10 Things

1. Two weeks ago, Adam took 50 kids to Missouri for KAA. The kids and I were at home by our lonesome, particularly because Adam had brought most of the neighborhood kids with him. Thankfully, our next-door neighbors took care of the chickens, or they may not have made it. The kids and I survived by the skin of our teeth, mostly with lots of pool time and park visits. 

2. Here's a few of the biggest boys at camp, oh my heart. I was really sad not to be there with them, and I guess Caden heard me complain a time-or-two that they wouldn't let me go along because I was pregnant. One night as I was tucking them into their new bunk beds, Caden said, a little tearfully, "mommy, are Jayci and I pregnant people and that's why we couldn't go to camp this time?" 

3. Speaking of new bunk beds, Jayci and Caden have moved into their new shared room. There was a little bit of a learning curve in figuring out how to fall asleep in a shared room (which unfortunately I bore the brunt of while daddy was at camp), but they're old pros at this point. I just finished hanging a gallery wall (without Adam! this is unheard of for me to accomplish things by myself), pictures coming soon. 

4. Adam was only home for four days before leaving again on a contract-work trip to Dallas. In those four days, we managed to host a cookout/playoff game in the backyard night to celebrate a few of the boys graduating high school. After I took this picture, approximately twelve more boys and a few girlfriends showed up. Which meant my heart was full, and that all the food and four pitchers of lemonade were gone in no time.

5. I dont know about anyone else, but I can tell first thing in the morning whether or not my kids are going to have a good day or a bad one. Some mornings they are cheerful and all "yes ma'am" when I tell them only one show, and other mornings there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and plenty of fights. The interesting thing is that the beginnings of the day tend to trickle all the way through and they will either play great and behave wonderfully all-day-long, or the exact opposite of that. Now if I only could figure out the secret to either A) procuring more good days or B) turning around a bad day. 

6. I am realizing that this pregnancy is in the home-stretch (kind of). Tomorrow, I will be 32 weeks pregnant, which is just insane - 8 more weeks seems both impossibly long and way-too-short. We have started kinda-sorta working on the nursery. By which I mean Adam went in the attic and dragged down boxes for me to sort through and try to find all the baby things. This, of course, only makes me realize that our lack of organization on the front-end really just makes life that much harder. For example, being completely unable to find a stitch of baby clothing smaller than size 6 months. Maybe I'll have a really big baby and that wont be a problem . . .

7. We are still loving all our blackberries, blueberries, and now rasberries from the garden. One of my most beloved techniques for buying myself 20 minutes is to tell the kids to go pick all the ripe berries for me. Also, a few times a day, the kids yell to people walking by the berries to help yourselves to berries! As a matter of fact, our garden continues to be a source of community-building and encouragement. I'm trying to convince Adam to write some posts here with his greatest gardening tips, wouldn't you guys love that?

8. Our neighborhood park (right behind our house) is still one of our favorites. Although I tend to leave exhausted because all of the kiddos want all of the pushes on the swings and for me to watch them do all-of-the-things. 

 9. My parents' pool has also been a life-saver so far this summer. Yesterday, we brought one of our favorites over to swim and Jayci spent much time bossing him around and "teaching him how to swim underwater." Said teaching mostly involved him watching HER swim underwater ad nauseum. Thankfully, he's known her for approximately four years and has learned the art of indulgence. All of this made me realize we need to teach Caden how to swim, and Jayci learned from the wonderful "learning to swim" counselors at Camp Grace. Meaning I have no idea how to teach another human being how to swim (something I'm not exactly awesome at myself).

10. On days/evenings when it's not too hot, we spend lots of time on our backyard tire swing, which for sure is the best (nearly free!) Christmas present we ever gave the kids. Our neighborhood is ripe with abandoned tires, as it turns out. Anyways, Adam is planning on putting together a little tutorial on how he made the best-tire-swing-ever. I am always telling Adam he would make such a wonderful lifestyle blogger. Except he couldnt share pictures of his outfits because it typically involves one of his four pink Anteaters shirts with athletic shorts, or possibly with his quick-dry shorts (which are actually zip-off pants because he could not be more fashionable).