Does anybody remember this ad? It’s that time of year again…the most wonderful time of the year for parents who have tons to get done and kiddos with too much energy! 

Getting my kids prepared to go anywhere can be a challenge –  Even though they’re younger, I want to make sure that they’re ready for whatever they might be learning and help them as much as possible at home so that they will be successful in the classroom.We’re a pretty busy, active family so we try to do some lessons at home and get out to museums and parks for learning in action. I can handle teaching them the basics, but once it’s actually time to pack up their pencils for elementary school, I get a bit sentimental.

More than anything, I want my children to be able to learn how to be independent learners who are confident in the classroom. I want them to take an interest in learning and feel comfortable asking questions. While I can provide guidance and assistance in some areas, I understand that school provides a complete learning experience, both educationally and socially.

When preparing for the first day of school, here are a few things our family does:

• Purchase all the school supplies early.  I hate waiting to the last minute and fighting with other parents for that last eraser at Target. 
• Continually build my children’s wardrobe.   Even though my children grow quickly, I like to buy their clothes through out the summer.
• Complete Summer reading.  We help “motivate” our children with summer reading so that their brain keeps working at some level through the summer months
• Start early bed-times a few weeks early.  There is nothing worse than fighting your children the night before the first day of school about if it’s time to go to sleep or not.

One of the things I’ve thought about doing this year is bringing in a tutor for a few hours to give my children a “boost” session.  Maybe for just an hour or so to see if they’re really ready for school, or at a minimum to help me see where I should spend time with them the first month or so of school.  The DC area has a number of tutoring services that each have their own unique approach.  For example, I remember seeing on the news details about a tutoring company, Ashley Tutors, providing specific in-home services to residence in the DC area.

I think this year we’ll work on a few topics before school starts and see how the children react to it.  We may call in the re-enforcements later in the year if they struggle to listen to mom and dad’s advice.

My husband works in online marketing and, as part of that, creates some pretty interesting infographics from time-to-time.  Generally, they aren’t the type of thing that fit in well with the posts we have on Enchanted Mommy, but this one is the exception.

Academic Advantage Infographic by InfoCarnivore.com.

How can you be a cowboy if you can’t ride and fish?  Before we could leave Utah the kids had to have their fun fishing and riding horses.

It has been an amazing summer… so much so that I am sad to see it end.  The boys made such great memories.  It was really fun to do something different and a bit more meaningful this time around.

Don’t get me wrong… we love the beach (in fact we just moved to be closer to it), but having the boys work on the farm, ride horses, fish, shoot a gun on the ranch, and learn about their ancestors was a great change of pace this year.

Here’s to making memories!!!

Gorgeous view huh! Have I mentioned how beautiful it is in Utah???

Gorgeous reflection of the clouds on the water in this one.

Not many memories better than this...

So I admit the little one had more fun chasing ducks around than fishing!

Casey and his cousins with their catches for the day.

And now for the horses… we are just glad Aunt Christy doesn’t mine showing the boys around a horse!  Thanks Aunt Christy!

This little guy cried when his turn was over!

Tyson's turn!

He is such a ham up there! Riding like a professional!

Casey is getting too cool for me and my camera...

It seems like three little kiddies hop around between houses on my street.  One of them happens to be my three year old that two sweet five year olds include {insert my heart melting here}.  There is only so much “basement” fun you can have.  Well, one fun activity the neighbor had for them was to wash her car!  The car may have still been dirty when they finished, but they at least had fun doing it!

She was loving life!

This seriously made her day!

Washing the car. She loved the hose!

It was still dirty when they finished, but they had fun!

I will say that it was more fun for Ella doing it with other kids.  It also seemed to make my life a little easier!  I highly recommend a neighborhood for your little ones.  I know we love ours!

FOLLOW UP POST FOR:

COWBOY LESSON 1: LEARN TO SHOOT AND CLIMB A TRACTOR

AND MAKING COWBOYS OUT OF CITY BOYS

We had a really great moment during our trip out west.  The boys got to visit the gravesites of their Great, Great, Great Grandparents.

