A great quote

A little while ago I came across a great quote.  It really resonated with me. 

"If a child is given love, he becomes loving...
If he's helped when he needs help, he becomes helpful.  And if he has been truly valued at home...he grows up secure enough to look beyond himself to the welfare of others."
                                          ~Dr. Joyce Brothers, 1974
When I read this I thought how true it is.  I certainly hope that my parenting reflects this in my children. I believe that we are succeeding in this quest.

Maybe you are inspired too?  What is your favorite quote?

Summer time fun!

Don and the kids are at a birthday party so I have some nice quiet time to catch my readers up on our summer so far.  Do I really have readers to catch up?

The summer has been HOT.  So hot that Jerry started climbing into the bathtub to cool off.  It's funny because he never goes in the tub when we've tried to give him a bath!

The kids have spent a ton of time just playing together.  Sometimes I've been a little bored because they are so busy playing with each other that I'm ignored! We've also put together a lot of puzzles. Somehow I have ended up putting together many of the 100 piece ones that we've started.  Katie is becoming pretty good at putting together the 100 piece puzzles.  We've spent a lot of evenings playing Uno as a family before bed.

It's always fun to play with freshly made "kool" dough!

It's so nice that they can play board games together now.

We had a big evening out to see The Lion King at Mandalay Bay.  We all really liked it. It's a pretty long show and  Alex got a little restless, but the kids both really enjoyed it.  There has been lots of talk about the show around here.  After the show we went out to dinner at one of our favortie places, Strings.  We don't go out to eat very often and both kids got to pick a dessert.  They thought it was great!

He ate the WHOLE thing!

Our next adventure was our annual trip to San Diego. This time we had a nice visit with my cousin Theresa and her girls. The kids love swimming in their pool and Alex especially loves the slide. They also got to play some games with Leah and Rachel. It's always nice to get to spend time with family.  The weather was amazing, it was actually a little chilly in the evenings, but we weren't complaining!  We had a great day at La Jolla beach where the kids built and detroyed a great sandcastle. We took a drive up the road and spent a day at Wild Rivers water park. The kids had a blast! We spent a day at the fair where we met up with another one of my cousins, Andrea and her son Logan. The kids road the rides for close to 7 hours. We did manage to sneak in some time at the commercial building and checking out the animals.

Playing a game of Sequence with Leah and Rachel.

The kids and their sandcastle.

I think the tube slide was their favorite!

Imagine Alex's excitement when he saw this monster truck parked outside the fair entrance!

Alex and Logan, their birthdays are a day apart. Logan on August 2nd and Alex on the 3rd.

We've enjoyed lots of swimming this summer. We've been fortunate to go swimming at lots of friends houses and finally got our own pool open for business. We love our above ground pool, but it's not exactly ideal for swim parties! Someday we'll have an inground pool.....

The kids had two weeks of swim lessons.  It was sure hot watching from the sidelines.  Fortunately Grammy lives close to the pool and the kids got to stay with Grammy while the other had lessons. They both had a great time hanging out with Grammy, and sometimes Uncle Peter and Grampy. Grammy and Alex played lots of Go Fish.

Katie at swim lessons.

Katie and Don swimming at Chucks over the 4th of July. We had a great time and had the perfect view of the North Las Vegas Fireworks.

The Oppenheim pool open for business.  It's been great to jump in and cool off. Both kids are great swimmers.

Our next few weeks will be busy with summer camps.  Next week the kids have KidShine camp each afternoon and on Friday they will have their performace. The week after that Alex will be spending three mornings at the Co-op for Camp Co-op. The following week Katie will participate in the Co-op Alumni Art camp.  Whew! 

I love summer!