No couch potatoes in this house!

(picture taken at the science center nutrition exhibit)

Josh and I have really started feeling like we need to teach our kids a little bit more about working hard. We make them do little chores during the week and they have a slightly longer list on Saturday mornings, but I think as far as slave driving goes, they have it pretty easy.

So, even though I didn't remember signing up to clean the church this Saturday I was glad when they reminded me. And honestly the kids were too. They love cleaning the church and as soon as we walk in they run and get the big rolling trash can so they can walk and around empty all the smaller trash cans. Once that's over they usually keep busy by cleaning chalk boards and dusting.

I walked around the corner to find Macy hard at work and being careful to not get any dust in her eyes!

After the kids and I were finished at the church we got a surprise phone call from Dad saying he was home from the hospital so we loaded up together and went to the Science Center.

After the Science Center, there was still more work to be done at home. The girls helped me inside, while James got his first lesson in mowing the lawn. Part of me felt sorry for him, but it was nice to see him working so hard. And the mower is self propelled so all he had to do was push down on the bar.

I think James was pretty proud of himself once he finished, but the poor kid doesn't realize how many more lawns are in his future!

Press Here

One of our favorite activities during the summer is weekly trips to the library.

Honestly, they are mostly excited about checking out new movies, until we get there and sit down with new books. This particular one is probably in their top 10 favorites. You press the yellow dot on the first page and see what happens to it on the next page. It was exciting enough that they read it 3 times in a row!

So far our summer is off to a cool, rainy start. I'm hoping by July we have nice enough weather for outdoor activities.

Our Dad wears fancy pants...

Because he can make a watermelon basket! Our kids were amazed!




I did plan a nice steak dinner for him, which he never gets since I've had a strong aversion to all things meat during this pregnancy, but he got home from work right before we got home from church and decided to cut his own watermelon and grill his own steak.

Even though Josh had to work today, he was able to run over for sacrament meeting so he could hear the kids sing and then go back to the hospital. The kids were really happy that he was there, even though James pretty much hates anytime the primary has to sing. I just keep thinking how much he is going to hate it when he is 11 and still has to go up.


Anyway, Josh making it over for sacrament meeting, and then making it home in time for dinner made it a pretty special day. And I hope Josh felt a little bit special, because he really is an awesome Dad and deserves to have some recognition for all his hard work.


In other news...I'm 30 weeks pregnant today





Josh told me I was huge, James said I was fat, and Macy called me a cow...OK not really, she was talking about the steak we were eating, but it happened to coincide with the whole "Mom is really fat conversation."

As annoyed as I was at Josh for telling me I was huge, I can't deny it isn't true. Just for fun tonight I went back and looked at my very first blog post because I was wearing this same dress. I was 35 weeks pregnant with Macy at the time and I think I am almost as big right now at 30 weeks.


I'm not looking forward to the next nine weeks.

Going out with a bang

Today is finally the last day of school! The kids are excited about getting to play every day and I'm excited about not getting up and making lunches. And not having to worry about getting unpleasant emails from a certain child's teacher.


It has been a little bit of a bumpy road for James this year. Overall he did great academically, but there were a few things from this year that I will be happy to leave behind and hopefully he can start fresh in 1st grade. So, it's only fitting for him to end the year with a black eye.


Don't worry, he didn't get in a fight. It was just a fall, and in his words, "My entire face hit the wood chips!"

Rollins Family vacation 2011

Growing up my family summer vacations always involved camping and/or a trip to Portland to visit our cousins. Both of which we loved and looked forward to every year. Josh's family though was big into going places and seeing things like historical sites. Unfortunately, neither camping or site seeing is big on my excitement list these days. Don't get me wrong, I love beautiful scenery, but driving for hours just to see some old buildings is not my kind of seeing things. My husband knows this about me and after dragging me all over Philadelphia in the freezing cold two years ago I think he figured a Sally family vacation was in order.

So, what is a Sally vacation? Um, pretty much the beach. It's beautiful to look at. It's relaxing. and the kids love it. You pretty much can't go wrong. So we hopped in the car and took a little 2 1/2 hour drive to Lake Michigan.

On Monday evening after we checked into our hotel we decided to scope out the beach and let the kids run around for a while. The water was way too cold for me to set foot in, but it didn't stop the kids. By the way, these pictures were all taken with Josh's phone since mine is still getting fixed. His phone apparently has a much better camera than mine!


The next morning we discovered that the hotel did not in fact offer a free continental breakfast like we thought. (Since when does Holiday Inn not have a plate of waffles for you to eat in the morning?) So we ended up at the golden arches for hot cakes, which I was not thrilled about, but the kids were in heaven.


After breakfast we headed off for the main event of our little vacation which was a day at Michigan's Adventure. It was a fun little amusement park/ water park that was very reasonably priced for that sort of thing. The kids had an absolute blast. James was game for any ride that he was tall enough for and can't wait to be tall enough for the other ones. Macy was seriously ticked that she couldn't ride the big rides and Samm didn't want to ride anything but the kiddy rides. Josh made her go on one big roller coaster and all we heard about for two days after was how freaky it was. And of course these are the only two pictures we got of our entire day there.


This little car ride and the carousel were the only two things I was allowed to ride and even then there was a big sign strongly cautioning that I didn't. Good thing I didn't go into labor from all the excitement!


Wednesday was supposed to be my big relaxing day at the beach, but when we left the hotel it was so cold and windy that we decided to stop and buy kites just so we would have something to do at the beach since swimming was definitely out.



The girls were pretty excited about flying kites, but it was so windy that James refused because he was worried that he would blow away. Instead he buried his feet in the sand.


After the five minutes of kite flying excitement was over Mom got to have a turn.


Then I bundled up in a blanket while the kids played on the playground and cried because sand was blowing in their eyes.


After 10 minutes Josh and I were done with the beach so we gave the kids the option of staying and having sand in their eyes or driving back home where the weather was unusually hot and going to to lake by our house. They had a little sibling huddle to talk it over.

And in the end they decided to go back home where they would actually be able to get in the water. Josh and I were very happy about their decision, but I was a little depressed at how ugly our beach suddenly seemed. Oh well. The kids were happy, Josh was with us, and we had a fantastic time!

James Quote

Last night the kids were messing around with a microphone so I asked James to sing a song and he told me "Mom, singing is not my sport!"

My Beach Bums

Vacation was Awesome! I'll tell you about it tomorrow...Maybe.