Short & Sweet Summer

We have had a 5 week summer break--yep the kids start school again on Monday.  It has been short and sweet--I'm grateful we got more than the 2 week break that 50% of the kids at the school got (year-round schedule is kind of crazy for summer).  We were supposed to go to Boise to visit to the Flakes the week after the 4th of July, but my morning sickness set in a little earlier than usual so we decided to postpone the trip.  Steve had an opportunity to take a certification test for work that week so he studied a bit on Monday then took the test on Tuesday and he worked a few hours here and there, but we mostly had a staycation.  Steve even went to the zoo with us on Wednesday and we got take-out several times which was nice because it is hard to want to cook when you feel nauseous all the time.

The second week of our summer break Ellie had radKids which is offered free through our city.  It is an awesome program that teaches kids safety awareness and self defense.  The final day of the class they invite the parents to come and they put the kids in padded gear and have one of the instructors in padded gear try to take them and the kids use the moves they learn to defend themselves.  At the beginning the officer said that if a kid just walks with the stranger their chance of survival is 3%, but if they show any kind of resistance their chance of survival goes up to 55%.

 

Ellie wanted to show Steve the video I took of her defending herself and so we watched it together as a family that evening and Andrew immediately started saying, "kick kick" (we've never heard him say that before) and kicking the furniture.  We decided that he probably shouldn't see the video again because he doesn't quite understand the circumstances and may think kicking is ok. ;)

Ellie also had music camp that week with her piano teacher so she had a full schedule.  Lila, Andrew, and I hung around the house playing games and Lila did get to have a play-date with a friend which made her happy.

We left for Idaho Friday after doing a little housework to try and catch-up (morning sickness means the house gets a little neglected).  We got to Idaho around 3pm and enjoyed playing outside with the kids.  Then Mimi and Grandpa took the girls to see the Minions move at the theater. :)  We went to meet up with our friends, the Kortes from Tucson who were traveling through Idaho on their annual RV trip.  We had a lovely visit with them Saturday and I was excited to go for a boat ride, but unfortunately the boat decided to give up the ghost after we all got loaded and away from the dock.  We began to drift down river quickly.  Dad jumped in to tow the boat to the shore, but couldn't touch.  So Steve emptied his pockets (he hadn't put on his swim suit yet) and jumped in to help.  We made it to the neighbors dock and we all unloaded and then they towed the boat back to our ramp.  Bummer, but we still had a good visit enjoying the scenery.

Andrew hadn't been feeling well all weekend and Sunday when we were getting ready to leave I felt pretty sick so I asked for a baggy and grocery sack just in case.  My Mom gave me like 10 and I thought whoa, but then just before Snowville Andrew threw-up.  It just kept coming and was so disgusting.  We stopped in Snowville to clean up a bit and all these flies came into the car which drove the girls crazy, but what do ya do.  Anyway, at that point I was grateful for all of the 10 sacks as we wrapped up everything and then wrapped Andrew in some clean blankets and got back on the road.  We got in late that night and I told Steve to just put a new carseat in the van and we would clean the other carseat the next day.

I was glad the next morning when Steve was off to his Monday meeting and I had to take the kids to swim lessons that there was a clean carseat in the car.  The girls have been taking private swim lessons the last two summers and have really been making great progress--I'm so happy with it!  

 






















We went swimming as a family a couple of times at the Syracuse pool the Rush.  We had a lot of fun practicing skills and spending time together.  Andrew does not like the sensation of floating so there was some crying, but eventually we got him to kick his legs and enjoy the water.  :)


We let the girls sleep outside in the tent on the 24th of July.  They thought it was great.  We let them stay up late to watch some fireworks and do sparklers and those silly grow snakes.  Then I had promised them they could watch a movie in the tent so . . . they were up until 11pm.  They slept well out there and relaxed and read in the morning.  Andrew even enjoyed playing in the tent a bit on Saturday with Steve.

Ellie improved in her swimming enough that we decided to sign her up for the mini-triathlon again which was last Saturday.  So she had swim lessons right up to the day before and her teacher was awesome and would ask what should we do to help prepare you for the race. ;) The morning of the race was of course the only day Andrew slept in the whole month . . . oh well.  I got Ellie ready and then sent her and Steve to get checked in while I got the other two ready to meet them up there.

