July

Oh, boy! It has been a long month! Or rather, it has been a long week! One could even say it has been a long night and be completely justified in saying so. Ugh. I am completely exhausted and at my wit's end. Sadly, I have realized that I am just a human and not superwoman, like I previously thought. ;-) Actually, I probably couldn't even qualify as human this week. I'm just tired.

I am so glad that Ryan took his boards a few weeks ago. I am even happier that he passed. (Go, Ryan!) He is just awesome. I am especially glad that I have a husband again. He even helps me in the evenings. (Swoon!) I even get to sit on the couch with him after the kids are asleep and just be us. Heavenly! Those six weeks of his studying were seriously hard for everyone.

Ethan's allergy shots have been going great. His allergist even officially said that Ethan no longer has asthma. He is finally up to 50 pounds, which is fantastic for him. He will be getting braces on in the next few weeks to help give his teeth some room to come in (one tooth has no space at all to come down, so it is just sitting there in his gums) and also make it so that his back teeth can actually touch when he eats. Right now he makes edge to edge contact on his front teeth (very dangerous for those teeth) and cannot chew unless he pushes his bottom jaw forward. Thankfully Ryan is in dental school, because it gives us a pretty good discount on the braces. It will end up being about 1/3 of the cost of the other quote we received. He will also probably be getting new glasses soon. He had 20/70 vision with his glasses on. (Sigh.) 

When we were at Ethan's orthodontist appointment, Kate had an incredibly runny nose. Like pour straight from your sinuses runny nose. After a few trips to get tissues, I noticed her face looked a little odd. Her eye had swelled halfway shut. Thankfully we always have an antihistamine with us, so she got a dose pretty quickly. Even a day later, her eye is still puffy.

We have no idea what caused it. Hopefully it doesn't happen again. That would suck having another severely allergic child in the house.

V is driving me crazy. She won't sleep. I can't figure out if it is the food or just the age. I do notice that her scream is more shrill on the days that she has solid foods. But even on days that she doesn't have solids, she still screams all day. We did feed her carrots again and she didn't throw up. She did end up screaming a long time and arched her back a lot that night, though.  She screams when I nurse her, she screams when I try to put her to sleep, she screams when I set her down, she screams when she sees me. It is sounding very similar to Ethan at that age. That is why I ended up weaning him at 9 months and then found out he had food allergies. That is why I think I am going to pull her off solids again for a few weeks and see what happens. We ended up moving her crib to the girls' room. I just couldn't sleep with her in our room anymore. She wouldn't take her nap today so I let her scream herself to sleep. So sad. She has actually been asleep for almost 2 hours. Longest nap she has had in a long time. I am just tired. I hope we figure out what is going on soon. I really could use some sleep.

I am still trying to figure out how what I will teach the kids' this year. I am probably just feeling overwhelmed by V, but I only have a few days left to figure it out. I honestly can't believe that school starts the first full week in August. What ever happened to a summer break? Since we live in Arizona, I think we need to have our break in winter rather than summer. That way we can actually let the kids outside and let them be kids during their long break. It probably also didn't help that we were gone half the summer and I never really got a chance to organize my house or my brain for that matter. Or maybe I did get to organize a lot, but I just had SO much to organize that I still ran out of time. We are definitely in need of a yard sale! I am so tired of having piles of baby stuff in every open corner of my house. I just need it out! I even got so tired of the messes that I went through the boys' room and organized their closet. It took for.e.ver! I took away half of the girls' books. I even went through the school stuff my mom gave me 6 years ago when she stopped teaching. I went through all the kids' clothes. I went through our shoe pile. I have not touched the hall (toy) closet. It really needs to be gone through! I even started to wash the mountains of laundry. It really is amazing how much laundry a family of 7 will go through in 8 days! I still need to make up chore cards for the kids so they know how to fully clean a room from start to finish without me nagging them the entire time. I think once the house and my brain are all organized that I will be just fine with the kids' school this year, even though it is a little daunting teaching 4 kids at all different levels all at the same time. Someday it will get easier. It has to get easier!

