The kids celebrated the start of summer with a nice cold. Hannah has a lovely cough, Taylor has a runny nose, and I got a sore throat.  It's a delightful combination.  The weather here has been yucky-it's like living in Seattle again.  Grey skies, wind blowing and the threat of rain every afternoon.  Yuck.
But not to fear, we are going to have some fun anyway!

I am thankful to live in a community that has some great  and affordable programs for my kids.  I signed them up for Boys and Girls Club (only $25 per kid all summer!!) and whether they like it or not, will be attending during the summer when I have a large workload. Last summer was not so great on my magazine deadline when I needed a good 7+ hours a day for a week or two to get the file to the printer with children running about.  Kids are just kids and need things several times during the day, and it's hard to crank out the work or keep a steady stream of focus when you are interrupted by food requests (all day!!), play date requests, and the normal, "I'm bored" line. 

So this summer I have learned my lesson and have them  in some things that take up their time (not on the TV!).  Our library has a great FREE reading program-they read a certain number of minutes and get prizes each week.  I love telling them to go read, but they usually do it on their own.  A local movie theater has free movies each week, so that is a great activity, especially when the weather is icky. 

I also made them a chore chart-am I the best mom or what?  I figure they are old enough to help out more and each day, they have an assigned chore to do.  I get help with the house and it occupies a little of their time.
I'm also learning that breakfast-snack-lunch-snack-dinner is the way to go and in between, KITCHEN CLOSED!  Or else they eat all day, and I feel like a short order cook throwing food about.

When I'm not working, I'm hoping to find some good hiking trails, bike rides and trips to the local pool we can all enjoy (and maybe some ice cream cones!).  We would also like to go camping once and take a trip to Nevada to see family. After all, that is what summer is about, right?  A nice blend of keeping Mom sane, having fun, and enjoying the luxury of leisure time.

So after over a month of changing my lifestyle and eating habits, I am only down 5 lbs.  But I am not feeling so discouraged because I've made some big changes in my eating and I am getting in regular exercise (that is a big one for me). I have incorporated eating LESS snacks at night, desserts & fast food and lots MORE veggies, fruit, lean proteins, and whole grains in my daily diet. It is working because I feel better and I feel some muscles popping up that haven't been there for a long time. It is really a challenge to get in the recommended servings of fruit, veggies and water in a day. I have found eating salads at lunch really helps that and I've made a couple salad dressings that are so good and healthy.  I also eat breakfast and that really ups the metabolism.

Usually by now I would have given up and go back to my sugar hound days, but I am sticking with it-failures and everything.

I think I gained lots of muscles after our home project-lots of lifting, bending and hamstring workout-but it did throw me off my normal schedule for over a week. Back on track!

While I haven't lost as much as planned, I feel successful because I have changed some long standing habits. Now onto another 5 or 10 pounds!

We finished our project!! It was a lot of work, but Mike and I worked side by side and got it done (he worked a lot harder than me!), I even used some of the power tools. The flooring nail gun is a must have tool. It felt pretty good to finish it together and we LOVE the results-no more disgusting carpet. Our aching backs and creaking knees aside, we think another home project will be fine in another 6 years-this was hard work, but we did burn lots of calories!! It's a good thing we had 6 days to accomplish both the living and family room-about 600 square feet of flooring, plus painting/installing/filling/caulking trim. We have 5 boxes of flooring leftover...will the office be next?


Here are pictures:

The room is ready for a new floor. The pet pee had soaked all the way to the subfloor so we had to use a special primer to seal it in (the big white spot). Gross. Naughty dog.

Well, most families BBQ, find a nice spot to go fishing or perhaps go out of town for Memorial Day weekend. The Case family really knows how to have fun-we started installing our wood flooring over the weekend. It is proving to be a long process, but after three days, we have the family room done! It is a lot of hard work but Taylor has been a huge help lining up the wood planks and knocking them in before Mike staples them. Mike has figured out all the hard cuts and angles and we have all worked together to re-cover our floors.

Our old carpeting was disgusting from potty training three dogs. No matter how much we had carpet cleaners come to clean it, the spots and odor was there. The smell was literally driving me crazy. Ever since having kids, I have the nose of a beagle-I can smell EVERYTHING. ( Even the subfloor was stained!! I had to use some Kilz primer to seal it out. ) So after much research and putting away some money, we found an awesome deal at lumber liquidators and in just a couple more days my living and family room will be beautiful butterscotch oak with NO smell, much easier clean-ups and just a better flooring for a family with three dogs, a cat and two kids.

For everyone building a corey barton home-UPGRADE YOUR CARPET!! It will be worth it. The builders grade sucks, quite frankly.

I will post pictures when it is done, and the molding is back up, and it looks all pretty.
Now off I go to wake Mike up and get back to work!! It's a good thing he has the week off if needed because this is taking awhile. I'd rather take my time then slam it together.

I can't get Hannah's dance video to load onto Blogger-I think the file is too big. If anyone has any ideas on how to compress videos, please post them in the comments.

Taylor and Hannah have been working hard the last couple months to get ready for a music performance and a dance recital. Taylor started learning the recorder (remember those?) and they had a music program at his school called "The Nature of Weather", complete with the percussion band (didn't know what that was), costumes, effects and great props. Taylor was an enthusiastic singer and a great recorder player. Here he is during one song (second row below Misty).



Hannah started taking dance class in January. I thought it would fun to expose her to dance/ballet/tap and see if she liked it (I think those longs legs would be great for ballet). Well, she did like her dance costume and leotards and socializing, but not so much the dancing part. She said she is more of a gymnastics girl. I told her we still had to finish out the season and be a part of the recital. She is really nervous in front of people, which cracks me up because she can talk anybody's ear off, and can make a friend in a second. However, at her preschool performances, well, she didn't even make it up on stage. So we talked about doing your best, and honestly I thought she would make a big issue of not performing. But she had a great attitude, practiced extra at home and did her recital. Here's a video of her dancing. Sorry for my lack of video skills and half the song she is stuck behind another little girl. But get a load of the costumes. So cute. I wish I had brought my actual video camera.

I have so many healthy recipes to share, but we'll start with this one.  I just enjoyed it this morning on my vanilla yogurt with sliced fresh strawberries-YUM!  THis is kind of an adaptation of two recipes.  I don't know if I like the sesame seeds or not.

Maple Vanilla Granola
5 c. oats
1 c. almonds, chopped (or 1/2 almonds and pecans each)
1/4 c. sesame seeds (optional)
1/2 c. sunflower seeds
1/2 c. coconut
1/4 c. flax seeds
1 tsp salt
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. pure maple syrup
2 TBL. honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Combine first 7 dry ingredients in a large bowl. In saucepan, melt butter, syrup, honey, vanilla and cinnamon.  Pour over dry mix until all coated.  Divide between two cookies sheets and bake at 300 degrees for 15 minutes.  Stir well, switch cookie sheets (so one pan doesn't burn on bottom), cook for 10 minutes, stir, switch and repeat.  Total cooking time is 35-40 minutes until granola is dry and golden brown.  Store in an airtight container once cooled.  Enjoy over yogurt, in milk, sprinkled over fruit....it is really good AND healthy.....I know you are thinking the butter isn't too fat-free but you have to have a fat in here to get everything toasted brown.