She improved times by a minute from two years ago: 50yd swim 2:40, 1mile bike 8:34, 1/2mile run 3:12, T1 3:02, T2 :33 TOTAL 18:00




And here we are to the last week of summer before school starts and our first break is not until mid-October.  We're taking it easy this week because I've had a few minor complications with the pregnancy--nothing threatening just uncomfortable.  The whole family is excited about having baby #4 . . . it's just the pregnancy that I'm already counting down.  It has made this summer a bit more lax.  The girls haven't had to do regular chores so the house is a bit more cluttered than usual, but they have also been so helpful in the daily tasks with meals and entertaining Andrew.  

They've enjoyed using their reading nooks that we made them the first week on break.  Ellie has read 6 books in the 5 weeks--she read the whole Gregor the Overlander series which is 5 books that are about 400 pages each, then finished one of her book club books and is now on her second book club book.  Lila also has been excited about reading and has wanted to be reading chapter books so she started reading one of the LegoFriends books to me at night and is making good progress.

4th of July Bash

We always go to Rupert for 4th of July--it's tradition (up to this day I've only missed 2 well now 3 Rupert 4th of July's). Steve's brother Doug called and said they would be in Provo and wanted to spend the 4th of July with us. We had a family council and decided we would stay here and celebrate with them.  So I did some research about local parades and found that the Clearfield parade went right by Steve's office and was earlier in the day with a start time of 9:30 vs 10:30/11 for the other parades.  Friday afternoon I stopped by the office on my way home from taking Andrew to the doctor and put out blankets and chairs to save us a grassy spot--I had dreams about me not putting it in the right spot or people crowding in front of us, but was pleasantly surprised when we showed up that it was just as I left it and no one setup in front of us. 

First some of our neighbors were doing a flag raising at their house so we got up early, got dressed, and I made 8 doz mini muffins to take and share at the breakfast flag raising. It was fun to see some of our neighborhood friends there and to show our respect for the flag and the freedoms it represents.  We then ran home threw otterpops, water bottles, frozen gogurts in a cooler and headed off for the parade. We didn't make it early enough so the road was shut down and we had to park at at the Aquatic Center and walk over--it wasn't a bad walk though.  We got there put up the umbrella and then Doug and his family showed up.  They wanted a tour of Steve's office so he took them in to show them.  Then our dear next door neighbors the Abels showed up to sit with us.  Just as I began to wonder what could be taking so long with the office tour Joddy came out and said they were playing ping-pong. I guess that's a good as an activity as any to pass the time waiting for the parade to reach us.  I had brought festive bubbles I let the kids blow as we waited.

Then the parade began with a bang--free Madbrook donuts that were quite delicious.

There was a ton of candy--each kid gathered more than they will ever eat. Andrew sat contentedly in his stroller watching the fun. On occasion people with candy would come over and dump straight from the bag into his lap--which he of course thought was great.

PS you see the nifty festive fans I brought too--I originally thought they would be something for the kids, but those things were nice to have to keep ourselves cool so we as adults kind of kept them. ;) Although the weather was nice and overcast for most of the parade it did get a bit hot towards the end.

At the end of the parade-sad I didn't get the Abels in a picture.

Steve brought a garbage bag out from the office and we picked up then went to wait in the air conditioned building while Steve and Doug went and got the vehicles.  It was seriously nice to have his office right there.  We went back to the house and barbecued.  Steve's sister Stephanie and her family met us at the house.  We cooked bacon wrapped pork tenderloins, hot dogs, polish dogs, and chicken drumsticks.  I had made a potato salad, festive cupcakes, strawberries dipped in white chocolate and blue sprinkles, and a miami beach trifle (since the cake fell in the middle I salvaged it by adding pudding and whip cream in a trifle bowl).  We also had a little drink station with red, white and blue flavored ice cubes.  It was a ton of food and I didn't get a picture.  We ate and ate and then let the kids play while we visited.  We had decided the day before to forgo our lawn twister game because of the heat and setup our small above ground pool, but with it, the slip-n-slide, and water balloons everyone was plenty wet and had fun all afternoon.  I had also bought some festive punch balloons the kids played with and some 4th of July frisbees they colored.  In the evening the adults had a little badminton tournament and then the weather went crazy--it became extremely windy and we quickly gathered things up and wondered if the fireworks would be able to go that evening.  Stephanie and Doug headed for home after the crazy weather. Eventually things calmed down enough so Steve and Doug took the oldest 6 back up to his office to watch the big firework show that Steve said was AMAZING!!  Lila said it was a little loud, but fun.

