July 2011

Here are a few of our adventures in July I managed to get pictures of. It was a crazy busy month.

Treehouse Museum with the Talbots. After Dylan's experience being in a play, the kid loves to be in front of an audience. He was thrilled to be chosen as king at the little play they put on at the Treehouse. He was so cute and serious about his part. Preston ended up being chosen as one of the wild pigs. He didn't follow the story like the other wild pigs, but was the "wildest" pig there. He was definitely entertaining in his own right.

Otis and Marissa are only 2 1/2 weeks apart. I managed to capture a couple pictures from the Otis birthday bbq. Those two are so entertaining to watch. They climb over each other, take things from each other and just observe what the other is doing. So funny!

My dad and step mom took my niece, Lily, to Cherry Hill while she was in town visiting. They stayed in their trailer and camped as well as went swimming. We met them for a day of fun in the sun and a short break for lunch and a movie in the trailer. Dylan and Lily had a great time playing together. It's funny how kids can pick up where they left off even if they don't see each other very often. The "skin" picture is a picture of Marissa's leg. She fell asleep on her comforter and it left an imprint of a dragonfly. Too cute!

Part of our busy July included almost 3 weeks of tending Anthony while his dad was on a cruise with friends. It really was crazy timing with Preston's finger and other appointments we had scheduled months ago, but we managed to have a blast anyway. Several trips to different pools, the aquarium, the zoo, slumber parties on the new bunk beds, and lots sword fights, trampoline time, bike and scooter riding, building forts and other kid-friendly activities. My house was less than clean for many days, but we survived the extra chaos and the kids had fun together.

I know I posted about this one, but July was full of adventure with Preston's finger. An Emergency Room visit, plastic surgeon to repair his tendon and stitch his finger, multiple follow up visits, much creativity on my part to figure out how to help him keep on his temporary splint and then the red splint that they fitted him for (thus the picture of the latex glove taped around his hand). Yes, it's been a long 3 weeks. But he got the stitches out today (August 3) has to wear the splint for two more weeks, follow up one more time and then hopefully he'll be fine.

A few more moments with Anthony. The kids made chopsticks out of plastic straws to eat noodles with one day. We area also proudly the rent-a-pet home. We haven't dared to get our own pet yet, but we happily watch others' animals while they are gone. Gives us a little exposure without the extra responsibility. :) We dog sat and tadpole sat while Anthony was here.

As if July weren't already packed full of adventure, we remodeled. Not on purpose, but my dad was getting rid of bunk beds that my sisters and I had used at his house when we were younger. I probably wouldn't have bought a full on bottom and twin on top, but free is free. All we did was bought new sheets. Yay! The kids slept in the family room while we painted and I managed to capture a couple funny pictures. Preston fell asleep wearing his pirate hat and holding his sword and an hour later he had rolled into Dylan and they were as close as can be. So cute! It has actually been wonderful having the full bed on the bottom and surprisingly has made their small room seem much bigger. By the way, Preston chose Toy Story sheets and Dylan chose Star Wars. I thought they would be matching, but we settled for making the kids happy and colors that didn't completely clash. :)

This last picture is a picture of the office/toy room. I was going crazy trying to figure out how to arrange things. It happens to me often, although may have been sparked by the chaos of an extra kid this time around. Stuff was everywhere. I can let things go most of the time, but every six months or so, I just feel the need to clean and reorganize everything. It drives Marcos crazy, but he always appreciates it in the end. Trust me, this one took some time. Probably three days of non-stop sorting, organizing, setting up, getting rid of, etc. But here is the final product. Now we have the desk and my shelves with craft stuff and then the back wall has the nice shelves with bins of toys and then the other shelves with learning stuff for school. One shelf has puzzles, games, playdough, crayons, coloring books, etc. and the other has curriculum-type stuff. My plan is to get a new doorknob so this room can be locked when I don't want the kids to get into stuff. Now the bookshelves upstairs just have books and the binders we will be using for home school stuff. It looks much better. Not perfect, but better. Man, I don't know how people do it. Our house is small, but not tiny and we only have three kids. We have plenty of stuff, but not TONS. I'm pretty good at going through stuff regularly and purging. I don't know how people fit things in their houses. Sometimes STUFF makes me NUTS! I was so ready to throw everything away. Glad I found a slightly different approach.

Happy July everyone! I hope you had a good one. I'm hoping to catch up with other people via their blogs when I get a minute to breathe. Soon...hopefully soon. :)