We did have a lovely summer vacation after Ryan's boards, even if it was cut in half because of a crazy recluse-like spider crawling right next to Ryan and Ethan's bed. I will get around to telling about it...after I have a little more time. Wish me luck on getting through this next week of screaming baby, trying to get ready for school, decluttering craziness. :-)

Altoid travel sets (thanks Pinterest)

Knowing that we would be on the road a lot this summer, we decided to make travel activities for the kids using Altoids tins. We have been diligently eating Altoids for months and we finally had enough tins right before we left on our official summer vacation. We made tic-tac-toe, don't eat Pete, checkers, chess, and have plans for a felt fishing game as soon as I can find the right magnet for it.

We used vinyl stickers for the game board parts, Sculpey clay for the game pieces, and magnetic sheets to hold the pieces to the tins.

The boys decided they needed to try out the chess game before we actually went on the road, just to make sure it worked. We realized that the game pieces for chess were too small and close together to grab with just fingers, so we even included a pair of tweezers to move the pieces with. The boys loved their new travel chess set!

Squeek, squeal

When we were eating lunch the other day, the kids started to sing the Barney song. No, they don't watch Barney, but they do know the song. V decided that she loved the song. :-) She screams a little chirp every time I sing to her. I think she likes singing. Her squeal is so adorable! I just want to squeeze her cheeks when she squeals like this!

First story

Jayke decided to read to V today for the first time. I know I should read to her everyday already, but I don't. I'm not ashamed to admit that I am not a perfect parent. I have five kids to keep up with; I can't do everything that I know I should! Anyway, V loved the pictures... and the pages. I think Jayke will be in charge of her daily reading time from now on. :-)

Getting around

V is finally learning to get what she wants, and I don't mean that in a spoiled way. She is learning to scoot and roll until she can reach what she is after. I often find her turned completely around and on her belly when I get her from her crib. If I set her on the floor, she will immediately do a 180, because of course, Mom never sets her right in front of what she really wants!

The other day, I set her on the floor and she happened to see the books we were giving to goodwill across the room. She decided she wanted them and made her way over there. She was quite thrilled with her ability!

She even got to suck on a few of them. She was very excited about that!

If I want her to stay out of trouble, I have to put her in her jumper or highchair. I am so excited that we are finally getting to this stage! Seriously. I know everyone else in their right mind always dreads this, but I love having independent children. I want them to be able to do things on their own without me having to do everything for them. I think it is good for their self-esteem and self-confidence. I am so glad to see V growing and developing each day. I sure love her!

Summer storms

One of the reasons we can survive living in Arizona is that we get beautiful summer storms. I love the dusty, muggy rain storms and the smell of the desert rain. It is a very distinct smell that comes from one of the plants that grows in the desert. When we do eventually move from Arizona, I think I will bring one of those plants with me just so I can pretend I am in the middle of a beautiful summer storm. We did start getting our summer storms right before we left on our real summer vacation. The kids loved it. They all wanted to run outside in the grass and jump on the trampoline.

They were all soaking wet and enjoying every minute of the storm.

Independence Day

For our Independence Day celebration this year, we were excited to have our dear friends the Garrison and Icely families join us. We were terribly sad to miss Christine and wee li'l Parker, though! Rainey showed up to our house, all prepared with fireworks, drinks, and chairs for everyone.

The three men certainly put on quite a show. Ryan and Rainey had lighters and Johnny had a lighter that was just a little bit bigger than the others. In the background of that picture, we are reminded by the half-staff flag that 19 brave men gave their lives last week, protecting people they had never met. We thank them for their service and pray that their families will be comforted.

We started off with a few ground lights, and loud noises.

Aimee plugged her ears for most of it and Charlotte cried through it until we realized she just needed ear muffs.

The kids received their first lesson in how to properly play with sparklers and then they were given some to play with.

But all the rules went out the window if you were an adult and had a big stick...

I think Rainey was trying to do a rain dance...but it didn't really work unless you count the lawn sprinklers as rain.

Then Jayke and Johnny got into a Harry Potter wand battle. Safely, of course.

Ryan and Johnny decided to find out what would happen when you light a bunch of sparklers all at once. 

 It gets very bright and very hot, but doesn't last a long time.


There was a lot of "lighting and running" by the men not wanting their hands or faces blown off.