June Trunkiness

I've loved year around school. However, I was not prepared for how difficult it would be to have school in June. There were mornings I would lie in bed and look at Steve and say, "I wish it was summer."  Steve, "It is."  Me, "I mean I wish the kids were out of school."  It was difficult to get up and get going those mornings, do breakfast, make lunch, and do timely carpool.  The last week couple of weeks of school was so hot--we had to pick the girls up in the afternoon which added to the trunkiness of it all.  Then there was the never ending softball due to make-up games because of all the rain we got late May/early June and I had signed the girls up for tennis thinking that softball would be over so June was a bit insane with softball Mon/Wed, tennis, Tues/Thurs. The shining part of June was Saturdays--we had no events on Saturdays and had done so much yard work in the spring we felt like we could take a reprieve.  So we spent Saturdays doing fun stuff like batting cages and the splash pad, running the bike car wash on the rv pad (so the excess water could run into our garden--poor garden it got so hot), playing with cousins, having the girls cook . . . yes Saturdays were just what we needed no pressure days.

And we managed to survive the end of school--Ellie did good on her spelling tests and studying a bit more on her own (trying to teach her some more responsibility and independence towards the end of the year).  On Monday, Ellie's softball team made it to the championship game and put up a good fight, but came in second. 

Lila had her kinder celebration and is officially going to be in school all day (don't know that I'm ready for that).  

Steve took the girls to the beach party at the Clearfield Aquatic Center after their final tennis lesson on Thursday.  

Game on the final day of tennis.

Popsicles from Pace after a hot day of tennis.

Then Friday we spent the day prepping for our big 4th of July party.

. . . I Am Your Father

Steve's big present was a free standing portable hammock.  He loved the hammock in Mexico so much I thought he might enjoy one here.

As you probably have noticed the girls are really into Star Wars right now and I found this great shirt for Steve and the girls loved the idea of it so I ordered it up.  

Here he is with it after opening all of the fun crafty things from the girls (a bonus of year around school-Dad's get some of the fun stuff from school).  He wore the shirt all Saturday, but I didn't take a picture.

I also found the perfect t-shirt for Russ in the process and ordered it for him--the delivery of his shirt spurred a hilarious group text from his family that went something like this:

which one of you funny people sent this to dad? It says "World's Greatest Farter, I Mean Father." Farting is a standing joke in the Moore household--joke or stench . . .

Stephanie: that hilarious, my boys want a shirt with just the top part.
Jessica: hilarious! wish it was from me.
Debbie: lol! so true.

We were camping and didn't have service when all of these messages came in so finally later that day we sent a message saying it was from us and Happy Father's Day!

Grandpa Stan also got a shirt.  He is always talking about how different things are and how different we all parent so I found this and thought it fit: "It's a Grandpa Thing-You Wouldn't Understand."  He wore it with pride all weekend.

We also found this survey on lds.org and discussed it with Steve for Family Home Evening and then Grandpa Stan indulged the girls by answering a few questions Sunday evening after dinner at his Mt Green house (unfortunately I was a little distracted with a headache so I didn't catch most of it).  I posted what I could remember:

Did your parents give you an allowance? How much was it? 

*Steve - no!

Where was the first place you lived away from home? Do you have any crazy roommate stories?

* Steve - BYU.  He did have a crazy roommate and the funny thing is my best friend and I got to know him through the FHE program the singles ward did and we nick-named him No Laugh Brian so when Steve and I started dating and he started telling me stories about this roommate I just chuckled and said you mean No Laugh Brian.  He used to write with dry erase markers on dirty dishes, "Wash Me" or circle crumbs on the countertops.

What do/did you love most about your own dad?

* Steve - how hard working and patient he is

What is the best Christmas or birthday gift you've ever received and given? 

* Steve - when my Mom let me order computer parts to work on our old computer, that's what got me started down the computer career path

Name all the jobs you’ve had. Which was your favorite?

* Steve - working for Dad painting apartments etc, a rock store I can't remember the name of (he got fired from that job--you'll have to ask him about that), BYU IT before and after mission, University of Ariziona as a Phd student, and currently MGI (Moore Good Ideas)

  

What was the first car you drove? Who taught you how to drive?

* Steve - Honda Civic and Mom

* Stan - Blue Volkswagen Bug (he still talks about buying one for fun)

What was your reaction when you found out you would be a dad?

