June and July {2012}

I usually underestimate how long it will take me to do something -- including a blog post. I want to be quicker at it. Lately I have been trying harder to make the best use of my time, focusing on taking care of my family, myself, and our home. I use (at least I feel that I should) the computer mostly while I nurse the baby or the kiddos are all asleep. I think I will still blog, but I have been writing in my journal more. I finally printed two photos of C and put them in frames on our living room wall. I also want to make more digital scrapbooks. Anyway, here's a look, without all the photos, at a few of the things my family has done so far this summer. 


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My husband's AT (annual training) with the Army lasted for three weeks in June. It felt really long. The kids and I had two fun sleepovers, one at the home of my friend who lives a couple of hours away, and one at my step-mom-in-law's. Besides that, we had lazy days, went to parks and the craft store, and we attended birthday celebrations -- three with family and one for a preschool friend. After the dinner celebrating my brother-in-laws' birthdays we asked an employee to take a picture of our group. My mother-in-law sent it from her phone to mine and my husband's, and we were really confused when she said that it wasn't a good picture of her or me. It was like, "I think my wife looks beautiful." "You do?"

Then she noticed that she had only sent us the wrong picture (the good one), so she sent the right picture (the bad one). I think it is so hilarious.

While my mother-in-law hosted a Princess Party with her granddaughters and her friend's granddaughters, my husband and I had a great date night. (We took the third photo during our date. Next time, maybe we'll get a photo of us, not just the yummy food!)

 

On June 30th my dad's family had a big reunion, five years after the last one. It's crazy that I hadn't visited my old piano teacher -- who is married to my dad's cousin -- during those five years even though we now live just a few minutes away from him. Here are a few photos we took at the reunion. I am excited to get the professional shot(s) of everyone who was there. We felt bad for those like my cousin Steve's wife, who had to kneel for a long time, so it better have been worth it!

My dad and step-mom's grandchildren at 6, 3, and 2 months old. One of the two other December babies in the family came to the reunion, too, and it was fun to meet him.

 

The reunion five years ago.

It was nice to spend all of July 4th together as a family, with my husband not delivering pizzas from 5ish to 10ish pm like he has a lot of other years. I love being with him. I'm also glad that I live in the United States of America. After AT his first day back at the pizza place was July 5th. By the way, he started a full-time entry-level freight position July 2nd so we can pay the bills (now that he doesn't receive the GI bill), and he is seeking a better job/career to replace that. He works hard at three jobs, up to about 60 hours a week. I'm proud of him and I'm probably not as stressed as he is. We're optimistic about our future. But I'm getting off topic. . . . I almost regret that we didn't go see any fireworks this year because Shboogoo really thinks they are beautiful. But L hated them last year, and we didn't know how C would react. We also didn't want to keep the kids up so late. Around 1:00 we left home for a party at my husband's Aunt Karen's house. He hadn't seen some of his cousins (a bunch of boys close to his age) in years, and it was a lot of fun. People complimented me on my salad: kale, spinach, romaine, avocado, lemon juice, a little olive oil and salt . . . and I don't remember if I put anything else in it. We played volleyball, and my older girls and I joined a few others at the next-door-neighbor's swimming pool. Then we headed to my mom's house to hang out for a little bit. It was after 7:45 when we got there, but since we still weren't hungry after all the food at Karen's, and we had not even known that my mom wanted to see us that day, we didn't go out to eat with them. 

He LOVES this picture I got of him putting sunscreen on L.

 

 

 

July 24th, Pioneer Day, I was stuck home because our car needed a repair, which meant my husband needed the van for his long work day. My mom and my sister and her kids came over to my place. We ate Cafe Rio salads for lunch and then went to the swimming pool. It was C's first time in a pool. It was adorable how much she loved it and kept splashing the water with her palms. I think it's interesting that our kids who were born in the winter had a positive reaction to the swimming pool, at 6-7 months old. Second Girl was born in the middle of the summer and her first experience with a pool was not until she was 12 months old. I wonder if that one had cooler water, though; it was at a hotel, not an apartment or condominium complex. 

 

 

 

On July 27th we had a Tiny Girl birthday party for L. We have not found the two plastic dolls she received last year that she calls "Tiny Girl" but for a long time she had wanted that to be the party theme anyway. I was so grateful for the help from my husband, sister, mom and mother-in-law. Of course all the children had fun even though I didn't have enough time to make all the decorations and other things that I wanted to make. For example, they didn't pin the outfit on the tiny girl or boy, but they did get to drink from tiny cups and put tiny stickers on tiny party hats. My balloon flowers -- an idea from pinterest -- did not fit the tiny theme, but I was proud of them. L loves playing with her "numba fee," meaning the 3 candle. We had a small family celebration at my mom's house on the actual birthday in June, too (see the last three photos). L still talks about how she liked the lemon teasecake I made that day. She's a sweetie.

This was the first Tiny Girl she lost (shown inside a shoe, inside pajama shorts).

Soon before the party started, my girls decided they wanted to wear costumes: their aunt's old dance uniforms