Summer Fun Day 1

*Warning: This is a long post with lots of pictures. I’ll try to be brief.  :)

The first month of summer vacation went by fine. Everyone enjoyed just being able to lounge around and play and do whatever we want. Each boy even got to spend a week on their own at their grandparent’s up in Frisco. However by the end of June, I was starting to get the whole “I’m bored” repetition. Add to the mix the fact that the 2 kids that I babysit would be returning for the remainder of the summer, and I knew it was time to start planning. At first I thought we could do “summer school,” but it seemed a lot of work to plan for “school” all day everyday.  Plus, I’m not one who does well sticking to schedules. I like flexibility. Then, I stumbled across the Whimsy Love blog and her Summer Diary. Basically, she tried to do one special thing each day. One thing, I can do that…

So I poured over her past Summer Diary posts (this is her 2nd year doing it) and all the fun kid stuff I had pinned on Pinterest and I made a plan. I made a spreadsheet with each day remaining in the summer and a list of activities to do for each day’s theme. I want to chronicle the fun we are having and hopefully inspire you to think outside of the box and have some fun. Even if it’s only once or twice a week.  (I’m actually a couple weeks behind, so I’ll have to get y’all caught up)   So here goes…

Day 1 Chalk and Inflatables

We started the day out by playing with some pool floaties. Each kid had their own raft. They pretended to be floating in water for awhile.

We had to run to the store and while we were there we found these beauties for only $2! Punch balls! If you’ve never seen one before they are kind of like a giant balloon attached to a giant rubber band. You hold on to the rubber band and  punch quickly and it bounces back and forth. Simple enough but super fun!

Then we watched a movie while laying on our pool rafts. Watching movies on pool rafts…very comfortable.

Next up was homemade sidewalk chalk paint.  I found the recipe here on The Idea Room blog. (How convenient that our brush match our paint colors!) Each kid grabbed a color and painted away in the driveway.

I made a few sidewalk games to play after our chalk paint dried. We threw two rolled up socks to play a bulls eye game. (You can’t see it because of the brightness of the pic, but each ring was a different color and the center was worth 40 points.)

We used wood mulch chips to mark our spots while playing Hopskotch.

Bean made a maze where you had to get from one side to the other without stepping on any lines. Very cute.

They all had so much fun and kept saying “This is the best day ever!” I would say it was a hit. Too bad Monkey missed out, he was still at his grandparents’ house that day. Well, one down 45 more days to go…