Just some summertime rambling.....

I've actually enjoyed having my kids home this summer. There hasn't been too many fights. They've been pretty good about doing their chores. Caleb has probably only had two meltdowns this summer. So, we've been pretty happy. They will start school Aug 24 this year, since we switched to a charter school.
Dan had to work on the 24th of July. I decided to take the kids to Classic for bouncing and waterslides by myself. They loved bouncing. Even Alex. He would not stay on the bouncing thing for kids under 7 years old. Instead, he took off up the enormous bouncing things for all ages. He climbed steps that looked almost as tall as him. He is so fearless and energetic. For the waterpark, I put Anna and Alex in lifejackets in case either of them escaped. Luckily, they both stayed by me in the kiddie pool the whole time. Rachel and Caleb loved going down the waterslides, like usual. They followed my rule to stick together pretty well. I could see them almost the entire time, as they went down the big slides by themselves. I take all four kids with me to the store all of the time. However, I was a bit nervous to take them to Classic by myself. I was pleased that it went as well as it did. The store usually goes worse than this did.

In the evening, we went down to American Fork for a BBQ with the Rowley family. When we got home, the dog barked at us as we pulled in the driveway. I thought that was strange. Buddy doesn't bark at me. I said, "I thought we put Buddy away since he is scared of fireworks." Rachel said that she did. I was worried that somehow he had broken through the doors to get outside. When we got in the house, Dan called Buddy to the back door to put him in the storage room for bedtime. He said, "Something is wrong with Buddy!" Buddy wouldn't come. Meanwhile, I went downstairs and got Buddy out of the storage room, where we had put him. I guess a neighbor saw a golden retriever running around, and noticed that ours was missing from the backyard. So, she put him in our backyard and locked the gate again. In the dark, it was easy to confuse the golden retrievers. We laughed at the mix-up. Animal control picked up the extra golden retriever the next day.

I've been doing a lot of apricots and beans. I've probably made 250 single serving pieces of Apricot leather. There's probably less than 200 pieces left. The kids love it. Alex liked it so much he started calling it candy. He recently switched to calling in fruit instead. I really don't mind making fruit leather. Rachel is the only one that will eat apricots in their natural state. All four kids will eat it made into leather. Fruit leather is made from blended up apricots with about a tablespoon of sugar per blender full. So, its a good way to get them to eat fruit.
I also did 11 quarts of bottled apricots, and a batch of apricot jam. Our apricot tree is little, but my mom and a person in my ward gave me some apricots. I don't wanna do anymore.
Beans---blah! We canned almost 60 pints of beans. By the end of it, I was really sick of it. We still have some beans left in the garden, but I am not going to do anything with them. All of our kids help with the beans. Rachel and Caleb are really helpful. Alex would break a bean in half, put it in a jar or the bowl with the ends, and exclaim "Yay".
Anna said something that was funny. After I boil the lids to go on the jars, I use the lid lifter (a stick with a magnet on the end) to get the hot lids out of the water. She saw me do this and laughed and exclaimed "It's magic!".

Alex has started taking his diaper off. He has taken it off many times already today. Thankfully it wasn't poopy. He can get his pants off to get his diaper off. Time to buy some overalls or something to keep the diaper on. Any suggestions?
If you've read this far in my ramble, you are pretty good. :)