summer preparations

This year I have felt the need to prepare well for the summer.
It's a very challenging chunk of time for me, what with the heat
and the total switch in lifestyle. We go from our little routine with
one child off to school every day and the other happily following me
around to two of them arguing and asking for things all day, and trips
to the pool and other kids flowing in and out of the house.
I really want to enjoy the summer this year, however, and I especially
want to enjoy my children. I mean, what a great opportunity to do so
since they will be around all day every day. I think that most of the blocks
to me enjoying the presence of my children on a daily and long-term
basis are related to me and my parenting. So I've been praying
and reading. I appreciate many things about Jo Frost's approach to
children, so I am in the process of reading Ask Supernanny. I've
already found some helpful ideas, and I've also been led into more
prayer through this. Because I realize that some of what I want to
offer my kids seems impossible: I have the hardest time focusing
on the things they're interested in for an extended period of time.
I'm also pretty distracted from the training process of teaching them
positive things and counteracting bad behavior.
And some of that's normal, and some of it can be propped up with
techniques for a time, but some of it is old sin patterns and the
fact that I'm a broken person. So I expect that a two-fold approach will
be the most helpful: a) arm myself with some creative parenting
strategies and b) fall on the mercies of God and fervently ask him to
transform me so that I would become capable of consistently
engaging my children, loving them well, and enjoying them like he does.