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| Flowers that Mark bought me! |
The day after we got back from California was Father's Day. I had planned the whole day out before we left, although I could never pin Mark down on exactly what he wanted to do so I knew I would need to be flexible on how everything actually went. But I had meals planned out and cards and gifts bought before we left. I have worked in the nursery at church every year for the last 5 years on Father's Day, so this year I told them I wouldn't work that day. Mark was very grateful for that, he feels like Father's Day is always a non-event (a fact I was hoping to change this year, and did!). We spent the day "flying by the seat of our pants" per se, doing everything spur of the moment. We ended up spending quite a bit of time with most of Mark's family, as well as playing games, going to church, and just generally hanging out. Mark felt like it was a great day!
Also this summer Elijah has been getting together with a friend of his every Monday, either here or at his friends house. So that has been happening every week. They have a great time together! It's so nice for Elijah to have someone to play with the same age as him, very hard to find in our group of friends. One week we even had a bouncing house set up here for them (and all the other kids of course)! The story behind that is Mark's shop is next to a business which rents the bounce houses out, and Mark has done a bit of work for them at a steep discount so they wanted to thank him by letting the kids use one of their bounce houses. It ended up being a very popular thing, we had a neighbor boy come over for the whole day to jump in it and play with our kids, as well as several other neighbor kids. :-) One of the neighbors even bought pizza for all the kids using the bouncer!
Another big thing we did this summer was watch my in-laws chickens! My in-laws have been gone on trips twice this summer, and both times they brought the chickens over to our house for the kids to watch. The first time around Elijah did most all of the feeding, watering, and other general care and when the chickens were picked up he got paid for all his work! I knew that whomever did the care would get paid but I didn't tell the kids because I wanted to see who would do the work dillegently without knowing they were getting something back from it. I was so proud of Elijah, he really did a great job! The second time around, the kids knew that they would get paid something if they helped but it still ended up being mostly Elijah doing the work, so he got most of the pay when the chickens were picked up.
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| Micah with the chickens the first time around |
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| And Elijah. You can see all the stuff I'm sorting for my garage sale behind the boys in these pictures. |
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| And the second time around. We had them outside this time, which really helped with the smell! |
We signed up for the library's summer reading program, but because of our trip we didn't finish it. When I got back from California it was really hard for me to get back in the swing of things. I just have struggled so much with how much I have to do and keep up, and we're not even back in school yet! I'm finally getting back into the swing of things, but the first week was terrible, I was soooo exhausted! Anyhow, all that to say that I could never seem to get back into the habit of reading out loud to the kids for the month of June. :-(
One weekend we went to a birthday party for some of our friends. They have 2 girls with birthdays in June so they combined them into one party. It was sooo nicely done, as always! I enjoy going to parties and seeing how everything is put together. The kids had a great time with their friends!
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| Birthday decorations, beautiful as always! |
We have also gotten together with several other friends this summer, including cousins. Emmaline got to spend the night at her cousins house, which she loved! We also went to the park with friends a few times. Whenever I'm pregnant people seem to pop out of the woodwork wanting to get together before the baby's born. Not a bad thing, just makes for a busy time. The kids always love to see their friends!
In July we went to our church's 4th of July picnic. For the first time in as long as I can remember it was actually enjoyable, the kids are finally getting old enough to get some of their food themselves so I didn't spend the whole time running back and forth between the food tables and our table trying to get everyone fed and taken care of. I even had time to eat! The older kids have so many friends at church that as soon as we were done eating they were off to spend time with them. And Mark is quite gregarious so he was gone as soon as we were done eating too. I sat at the table with the two little ones and played with cars and occasionally talked with people who stopped by, which is actually more my cup of tea anyway as I'm not very chatty.
We spent the actual 4th of July out at my parents house. One of my brothers was there, as well as my uncle. It was a great time of food and fellowship! My parents had squirt guns and water balloons for the kids, two very popular things. Even the adults got in on the action!
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| Water Balloons!!! |
This last week was VBS. I worked in the kitchen like I always do. 4 out of 5 of the kids are old enough to be actually in the program so it was just Micah that had to go in the nursery. A couple of days we picked up cousins and brought them and the kids loved spending extra time with them! I'm so glad that week is done, it was just like having a job for me, we had to be there by 8 a.m. everyday and didn't get home till after 1. I'm so glad I don't have to work outside the home, I'm truly blessed! I'm truly in awe of those women who are able to work outside the home, I couldn't do it.
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