* Steve - excited and nervous all at the same time

* Stan - terrified

 

What is the most surprising thing you enjoy about being a father?

* Steve - tickling the kids (they love being tickled by their Dad).

What is a food or dish that reminds you of a specific place or person?

 * Steve - lasagna--I missed a trip to Disneyland because I didn't eat all of my lasagna one night for dinner (audible gasps from the girls--now you know why Daddy always try to get you to eat your food. girls yes we will try to be better.)  also when mommy was pregnant with Ellie she made a huge batch of lasagna and it made her sick so I had to eat the rest by myself--not so fun

Did you do any sports or clubs when you were a teen? If so, what are your favorite memories?

* Steve - did track and field--the triple jump was his favorite event

* Stan - softball--he remembers the only game his parents came to he managed to hit a homerun 

What is your favorite thing about your hometown?

* Steve - the curvy hillside roads to drive on

* Stan - I grew-up their so I know it so well and all the people there 

Did you ever get really sick or have to go to the hospital? What happened?

* Steve - broke my back at Lake Powell in a jet ski accident

What kinds of things did you collect as a kid?

* Steve - coins

* Stan - coins 

What is the best part about being a husband?

*Steve - having someone to come home to and helping each other

My response to this question: having someone to share everything with--I couldn't ask for a better partner in crime ;).  Someone who listens to me without judging, offers advice when asked--but knows when to just listen.  Someone I can leave the kids with without worrying.  Who supports me in my personal craziness which includes volleyball every Wednesday--a night where he is already committed to scouts, but will take the kids along if necessary.  A man to work along side, to dream along side, to play along side, laugh, and cry (which if you know me is quite often).  Seriously who knew a husband could mean so many things to me.  He is the first person I want to tell things to and the man I'm excited to grow old with.  Happy Father's Day Steve!

Our First Camping Trip

The ward has been planning a family campout for almost 18 months--it got rained out last year and moved dates this year.  Last year it was just going to be Steve and the girls that slept in the tent while Andrew and I went back to Mimi and Grandpa's place in Mt Green to stay the night, but this time we decided to try the whole family.  We bought a new 6 man tent that practically pops-up, seriously sets up in 60 seconds.  It fit two queen air mattresses perfectly with space for baggage still.  We planned to sleep the 3 kids on one air mattress laying width wise while Steve and I slept on the other mattress.  We arrived there about 5:30pm, picked our spot, setup the tent and then the girls went and played with friends.  Ellie's friend Tyler Morehead and his family were next to us so they played all weekend in the stream together -- it was about ankle deep so it was perfect for the kids to play in without too much parental supervision.  We roasted hot dogs, ate fruit, chips, and we brought stuff for smores, but decided to just eat a few of the yummy smores cookies we had made to share with everyone.  Lila played mostly in the tent and kept asking if it was bed time and saying that she was tired and wanted to go to sleep.  I think the excitement of sleeping in the tent made bedtime fun for her.  At 10pm after a little fireside with the ward we tried to go to sleep.  Andrew was so tired, but he was so excited to be sleeping with everyone that he just bounced around the tent laying on each of us.  Steve took him for a walk and he was asleep in minutes so we laid him down and for a moment I dreamed of other camping adventures with my family and then at 12:30 Andrew woke-up screaming and would not be consoled.  We tried a movie on our phone, we tried taking him for a walk, nothing worked so fortunately I had Steve park the van away from the tents in case of such a situation.  I loaded him in the car and drove home.  The two of us had some errands in town Saturday morning anyway, so it wasn't a big deal.  I think he must have been having some tummy issues because he screamed even when we were at home.  After our errands we drove up to hangout--we were hoping the super fun slip-n-slide would be going but do to the drought it was not up and running.  We brought otter-pops to share while everyone finished packing up camp.  Then we headed down the canyon, grabbed some food a J's drive through (yummy Tangee-homemade sorbet) dropped Ellie off at softball practice and unloaded the car at home.  The girls were a bit cranky from lack of sleep and I had a long talk with them about working on controlling our emotions even when we are tired because if this happens after we go camping then we won't go camping any more.  It helped a bit.  All in all it was a beautiful weekend full of fun memories.

 

Lila's Dance Recital

The last two years Lila's recital has ended up on a crazy day--last year it was Ellie's birthday and this year Ellie had a double header softball game (make-up for rained out games which went way past their bedtime on a school night we didn't get home until 10:15pm).  I think this time of year most of the recreation programs assume school is out, but my poor kids still have 3.5 more weeks with their year round schedule which makes things a bit interesting.