We got to see this beautiful Arizona sunset.

And then set off some bigger ground lights, which of course, the cell phone does not do a great job of capturing.

We even ended up the evening with the neighbors in lawn chairs, watching from their driveway. It was awesome!

I was actually really surprised at many of the fireworks. I did not think that any of the legal ones would make a good show, but many of them were pretty fantastic! I even might have enjoyed them more than the air-launched ones we saw at the triple dome church later that night.

The Archer

Ethan has been fascinated with weapons from the time he was very little. He is always trying to create his own simple weapons. Lately he has been making his own bow and arrow. He has found little sticks and strings here and there around the yard and house to make his bow and arrow. The other day when he was trying it out, he came in to me, disappointed that his arrow split down the middle. He went through this whole explanation of what happened and how it split. He was pretty serious about the situation.

While we were away on our trip to my parents' house, Ryan had the opportunity to get an adult size bow. This just excited Ethan even more. Ethan was even more thrilled when Ryan bought a sight for the bow that Ethan got for Christmas a few years ago.

It was fun to watch Ryan and Ethan in the backyard trying to sight-in Ethan's bow.

Ethan dreams of being able to hunt food for his family. He is really hoping to catch a squirrel in the next few weeks and have smoked squirrel for dinner. :-) I just love that kid!

My floor is clean!

On July 3rd just after 11pm, I get a mass email from someone in our ward asking if anyone could feed the missionaries starting the next day. I figured we were already cooking food and would have extras so I volunteered to feed them on July 4th.

The great part about having company over for dinner is that the house actually gets clean. After taking care of V all day (and her being woken up from multiple naps all day long) and overseeing the kids cleaning responsibilities, I was flat out exhausted. I vacuumed the carpet and tile and I was just done for the day. The mopping needed to be done-the floor was disgusting and I just didn't have enough energy to do it in between nursing sessions. So...I figured it was the kids' mess anyway, so I would just have them do it. I gave them a quick run-down of how to mop and make sure that each tile actually got clean, gave them each a rag and a sinkful of vinegar water and let them go for it.

Jayke thought it was cool that he could slide he knees on the wet tile.

Ethan and Kate are hard at work.

 Let me tell you, that is the best thing I have ever done in my life! It's probably not as clean as I would have got it, BUT I didn't have to do it and it is way better than it was! I think this might just become a weekly activity for the kids, right along with their Saturday chores.

Best Surprise!

The kids have been so helpful lately. I was in my room putting V down for her nap before lunchtime and the kids seemed especially quiet. I could hear them talking, rather than whispering, so I knew they were not intentionally getting into things. When I came out I was pleasantly surprised to see Kate and Ethan working together on a fruit salad for lunch.

I did not even ask them to help make lunch and they knew just what to do. I was so proud of them for being responsible, especially since I wasn't even in the room. We need more moments like this!

Wings

This girl loves to dress up! When she came out looking like this,

she exclaimed, "Look, Mom! I'm Pearlie!"

She was so excited to get a dollar from Grandma for helping around the house while we were there visiting. Aimee begged us to take her to the dollar store since the moment we came home. After a while of contemplating and changing her mind, she finally decided to go with the fairy wings. I think it was the best investment she has made. She loves those fairy wing!

First baby food, take 2

V had already sucked on an apple before and didn't have any problems with the juice, so I decided to try applesauce this time around. The first day we gave her about a teaspoon and called it good for the day. She seemed to do fine. The second day we gave her about a tablespoon of applesauce. So far she is doing fine. Here is a video from the second day of applesauce. I love her faces!

Twinsies!

I've been threatening Kate about cutting her hair for a while, since I can never get her to comb her hair and she just screams at me when I try to comb it myself. She has such a tender head that it is just awful trying to brush her hair! Finally this week she came to me and asked for a haircut. I was floored, but I asked if she was serious and she was. I was thinking about just cutting it myself, but I really wanted it to look cute, so I called up Whitney at Le Studio. I am so glad I did! Her hair turned out just darling!

(I think I see a tiny bit of family resemblance there.)

