my computer.)

It goes against the grain to toot my own horn so to speak, but I do believe that if we want to see our children love themselves we have to lead by example. Constantly saying things like: "I don't look good in this" or "ARG, I'm having such a bad hair day" or "I' can't do that" is not a good way to be that example. It is so easy to think of things that we think we need to improve isn't it? Well, let's challenge ourselves today and think of a short list of things we think we are pretty darn good at!

Here's my list: (in no particular order)

1. Planning activities- specifically thinking of details and following through

2. Finding joy in re reading much loved books

3. Making jokes to ease a difficult or tense situation

4. I don't get nervous when I speak in public

5. Cooking/meal planning/grocery shopping on a budget- Making a grocery list is one of my favorite things to do. I'm not joking.

This was harder than I thought it would be. With most of these I was wanting to add a "but..." or "because" . It took a lot of will power not to add the negative behind it. Go ahead and psychoanalyze. I can take it.

Thursday's Organizing Challenge: summer time management

First day of summer break! Here are a few pictures to mark the occasion.

This is our Atkins Family Summer wall. For Family Home Evening this week we wrote down things we wanted to do this summer.

Tyler's still in bed.

Gizmo resting after his walk. He's been up since 5:30!

Welcome to Summer! She woke up on her own, I just snapped the picture right at that moment. he he. Sammie and Tyler have been begging me to let them sleep in the same room all spring so we did it on the first official summer break night. I think they are going to sleep in Sammie's room tonight.

Spencer seems less than thrilled to be awake.

Today is the first full day home with the kids for summer break. With that comes a new routine and the challenge of keeping everyone happy for many more hours of the day than I am use to. My organizing challenge for myself this summer starting today is to fill the following 3 categories each day:

1. Something Fun! I want each of the kids to look at some activity from today and be able say-"Wow, that was fun!" (It would be wonderful if it was the same activity, but let's be realistic here)

2. Something Productive! Laundry is on the list for today. It seems to be the thing that gets pushed aside when other activities demand attention.

3. Something Outside! I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to weather so it may be a short trip to the dog park, but it'll be outside

Our Journey

I felt like I needed to change a few things about our blog. I want to put out some information about the different challenges we have had as a family and the journey it has taken us on. I look around for inspiring blogs now and then to help motivate me to do what I feel is best for myself and my family. I guess my goal with this new name is to shift that focus to inspiring myself. Here's the basic plan: (you know I love a good list)

Monday- Picture day! (mainly for family since we live out of state)
Tuesday- Advocating for your children of all abilities
Wednesday- Food allergy recipes
Thursday- Organizing Challenge for myself
Friday- "What I like about you" (focusing on a member of my family)
Saturday- I'm a weight watcher- Right now I feel like I'm taking that literally by watching my weight pile back on.
Sunday- Family fun recap- what we did fun this week as a family!

So! Today is Wednesday: Here's an egg/peanut free recipe that I found on one of my favorite blogs:

www.cookingoncloverlane.blogspot.com

I also really like her other blog:

http://memoriesoncloverlane.blogspot.com/

I think I'm going to make it for our church Memorial Day Picnic! I'll report back next Wednesday on if it was a hit and post a picture as well. It has all of my basic requirements for baking- easy, most of the ingredients I have on hand on any given day, and oh, it's easy.

Caramel Layer Cocoa Squares
1 14oz package of individually wrapped caramels, unwrapped (I'm going to use caramel ice cream topping instead based on a comment from the blog- much easier)
2/3 cup evaporated mik, divided
1 18oz package chocolate cake mix
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.
In a heavy saucepan, combine caramels (or caramel sauce) and 1/3 cup of evaporated milk.
Cook over low heat, stirring contantly, until smooth; set aside.
Grease a 9x13 inch pan.

In a large bowl, stir together cake mix, butter and a little less than 1/3 cup evaporated milk by hand until dough forms.

Press half of the dough into the prepared pan, reserving the rest.
Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over the crust, pour the caramel mixture evenly over the chips.

Crumble the remaining dough (it's ok if it's clumpy!) over the caramel layer and return to oven.

Bake for an additional 15 to 18 minutes in the preheated oven.
Cool in refrigerator to set the caramel before cutting into bars.
(I cut them into tiny fudge like squares so they go a long way.)

I'm a big caramel fan. Not sure how this one will fit in with my weight watchers exactly, but maybe since I'm taking it to a party and not eating the whole dang pan I'll be OK.

National Chocolate Chip Day and so on...

I like to look at the weirdo "days" that someone somewhere deemed important enough to have a day dedicated to them. I recently found this website that talks about all of these special days. For example, Did you know that earlier this week on the 16th we should have celebrated National Chocolate Chip Day? I feel like I missed out! Any excuse to make chocolate chip cookies will work for me!

Today is "No Dirty Dishes Day"- does that mean we have to catch up on our dishes or that we don't have to do dishes? I guess it's open to interpretation.

For your information, it's also "Date your Mate" month so take your sweetie out for a date before the month is over!

Some to look forward to next month include:

June 1st- Flip a coin day

2nd- National Rocky Road Day

4th- Hug your cat day

6th- National Gardening day or Yo Yo day- you can pick I guess.

7th- National Chocolate Ice Cream Day- YEAH!

9th- Donald Duck Day

12th- Red Rose Day

18th National Splurge Day!

and my favorite so far-

on the 19th is National Hollerin' Contest Day (always the 3rd Saturday in June by the way) Holler at your kids as much as you want that day I guess... or try to track down a pig caller.

Sammie's Art Show entry

Sammie's injury