This was an awesome event after they visited the ranch with their Great Grandpa.  This 320 acres was originally owned by their 3 time Great Grandfather in the 1830’s:  Alexander Calderwood.

Alexander Calderwood came over from Scotland and bought the land from the U.S. Government for a very small fee if he agreed to live on the land for at least 3 years.  We drove all around his land and saw his hand built cabins he lived in with his wife and kids. After this we went to the Coalville Cemetery and found all the graves of these ancestors.

It was very touching to watch my boys clean the graves of their Great, Great, Great Grandparents.

The very same week we were able to drive to Idaho to show the boys the Hinckley gravesite and family properties.  Their Great Grandfather left his farm as a young teenage boy during the great depression.  He hitch hiked to New York and eventually had a career running the Boys and Girls Club.

Before he died he wrote his 13 yr old grandson a letter and included a hand drawn map of the old Hinckley homestead in Idaho he cherished as a boy.  We used this hand drawn map to find our way around the properties and see their Grand Grandfather’s old stomping grounds.

Casey got to hear and learn about the man he was named after, his Great Grandfather.

This is the hand drawn map included in the letter their Great Grandfather drew for his 13yr old Grandson.

This is seriously amazing!  I’ve made it several times and it’s always been a hit.

This is so dang good!

I got the idea because I loved the store bought “fruit dip.”  I knew it would be easy to make, so I tried it!

All you need is:

15 oz. container marshmallow fluff
1 bar cream cheese softened

All you do is: 

Mix them together!

I paired it with my four favorite fruits!

My two closest friends and their husbands came over Saturday night.  My one friend’s husband was seriously obsessed.  I think he told me 10 times how much he liked it.  He even took the cookies from dessert and dipped them in the dip.  Let’s just say there was none left (and that I was a little embarrassed to tell him how easy it was)!

So I have this very, very talented friend.  The kind that makes all five of her kids halloween costumes herself every year… the kind that can sew extravagant Easter dresses for her little girls… seriously she can do pretty much everything.  Did I mention that she also, plays the flute, the piano, sings, and is an amazing photographer?

Anyway, I love this very talented friend of mine and got to visit her for the first time in two years… sadly we live 2000 miles apart.  I noticed the adorable wreath on her door.

“Hey that is cute, where did you get it?”

“Oh duh… of course you made it.”

I love looking through her house to get ideas on what to do with my empty walls.

Oh yeah… back to the wreath.

She made this using one of the straw wreaths shown on Amazon here and a bunch of coffee filters.  You just scrunch up the coffee filters and glue them on all around your wreath.  Then add any accessory you want to go with it.  She said you could also use a foam wreath to make it.

I love the personalization!  It is good to have a friend so talented!  I hope I can get her out to Florida to help me pick out some stuff for my new house…  if I ever get one that is!  🙂  I am only a little anxious to get moving on the house hunting.

A few other cute DIY wreaths you might like:

Adorable spring Wreath

Front door wreaths

Even though Ella was a little under the weather today, she still had a lot of fun learning the letter “D.”  You say craft and that girl comes running with bells on!  Here are a few cute things we did.

First we started by making a letter D and turning it into a dinosaur.

Here’s the beginning:

Learning the letter D.

….and the end!

Ella's dinosaur "D". This was REALLY easy. Just cut out a letter D, five triangles, tail, neck, head and legs. Put a googly eye on and you're golden!

Then, we added the “D” card to her flash card “completed” pile!  These flashcards have really come in handy!  You can order them here.  I’ve found that they are really helpful and I make learning her letters into a game!

D flashcard

Recently, we attended a wedding with a D-olphin show.  The girls didn’t go with us, so we took a video for them!  Here is the video she got to watch.

http://youtu.be/GP85ixxwuFg

Lastly we took the D-og for a walk.

Ella walking the dog.

By the end of the night, she could tell us what “D” sounded like and several things that started with “D.”  She even came up with d-octor on her own.  Kids just love it when you spend time with them and love crafts.

Check out our other preschool letters!