When Aimee heard about Kate getting her hair cut, she wanted her hair cut, too. I was going to just schedule an appointment later in the week for her haircut, but Whitney said she had time to fit Aimee in right then. So, Aimee hopped up in the chair and sat perfectly still while Whitney gave her the same haircut as Kate.

I think she is adorable. I will definitely miss the long, wispy tendrils, but she looks so grown up now.

This mamma is especially glad that there won't be any more screaming during hair-fixing time!

More summer playtime

"Rawr! Rawr! Look, Mom, we are a two-headed monster! Rawr!"

Girls...

Are a crack-up. Especially my girls in the summertime, when it is too hot to do anything except play in the house.

She came out of her room laughing hysterically. When she got around to me I could see why.

"Look Mom, it's pantyhat!" 

First baby food

When talking to the pediatrician at V's last appointment, she said that delaying the introduction of solid foods does not prevent allergies, it just delays any reactions that might be handled better when the kids are a little older. So, we decided to go ahead and let V try solid foods because she has been showing signs of readiness for a few months now. We thought that 6 1/2 months was probably old enough for her to start on baby food. We started with carrots and she was loving it!

She kept gobbling up the bites and trying to pull the spoon away from me so she could put it into her mouth. It all seemed to be going well. That is, until I checked on her in the middle of the night. She was a little fussy, but still sleeping, so I went to pat her back a little to help her fall asleep better. My hand felt something cold and wet, so we turned on the light and saw that she was laying in throw up. We cleaned her up and changed her bedding and then put her in her swing to sleep a little. Within a few minutes, she had thrown up again. So, we cleaned up again and I decided to just let her sleep in my arms on the couch. She was acting really fussy again but was really tired. I ended up giving her a little benadryl just in case she was having a reaction to the carrots. She ended up throwing up a third time about 5 minutes after the benadryl. After that she ended up calming down and actually got to sleep again. V and I finally got to our own beds by 4:30am. We still don't know if she was having a reaction to the carrots or if we had just fed her too much, so we will be waiting a few weeks and trying again...a lot slower, though. Like one spoonful a day slower.

When I told Ethan what had happened, he told me he would be sad and glad if she had allergies too. Sad that she would have to deal with allergies, but glad that he would have an allergy buddy in the family.

"Vacation" day 12

Saturday morning we finished packing up all our stuff and headed home to brave the 118 degree heat. We were more than thrilled to welcome the heat as long as it meant we got to see Daddy again. Aimee cried more than once in excitement at being able to see her dad again. The kids and I dearly missed him while we were away.

V was a little unsure of Ryan at first, but after he played with her for a while she started to remember him and was excited to see him.

After we unpacked and got settled back at home, the first thing we did was go to the car wash. Even with the car wash, we still have dirt streaks and bug splatters everywhere on our van. I guess we will have to go through the car wash a few more times in the next week to get it completely clean. Thank goodness for our unlimited car wash pass!

 Overall, we had a fantastic vacation and loved visiting Grandpa and Grandma. We loved playing with all the cousins and especially Uncle Luiz. We loved the cooler weather and especially loved the cool evenings. Thank you Grandpa and Grandma for putting up with us and all the craziness for two weeks. We love you and already miss you!

"Vacation" day 11

Day 11 was the day of Luiz and Deanna's open house. That meant the morning was full of preparations, decorating, and a wee bit of stress as we were putting the final touches on everything. One of my mom's friends luckily saved the day when the hand mixer went out. She came over to help, mixer in hand, on a moment's notice. We were able to finish the frosting for the cupcakes without having to drive to Show Low for a new mixer.

Once the open house started, we put Jayke in charge of shooing flies until we could cover the food with plastic wrap.

The kids all enjoyed free access to as many marshmallows and cupcakes as they could eat. By the end of the night, I told the kids to eat more cupcakes and they all complained to me that they had already eaten too many. That's how I knew they had eaten just the right amount. ;-)

When the sun went down, the porch lights were attracting all the June Beetles. The kids thought it was so much fun to catch them. They ended up putting some water in cups and dropping the beetles in them so that they couldn't just crawl out. By the time all the guests had left, the kids had collected a ton of beetles! Jayke thought he was so funny posing for this picture. Gross, just gross!

