July.

So it's July. And we are about 7 weeks into Ed's busy season with the three longest weeks stretching out ahead of us. It is right about now (or really several days ago) that we all start to lose a bit of our sparkle. Ed rolls in long after the kids are in bed and rolls out long before they get up. Ava is pretty much always a trooper and Jack can cope as long as someone wrestles him every once in awhile and throws him some balls every night. Jemma, however, copes like me which means she has been pretty whiney and miserable lately. Ava found this cute card the other day and we hung it on the fridge and so, for the next three weeks, we're going to try to post something we're thankful for every day (or when I remember!):

So...today I'm thankful for a pizza picnic in the park:

and a boy named Jack, who makes friends everywhere he goes:

He let his new friend (the kid in the bike helmet there) play and play with his boat in the fountain without even blinking an eye about all the "sharing" going on.

A pool update.

Ava went down the huge slide at the pool today. It is long and fast and dark and just scary enough to keep me (a grown-up) liking it, so definitely scary for her. It appears that this is the summer she is really growing up. When will it end??

So proud.

Ava is a safety girl. Which has always been nice--even when she was a toddler I rarely had to watch her at the park or the pool, she knows her limits and sticks to them. There has been a lot of discussion lately about her riding a bike but the problem with summers at this house is that they are generally the busiest seasons for both Ed and I so we rarely have hours to practice something no one really wants to do anyway. But we are having a baby which makes more kids than we care to push or pull when we go for walks so we buckled down last night and headed out.

New big bike.

Ed showing her how it's done.

Starting out.

Ed trying to keep up.

She did it!
Seriously made me teary (which I'm going to blame on the pregnancy...I don't what's Ed's excuse!). We were so so proud of her. This was a serious accomplishment for our safety girl! And I think she was surprised to find that is was actually fun and we don't do these things just to torture her.

Jack hollered lots of, "Look at me...I'm great too!"

And Jem kept yelling, "Cheese. Cheese."

It's nice to know my kids have no self-esteem issues.

Hoop Fest.

I'm not really a basketball fan (at all) but I am an Ed fan so we headed to hoop fest this year after a seven-year absence.

Basketball is not Ed's favorite sport--but he's strong and fast and he's generally the scrapper on the team and that's always fun to watch. Plus we got seats in the shade so I was happy to sit there all day and then we finished the night with dinner at Red Robin so I'd say it was a success!

The team after their first game--a win!

The pool!

The temperature hit the high 70s so we finally hit the pool.

My sun boy spent a long time arranging everything just right.

Jemma borrowed a pair of nifty goggles with no lenses.

VBS

By the end of the week, the kids had roasted hot dogs, made smores, had their first ever franks and beans, made tepees and soap canoes, beaded these scarfs, did a lot of dancing, and had an all-around good time!

And I had five quiet mornings, long walks with Jemma (I so love pushing just a single jogger instead of the double with big ol' Jack in it), and ran all my errands with just one kid.

A big fat win-win.

The one thing my dad wanted for father's day was for someone to stain the upper half of their house and since it required a 28-foot ladder (on the highest rung), I sure wasn't going to do it so Ed volunteered instead. It actually made me nauseous just to take this picture and he had to go higher than this!

Movin' on

My dad retired last week from the job he has done since before I was born. And while he's not actually retiring, just moving on, he still got a party! I have a lot of memories of my dad working on campus and even more of all the people who have said, "Your dad's John Sawyer? He is the nicest (kindest, most helpful, etc.) guy I know!"

And my kids are particularly excited because his new office is a lot easier to get to and is right next to a park...it's a good place for a grandpa!

Office work

So the nursery was all cleaned out and super quiet and peaceful, which is why it is no surprise that eveyone wants to play in there instead of in their own rooms! Ava has set up shop and if Jack's lucky, he gets in on the fun. This day they were hard at work at the office.

26 weeks.

I'm a little late on this one. And truthfully, I am way bigger than this. Ava's been taking these from the same spot each time and somehow she is making me look much smaller than I actually am! Yay for Ava's skills. The baby is now the length of an English cucumber (my favorite kind) and weighs almost two pounds. We have yet to actually sit down and talk about a name for this poor peanut but we did pick up a crib mattress and an outfit this weekend, so he's still getting some love. I'm starting to feel b.i.g. Thank goodness you forget this or you'd never do it again!

Happy Summer!

Finally.

What's for dinner?

As soon as I head to the kitchen to make dinner, Jemma pushes her high chair in as close as she can get and waits oh-so-patiently to be fed. Last night, she finally realized it was going to take a while so she just camped out on the floor under it!

Vacation Bible School

The kids are off at VBS this week and we are all loving it! I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure if they'd know anybody and Jack's never been to any kind of organized "school" but when we showed up, we recognized a lot of the little people there and they loved it. There was music and dancing and a bonfire with smores. All of our favorite things! And I am finding myself with a lot of free time with just one little monkey all morning (who is now sleeping in till past 9:30). It's summer vacation for all!

Happy Father's Day!

We had big outdoor plans for father's day this year but we woke up to a serious downpour so, after Jack and Ava took Ed out to breakfast for his fave (stuffed biscuits and gravy), Ed mostly stayed in and did a lot of this:

and this:
in between a lot of golf-watching. Just the sort of day off he needs when working this much.
And, from the archives, one of my favorites:

Happy Father's Day!

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

then count me flattered.

Yes, I do a lot of this.

But I have been known to fold the laundry on occasion also.