It’s never a dull moment in a house full of 6 people. Summer so far has been no exception. I had an 8th grader graduate from middle school this year and he is an awesome football player so he is off to football camp for high school while also finishing up his flag football season which he made Allstars for. My youngest child turned one in June. My middle child needed some extra math practice this year so is off to summer school and I have one 10 year old with absolutely nothing going on that I have to keep stimulated throughout the summer so she doesn’t spend all summer playing Fortnite and watching Miraculous (See Netflix or Disney Channel for that cartoon). Needless to say, I’ve had to get creative in order to help fund all of these things, teach my kids the value of hard work and have the time to celebrate everyones milestones and achievements.
First thing that was happening was 8th grade graduation directly followed by high school football camp (which is not free at all by the way!!!!!) Being from Hawaii, I’m used to giving the kids leis for all of their graduations. May day (which is lei day in Hawaii) is right before graduation season so I taught the kids how to make a money and candy lei and we kept them for my oldest son’s graduation. So I thought, “hmmmm…..I bet other people would want these for their kids. Especially since most schools are not having a ceremony this year. Why don’t Malachi and I make these as a fundraiser for his football camp?” What an amazing idea that was! People were ordering them like hot cakes after I advertised them on the our local Facebook buy/sell groups and on the Facebook Marketplace! I was so excited for my son that he was able to earn his way to football camp and so excited for me that I didn’t have to try and come up with this money on my own. There is always a way to come up with some extra money. Think of what might be in need or something everyone wants at the moment and use what you’re good at to try to capitalize on it. Who knows, you might wind up making it your full time gig! We will definitely be doing these again next year. Make sure to keep us in mind if you would like one for your graduate 😉. Here are pictures of some of his (and my……..I helped a little) work.
I also love making t-shirts to commemorate my kid’s graduations. I made a couple last year for our family’s first 8th grade graduate and for my 5th grade graduate. So this year was no exception. Luckily I have been buying blank t-shirts in all of my family member’s sizes for the last few months in preparation for an upcoming Disney trip (more about that in a future blog) and I have a bunch of Heat transfer vinyl lying around from past orders people have made from me. Waste not, want not.
Next my youngest baby had her 1st birthday! We never do big parties since we don’t live near family, we have very few friends and we don’t yet have a house that’s meant for entertaining. So, this may make birthday celebrations easier? I’m not sure. I still love to decorate our house for the occasion though and there is always a cake. We also always find something to do as a family to celebrate outside of the home. I’ve been obsessed with balloon arches (hasn’t everyone these days?) so I found an amazing island themed balloon arch kit from Amazon that came with balloons, balloon arch tape, sticky dots, island style leaves and even a hula skirt to go around her high chair complete with velcro to easily stick it to the high chair! Perfect! I paired that with an adorable Moana outfit I also found on Amazon that came with Moana’s necklace and flower and boom! Happy Baby Moana birthday! I had wanted to make a Jelly cake (I was inspired by a baking show I recently saw on tv plus my daughter really loves Jell-O) so The Islands of Tefitti cake was born! It was made of 2 small bundt cakes I made with yellow cake mix that was then placed in a glass baking pan which I then poured blue Jell-O around and put in the fridge to set. Once the Jell-O was set, I frosted the bundt cakes with store bought cream cheese frosting which I dyed green with food coloring. Then, I printed out some Baby Moana pictures on cardstock and stuck them into the cake with toothpicks. It’s definitely not something you would find at a professional bakery but for a 1 year old who doesn’t know any better, it was pretty good! Haha….
Her birthday was in the middle of the week so we waited until the weekend to go on our family birthday adventure. My daughter loves the music from Moana, watching documentaries about ocean animals and loves the water so we figured we take her to the Aquarium of the Pacific. It’s air conditioned but still has animals she can enjoy without getting heat stroke or sun burned especially when the weather that weekend was close to 100 degrees. You had to book a time frame to check into the aquarium in their attempt to make things more socially distant. However, there were soooo many people there. There were sooo many people in Longbeach itself and parking in the structure right by the aquarium was full! We wound up eating lunch at the cafe there which was very quiet but super expensive for ok tasting food. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed herself though and was happy and content the whole time we were out which was so surprising since she often has melt downs at home or at her brothers football games but not that day. We all truly enjoyed ourselves that day.
This is just the start of our summer! We still have Father’s Day, an anniversary and my oldest child’s birthday just in the 2nd half of June! I will try my best to keep sharing our ideas for adventures and celebrations! I love seeing new followers on my blog. Drop in to say, “hello” and let me know what kinds of things you enjoy reading about! Happy Summer!
ImPerfect Ari 