Sleepover Season - a.k.a - Summer!

 Summer is here, and at the Jeffery household, that means ....SLEEPOVER! We had our first sleepover of the summer last night. I gave away my two girls, and brought home most of the boys - well, all the boys old enough to spend the night! We watched movies, played Apples To Apples, ate popcorn.

This morning we made waffles and sausage, and then had a few adventures, the first being a trip to the library to see a magician perform. They boys LOVED it! They all laughed so hard, and the magician was really good! It was great to see them all together having so much fun.
We came home to find that Doug had made cheese crisp for lunch - which is a big favorite around here! I'll share the super easy recipe below. After lunch we were off to the berry patch to pick some strawberries.
What a  bunch of hard workers! They each filled a quart container with berries, and we got out of there! Didn't want them in the direct sun too long!
Out of the mouths of a few of the babes:
Sam (nearly 7): "I work hard because my dad works me so hard all the time."
Tommy (9): " These berries are the best strawberries ever! They are so fresh and delicious!"
Ben (4):" I don't want to eat them, I just want to SNIFF 'em!"
Luke(6): "I never been berry pickin', Mom, dis sure is fun!" 
Liam (5) (in the car eating berries): "These are so delicious, but I want to save some for my family." This KILLED ME especially since he ate about half the quart on the way home. Sorry Stace! What can I say? At least it's fruit, right?
Kolbe (8) (ever worried about rules and perfection): "Mom, is this the right size? Is this big enough? Did I get this out of the right row? How red do they have to be?"

Caleb ran back and forth and had a big time, with Jonah, the nearly teenage butthead chasing after because he was too lazy to pick berries. Butthead.

They are currently all over at the park for a last hurrah before Auntie Amy comes and sweeps her kids away, along with Liam, and brings me back my girls. Jenna and MaryKate won't want to part, but they got a nice sleepover, too - and an afternoon with a bunch of other sweet little girls at their Little Flowers meeting. A lovely way to start sleepover season Summer! Have I mentioned before that I love, love, love that my kids get to grow up with their cousins? I am so very thankful for that!


Cheese crisp - something we Karchers picked up while living in the AZ - is super yummy, and super easy. Just preheat your oven to 400 degrees, slap some tortillas on a cookie sheet, and layer a thin layer of monteray jack, or cheddar, or whatever cheese you like to eat with Mexican food, and put it in the oven until the tortilla is crispy and the cheese is VERY bubbly - usually about 10 minutes. Top with salsa, sour cream, jalepeno peppers, whatever you happen to like. We eat this a lot on Fridays - as we usually don't eat meat on Fridays ( I served them sausage by mistake this morning - thought it was Saturday!) but, you can easily add meat to this by cooking taco meat, or doing some chicken on the grill and adding it before or after baking. My kids love any and every variation, and it's super easy. Nice on a Friday when you just want to chill!