February birthdays can be kind of a bummer. I know because I have one–and so does my son. So I try to throw parties for him that make people with summer birthdays jealous. There will be no awesome tail gate sledding party for you, Gemini. Ha ha!

This year, my son wanted a winter picnic party on the ice (take that, Cancers). Also requested were, marshmallows, glow sticks, a cake shaped like a 6, and popcorn. All birthday wishes granted! I wasn’t too sure how the cake would turn out, but it seems there is nothing more frosting can’t solve.

I stumbled on these glow swords at Target, and wow! were they a big hit! I had planned to have some sort of balloon game with glowing balloons (a la pinterest), but you need 1. clear balloons (not just white ones), 2. super bright glow sticks (not the skinny, cheapy ones from target), and 3. actual pitch black, not 7pm.   Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

The kids didn’t seem to mind.

Before the epic glow battle, we built a big fire and roasted marshmallows. By the way, roasted marshmallows in your hot chocolate is the best thing ever, which is also how my son described his party.  I have to agree–nothing better than turning 6 with a giant fire on a frozen lake!

Summer is in full swing here and our days are full up to the top. Around mid afternoon I come up for air (thank god for quiet time) and then I think of you and this little blog. Then I feel guilty for not posting something–anything! Instead of feeling crappy for not writing long meaningful (ha!) posts, I thought I’d keep a kind of slap dash summer journal: most pictures will be from my phone, there might be links to crafts or recipes, or there might not be any words at all, but they will all be a little window into our summer days.

Desperate for a first day of summer activity, I ran into Walgreens for some cheap kites. I chose the not quite so dirt cheap ones and they work out pretty well. I got one big one, but it wasn’t windy enough for it to fly. There were mini kites for sale too–3 for 5 bucks–that I bought on a whim. These tiny kites worked out the best. The kids could control them and when the wind died down they just ran to make them fly.

If you like the idea of a simple, summertime blog I would love it if you joined in. If you have a blog, use summer journal as your title. If you are more of an instgramer/twitterer/tumblrer type use the #summmerjournal hashtag. Leave a comment if you’d like to play along, so I can follow your summer journal!