We do try and get in as much pool time as possible during the summer. Especially between my parents pool and Melody taking swim lessons. I even bought a super cheap pool this summer for the kids to use some days we didn’t want to drive to my parents.
Our our fourth day of our cruise, we had a day at sea. This meant we would not be docking at any port. Instead there was a day full of activities throughout the ship for us to explore and do.
For Melody’s 6th birthday party, I originally bought her an adorable Doc McStuffins dress to wear. However, they only had it in a size 7, and I was really hoping it would work. But it did not. It was just way too big. Especially since we were having her party at a very active place. So last minute, I opted to make her a shirt. I happened to have a blank purple shirt of hers along with some pink vinyl. I think used the tracing tool in Silhouette to trace the characters from Doc McStuffins. Then I added her name to it. I decided to keep her age off of it so that she could wear it anytime!
At the beginning of the summer, I made a bucket list for us. We did a lot of the things on the list, and I wanted to share the pictures!
August was a busy month and full of a lot of change! Melody started FIRST grade earlier this month. We tried to enjoy the time we had her at home outside of school, so we have enjoyed the library, pool, games, and cooking. Melody started cheer and started back at gymnastics. We celebrated both my dad’s and Brad’s birthdays, and we simply had fun!
This year Brad was able to celebrate his 39th birthday at home with us unlike last year! Melody picked out the theme for his birthday back in February. She picked G.I. Joe. Her love for G.I. Joe has really grown over the last year, so she had fun with the theme.
Instead of doing a cake for Melody’s birthday party, I did cupcakes. I did this for a few reasons. One, I do not have to cut a cake this way. It is one less thing I have to plan for. Two, even before COVID, it made me feel better to have her blow out a candle on a single cupcake vs an entire cake that people will be eating. Three, it is generally cheaper. And four, it makes it easier to give out cupcakes (or this time around we already had plates made), rather than cut pieces of cake to hand out. I always pick colors that match the theme of the party, but I also add some form of cupcake toppers. I decided to make easy ones this time around.
One item on our bucket list the last two years was to attend the Kiddie Carnival in Athens. With the way our summer was going, I honestly thought we would miss out on it again this year. But we managed to find time the last weekend they were open in July. We decided to go on a Thursday in hopes the crowds would be smaller.
We found parking at Dollywood during our May/June trip a breeze. However, a Facebook group I am in had a lot of people thinking differently. Apparently it is much worse than last year. But seeing this is our first trip, it was all we knew.
Back in June, we visited the American Girl store in Franklin, TN to celebrate both Melody and my niece’s birthdays. Their birthdays are one year apart but two dates apart (May 25 vs May 27). So this was their birthday present from my mother in law. I recently wrote a post all about our hotel experience of this trip. Now I want to share the party part.
Our third day on our cruise was our Princess Cay day. This is a private area owned by Carnival. I am unsure if another cruise company also uses this area. I say area vs. island because it is at the southern end of Eleuthera, Bahamas. So it is not just an entire island to yourself. From what I have read and heard, prior to COVID, there were actually excursions to explore the rest of the island. But I did not hear about that during our cruise. But we were still excited to take part in this port and have a nice beach day!
We kept the food simple for Melody’s Doc McStuffins birthday party. I didn’t want to overwhelm the kids with too much food and distract from the fun of the play area. And at the time of planning, I was unsure how much time the kids would have in the party room to eat.
We tried to fill the summer with as much fun as possible this year. We only had roughly 10 weeks to fit it all in, and boy did it fly by fast!
Melody started first grade this year. It is really hard to believe the summer went by this fast, and now we are at this point. But she is so excited!
Our last day at Dollywood was predicted to be a rainy one. But it was literally the last day of our trip, so we decided to give it a go.
This summer, I struggled with keeping the house cleaned. I did have somewhat of a cleaning schedule from last school year that I attempted to carry into the summer. One week I would do a “big” clean. This included changing sheets, cleaning upstairs (rarely used), removing all things on tables to dust, and removing all the things in our tub and shower to clean it. The next week was a “small” week. This was just the basics: wiped around things without removing, wiped down the tub and shower, all simple things. This worked during the school year, but I struggled with this during the summer. So I decided to come up with a better routine. I am only a month in, but it seems to really work. It does put me cleaning daily (which I was afraid I would hate), but I built it so that it could take me less than 30 minutes or an hour. It really depended on my capacity that day.
When deciding food for Melody’s Doc McStuffins themed birthday party, I tried to keep it foods I knew she would eat as well as keep it simple. Very last minute, I decided to make some iced cookies. I had Brad use his 3D printer to make me two cookies cutters. One was the number 6, and another was a bandaid from the TV Show.
July came and went, and we had a lot of fun soaking up what little summer was left. Melody finished swim lessons; we started getting out old Lego sets to put together; we celebrated the 4th of July; we finished gymnastics for the summer; we celebrated my mom’s birthday; we got shaved ice; Melody got her first planner; we saw Paw Patrol in theaters again; Melody rode the carousel; Melody had her first sleepover at my parents then with her cousins in Memphis; Brad went to his 20th high school reunion; we went to Let’s Play; we went to High Point; and we went to the Kiddie Carnival!
Our second day of our Carnival Cruise in April was a day at Nassau. We have been to Nassau many times, and we really had no desire to go this time. With the COVID restrictions, it just didn’t seem like it would be much fun. So we decided to spend the day on the boat and hopefully enjoying a mostly empty one at that.