She had her dress rehearsal Tuesday evening which went smoothly.  We decided the lipstick she got at her birthday party went well with the outfit so she took care of putting it on on Wednesday before the performance. :)  Steve made it home early yesterday so we could all hit the rode at 5pm for the crazy night.  Mimi met us there and enjoyed the show with us.  Lila performed beautifully.

I went and got her right after the dance and then we met the rest of the family in the parking lot where Mimi gave her some flowers which Lila had been saying she really wanted (when she woke-up this morning and saw that I had put them in a vase after I got home last night she was so excited and even asked if I used the flower food for them).

We slipped out right after her performance to go get some dinner before Ellie's softball games.  We went to the Burger Bar which was near the Roy High School and has been featured on the Food Network's Dives, Diners & Drive-Ins.  We tried there special Big Ben burger and an Elk Burger, Mimi had the Sea Ben sandwich which was pretty good then of course way too many french fries, onion rings, and milk shakes (it was a pity that a lot went to waste at the baseball field).  It was fun, but probably not something we would make a special drive for.  

The softball games never run on schedule which means her 7:30 game didn't get started until 7:55 so after about 30 minutes Steve took Andrew and Lila and went home to put them in bed.  Mimi and I stayed and cheered on the team through the late late game.  Ellie loves softball--I have to keep reminding myself this is her first year playing and start at the pitching machine level is difficult she'll get the hang of it.  It was a fun evening.

But I'm not gonna lie everyone is dragging a bit this morning including me-hopefully we can get some good sleep tonight right after their tennis lesson (when I signed them up for tennis, softball and dance were supposed to be done but because of the rain out schedule Ellie has one more week of softball)--life is good and busy.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

On the way to school the kids were talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up and Lila said, "I want to be a Chinese character unless I do something in English then I'll take care of animals like at the zoo."

The girls on the way to softball were talking and Ellie said, "I think I only want one boy because they are hard and probably 2 or 3 girls."  Lila said, "I want a bunch of girls like 90 and maybe only 20-30 boys."  Ellie, "Lila if you had a baby every year you would die before you had that many children."  Lila, "Well maybe only 2 boys and take that away from 9 so 7 girls."  Lila has always been a nurturing person and always the first to ask when we are going to have another baby.  She loves playing with little cousin Anson.  So cute!

Andrew loves music.  He'll dance to it, it calms him down, it distracts him.  He starts waving his arm around any time he hears music that reminds him of Church or General Conference.  And as soon as Ellie hits the first note to start practicing he immediately stops what he is doing, runs to the piano, climbs next to her and starts playing until Steve or I get him and move him away so she can keep practicing.

Getting There is Half the Problem (not fun)

Steve, Dad, and Marcee signed up to do a century ride in Bear Lake this year.  However, due to health concerns of the director the event was cancelled.  We still had the lodging scheduled and decided to keep a mini family vacation.  We were excited to go, but to be honest it was a miracle we got there.  Life was pretty stressful last week due to Lila's UTI situation again.  There was a urine sample drop-off Monday then coordination with her local doctor to get it tested and started on an antibiotic, updating her urologist at Primary Children's hospital, then Thurs morning I found out that it was an ecoli strand so she had to start a new antibiotic that was supposed to be called in the day we left so we could pick it up on our way out, I spoke with the urologist again on that day to determine how to move forward with Lila's treatment--she said since there was no fever with this infection that indicates the kidneys were not currently being affected by that infection so we decided to do another low dose antibiotic for a shorter amount of time 6 months vs 1 year and allow her body a bit more time to recover and continue with good bathroom habits so she called in the low dose antibiotic to start immediately after she finishes the treatment antibiotic. It was a miracle I got anything done that day to finish getting us ready--we did not get off as early as a I hoped and stopped at the pharmacy to find out that the doctor did not call in the new treatment antibiotic so I went back to the car to call the doctor's office which I was grateful was still open at 5:30pm and while on the phone with them decided to have them send it to Logan to be filled so we could pick it up on our way instead of waiting for it to be filled there at that point I sent Steve back in to get the low dose antibiotic.  We started driving again when I looked at the prescription Steve got and realized it was twice as much as usual so I called the pharmacy and figured out what happened there--they wanted us to turn around and come back, but at that point we were in Brigham City 40 minutes away so I told them we couldn't and they agreed to resolve the issue on Monday when we returned (which they should have--sometimes I wonder about customer service, they should be looking at medical history to make sure there isn't any bad drug interaction and they should have seen that she had been on that antibiotic before and that the insurance covered it and called to figure out what to do--besides the fact that I had spent close to $500 there in the last 3 days with Lila's meds and Andrew's asthma stuff).  So you can see why I was frazzled when we arrived at Bear Lake and tired and grumpy only to be kept up the first night until 2am by Andrew.  Steve had gone to sleep on the couch earlier that night so at 2 I went down and told him I was getting a migraine and needed sleep so he went up to take care of Andrew who of course managed to sleep most of the rest of the time and I was awoken by fisherman at 4am (not their fault--just my luck).  The weekend ended up being a bit dreary, sprinkly so needless to say we spent lots of time in our pajamas relaxing playing around the house, eating yummy food, watching Jakey entertain the kids with robot arms, bubbles etc., and watching movies (we watched Star Wars V Empire Strikes Back where Lila explained to everyone that Dark Vador was the prince of evil--then we showed Grandpa the trailer for the new Star Wars movie VII coming out Christmas--he hadn't heard about it yet--Lila came around the corner during the trailer and said "What Dark Vador's dead"--oops love how she says Dark not Darth).  Steve and Dad did go for a shorter than a century ride--26 miles, Ellie managed to touch stinging nettle right outside the house where we were staying, but all in all just a relaxing weekend.