Letter B | Letter C | Letter F | Letter H |  Letter I  |  Letter K |  Letter L  | Letter M | Letter Q  |  Letter R  |  Letter W | Letter X

Now that I’ve slept in my bed one night, I’m so ready to be back in our 8 bedroom on the beach house with the 20 people I care about most.    Last week was pure bliss.  We stayed here in the OBX.  I’m one of four kids and we are all married and have kids, so it made one heck of a good time.

Our family! All 21 of us! (I'm the only one with pink shorts!)

I would definitely encourage all of you east coasters to head to the Outer Banks.  There are several fun things to do!

1.  Of course, enjoy the beach.  We sure did!

My brother (the biggest kid there) buried my 3 year old!

2.  and…. the water!

Playing in the ocean!

3.  Take the kids to the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island.  This is a great break from the beach.  There is so much to see and you even get to touch animals.  This is my niece and nephews holding turtles!

They got to hold turtles!

4.  Fly a kite!  We did this three times and it was so much fun!  The wind was perfect on the beach!

Flying a kite in Nags Head.

5.  Check out the outlets for a couple of hours.  These we really close to our beach house.  While they aren’t the greatest, it gave us a good couple hours of shopping!

6.  Eat, EAt and EATTTTTTTTTTTT.  We went to three restaurants while we were there.  My most favorite was Blue Moon Beach Grill.  Oh my gosh, it was SOOOOOO good.  I would recommend it 1k times over and over.  Do not miss out on this strip mall (yes, it’s in a strip mall, but you WON’T be disappointed) restaurant.  We also ate at Miller’s Waterfront.  It was also really good.  The talked about hush puppies really were amazing.  We also ate at Captain George’s, while it’s good, it’s one of those places where you feel like you have to gorge on food to get your $31 worth.  I definitely got my money’s worth on crab legs, but my stomach paid for it later.

7.  Check out The Lost Colony.  My parents liked it so much that they went three times!

8.  Check out Jockey’s Ridge.  We had planned to do this the last night, but it rained.  Boo.

9.  Get a house with a pool!  It was totally worth it to us.

Daddy swimming with his girl!

10.  Go fishing!  There are so many piers that offer rentals and it is a great place to do it!

Now, go book your trip!  If you don’t have kids in school, you can save A LOT of money by going late August.  Heck, maybe we’ll go again!

FOLLOW UP POST FOR   “MAKING COWBOYS OUT OF CITY BOYS”

We are having a blast out here in Utah visiting all the family we have.  We have mostly been staying in Heber City with my in-laws where they boys get to help Grandpa with the horses, grandma with the gardening, and help with chores around the property.  It has been really good for the kids and they have had a lot of fun as well.

They are really working hard on becoming REAL cowboys!  First they got their hats so they would look official and now they are working on some cowboy adventures!

I took them to their Great Grandfather’s Ranch in Coalville, Utah this week.  He has a beautiful cabin in the mountains surrounded by  his 320 acres of hills and pastures.  So fun!  He taught Casey how to shoot (just a BB gun… he’s only 7yrs old after all).

They used some soda cans as targets and had a great time!  Casey never hit his target, but he loved it anyway!

Great Grandpa showing him how it's done! He hit the target right away!

Showing Casey how to work the gun.

Here he goes!

Happy with almost success... he missed, but a gust of wind came and blew the can they were shooting at on the ground. Casey thinks that should count as a hit.

The younger boys didn’t get to learn to shoot, but they did have a blast climbing the big hill next the the cabin, falling in the muddy creek (pronounced crick in these parts) and climbing all over the old tractor.

I got a lot of practice with my camera… my two year old now hides his face the moment he sees me pull out my camera.  The little stink!  I have to be quick with him!

Tyson thinks he is the man up on that tractor.

One of the few pics of Andy I could get!

Andy loved helping close the gates to keep the cows in the right pasture. I was sneaky and took this pic with my 300mm lens while standing really far away on the porch of the cabin.

The boys with their Great Grandpa. This will forever be a cherished memory of mine. Notice Andy eating a cookie... it was the only way I could convince him to be in the picture!

It wasn't all cowboy stuff... Great Grandpa also drove them all around his property on his ATV. The boys sure think he is a pretty cool Grandpa! Great Grandpa, who is now 83 years old is still A LOT of fun!!!