We are so glad to have Luiz join our family and even more happy that Deanna found such an amazing man to have as her husband! Congratulations Luiz and Deanna!

"Vacation" day 10

On day 10, we started cooking the food for the open house. Ashley and I spent the day cooking 300 cupcakes. Thankfully they were mini cupcakes!

It was still a ton, though. We made pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and some with chocolate frosting, and vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting. I would have eaten all the pumpkin cupcakes right then if I could. I love pumpkin spice cupcakes!

That afternoon as Grandma was coming home from work, Grandpa got out the train. The kids all raced to get their socks and shoes on so they could get a ride.

Aimee took a minute longer to get hers on, so she missed the first round around the pond. She was devastated at first, but more than thrilled when she finally got to ride in it. Here they are coming around the back side of the pond.

After a few rounds around the pond, Grandpa went to the neighbor's house to see if their kids wanted a ride, too.  

Of course they did! Who wouldn't want to ride in a train behind a tractor?!


They took a trip by the house again. This time they had doubled up in each seat in order to fit everyone and make sure the littles stayed sitting down.

By the end of the train ride Ashley's little A had been lulled to sleep. Ethan did a fantastic job making sure that she stayed safe. What a good little helper he was!

That evening, most of the adults set up the tables and chairs. I must have been inside taking care of little ones or something...because I didn't help at all. The boys were outside having a great time catching toads. When I came home from buying milk, Ethan surprised me with his catch.

He told me he had caught a bullfrog and I had to break it to him that it was a toad, not a bullfrog. I had to explain to him the differences between a bullfrog and a toad. Poor kid has grown up a city boy and hasn't had enough opportunities to play in nature and discover these things for himself. Hopefully someday that will change and we can live close to nature again before he is an adult. Toad or bullfrog, he didn't care. He and Jayke were just excited that they were able to catch them right in Grandpa and Grandma's backyard.

The day that made up for day 8...or Day 9

After the terrible day we had on day 8, I decided we needed to have a good day. Ashley had a rough start to the day. She had stayed up hours past everyone else and her kids woke her up with the sunrise, so she basically was going on about 3 hours of sleep. By the time I got my kids going for the day (they were tired from working so hard the previous day and actually slept longer than me), it was lunchtime and Ashley had already put her baby down for his nap. I offered to take the kids off her hands for a while so she could get a nap. Things didn't quite turn out like I had planned. We ended up eating lunch and decided to wait for Baby T to wake up so we could take him, too. That turned in to Ashley wanting to come with us with a blanket to hang out in the shade of the big cottonwood tree. So, instead of Ashley getting a nap, we all went to the park with the kids.

Grandma swung with the kids,

V chewed on her hat string,

Baby T played on the blanket and tried to eat grass and leaves,

the boys played racquetball and then talked in the shade of the big tree,

then we all ate popsicles and shared our leftovers with all the other kids in the park. There were a lot of happy kids at the park that afternoon!

When we got back to my parents' house, grandpa had asked the kids to play on the pile of cinders that was delivered that morning to help flatten out the pile. The kids were given permission to ruin a perfectly good pile of rocks...and what did they do? Complained. But I told them they had to do it, so they ended up having some fun with it.

 And it very quickly turned VERY messy!

All of the kids had to be rinsed off afterwards!

After cleaning up the mess, I let the kids watch tv while Ashley and I snuck into Dad's study to eat ice cream.

It was so worth it!

When dinnertime came along, we decided to bring our food down to the lake to eat. A quick 30 minutes later we were on our way.

When we got there, we realized that there wasn't really anywhere to sit, other than the boat docking area. So we quickly passed out food and started eating right on the edge of the ramp. After dinner was finished, the boys went fishing with grandpa and the rest of us played in the water. V got her toes a little wet.

The rest of the girls got a lot wet.

 The kids started looking for critters.

And were thrilled to hold a snail.

 Then out came the pontoon and all the girls got a chance to ride with Aunt Deanna.

 

The kids were happy, 

  the evening was beautiful,

 and the mamma was relaxed looking out at the beautiful sunset reflecting on the water.

  After we got back, the boys were holding V on the couch, making her laugh her giggly little laugh.

 We couldn't have ended the day any better.