We drove home through Evanston with Nessa and her girls.  We had to make a stop in Evanston so Venessa could throw-up poor pregnant mama--I made her sit in the front the rest of the way.  We managed to come home, have lunch, get ready for church and make it on time and my sharing time even went really well--I had prepared in advance and was grateful for Heavenly Father's help to make it all come together as it did.  Lovely day!  We even had a nice testimony meeting for family home evening after church and our home teachers managed to timely bring delicious cinnamon rolls for our dessert.

Treasured Moments

Andrew, bless that little scallywag, is growing up way too fast.  The last two Wednesdays he decided he would like some cereal.  Last week I didn't notice until it was all dumped out in the front room and he had picked all of the dried strawberries out of the Special K.  This week I caught him running by with the cereal container and squealed at him so he got distracted tripped and the cereal split onto the kitchen floor.  I got a plastic bowl and we picked it up into the bowl--yes he helped me pick it up.  I then gave him the bowl, he put it on the table, climbed onto a chair, grabbed this spoon he'd been using to mix dried beans with and started eating his cereal.

Yesterday, Lila and Andrew had some chips as a snack to try and happily wake Lila up from a nap (poor girl has not been feeling well--another UTI after only 5 days off the antibiotic--coordinating with doctors to discuss situation).  She had fallen asleep on the couch in the front room and it happened to be about the time Ellie would be scootering home from school so I opened the blinds and they giggled and looked out the window for Ellie then as soon as they saw her they ran to the garage to greet her.

Saturday, we had a wonderful day together as a family.  Nothing special . . . we washed windows, cleaned the blinds, ate lunch, took Ellie to softball practice, Steve installed more lights in the garage and then the girls asked if we could watch Star Wars so we watched A New Hope and they loved it.  I love when we can work together to accomplish things and then continue to enjoy each others company into fun things like a movie.

The girls made breakfast both Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday they made muffins and eggs.  Lila fried her own egg and thought it was the greatest thing ever (which was a amazing since she had recently decided she doesn't like eggs).  Ellie scrambled eggs for herself, Andrew and me.  Sunday they made french toast.  Ellie sliced the bread and Lila cracked and mixed the egg mixture then they each flipped a few.  I think someday soon we may sleep in and let the girls cook breakfast. ;)

Memorial Day was the same kind of fun and productive.  We got up and took the girls to get donuts with their report cards, then we went to the batting cages, and then came home to finish up a few projects around the house.

I am truly blessed!  I have a patient, hard working husband--who doesn't get frustrated when his wife gets all project oriented and must finish, girls who are growing up to be lovely young ladies so helpful around the house and with Andrew.  And our little man who is so smart and animated that is a true miracle in our lives!  My life is full of joy!  The trick is to remember it when the cereal messes are made or the girls don't quite agree on how something should be done or Steve can't see the wisdom in my reasoning--hehe.  Life is good.