On a long hot summer day

It's been a busy two weeks.  And hot.  I don't like sweating and I feel like I haven't stopped since we got back from nice cool Michigan.

It makes us all a bit grouchy.  "I don't yant Emmy to yook at me Any. More."  

 The older two had swimming lessons in the mornings.  They let younger siblings splash in the baby pool, which works out well.  

 We attempted lake day for the first time this year. The girls went from dragging their feet because the lake is "icky" to not wanting to leave.  

 Back to the pool the next morning...

 Emmy is a bit timid in the water.

 Cecily is not.  And she was excited that Lincoln was in her class.

 Susan has been in town and she came over for lunch and stayed while I took Cecily to the eye doctor.  Unfortunately she has my eyes...

 More swimmimg lessons... we took her mermaid along.  She named it Lisa.  Which of course makes me want to break into song- 'I'm not Lisa.. my name is Julie...'  (My sister looked at me like I was nuts, my mom joined in.)  

 They wanted to sew one afternoon but Miriel needed me and I had other things to get done. Oh, and we've been working on potty training Cadence so I needed to be available for her.  They weren't very happy that I wouldn't help but it kept them busy for awhile.

 The girls and I tried to get Cadence's 3 year pictures taken.  It was a disaster.  First they were running 30 minutes late.  

 Then Miriel was fussy.  Then, even though we've been talking about it for weeks, Cadence refused to stand on the dot. She refused to keep her shoes on.  She refused to stand up. She asked for props and then held them right in front of her face.  Gah. I was so frustrated.  I had told her we could get McD's if she was good... well... no McD's and she threw a royal fit when she realized that.*sigh*  Have kids they said... it will be fun, they said...

 I'm not sure what her deal with cameras is.  She did the same thing last year. And wouldn't cooperate for family pictures when Miriel was born...and Jake's wedding...and pictures with my family before that....  Anyone have any advice?
Pardon me, I mustache you a question.  The girls finished up Summer Reading at the library and this was part of the loot. 

 Last Friday and Saturday Bob was busy with the first inaugural King's Table board game convention. Jake and Rachel were in town so the girls and I ate lunch with them at the farm.  

 Jake got out our old stilts.  :)

 Cecily got to go to the convention for a few hours.  She had fun and wasn't quite ready to leave when we picked her up. 

 Emmy has suddenly become interested in writing words and wanted to write a story. It's great but I, however, am not interested in spelling words out loud, repeatedly, all day long.  Then in a flash of brilliance(or laziness) I remembered that most word processors have a voice to text function! So I gave her the tablet to write her story. The microphone is a little more sensitive than I thought... hahahaha.  

 After two long days of board gaming, I figured it would probably catch up with Bob either Sunday or Monday...aaaannnnddd he was sick Sunday.  woot.  So I did church solo with all four kids and then the annual water fight that evening. For the record, there is nothing 'brave' about taking care of your own children solo. I do it all day long.  Anyway.  Water fight.  I stayed dry with Miriel, who was so good all evening.  I don't think I even got her out of her car seat! Emmy took her job of delivering water balloons very seriously. 

 Jamie took this one of Cecily and Cadence on the slip and slide.  :)

 Monday we did swimming lessons again and tried to recover from the busy weekend.  
Susan dropped off birthday presents on Tuesday, which they love.

 Then we picked up Cecily's new glasses and did the grocery shopping.  It's a good thing Miriel is so chill... she has a sheep hat on her head.  #4thkid #4eyes

 I took Miriel with me to Trent and Tiffany's shower that evening.  I got to sit by Aunt Pearl which is always fun.  
Wednesday morning was rough.  Cadence was pretty much done with having to go to the pool every morning.  We made it on time though, and I think she was glad she'd agreed to put her suit on because it was sooo hot. After lunch, we took a field trip with Mom and Shelly to meet Donna's horse!
This is not Donna's horse, it's another horse who was getting groomed for a show. 

 They have such soft noses.

 We walked through the barn and looked at other people's horses.

 And here is the famous, beloved Scout!  

 Miriel is such a trooper!  She's been so good the last two weeks- being dragged hither and yon and mostly just chilling happily in the car seat and stroller, dozing off now and then.

 Donna introducing Jack and the girls to Pepe? Maybe? I don't remember all of the horse's names...

 We went back to the farm to play for a little bit with Grandma and Jack-y boy.  Hehe.  I don't know why my girls call him that, but it's cute.
Thursday was the last day of swimming lessons! Yay!  One last morning splashing with Henry- the other younger sibling at the pool.

 It was diving board day! Emmy was hesitant.

 Cecily was not.

 And then we went home and collapsed... not really, but we were all ready for a few days of doing nothing.  And it got really hot and humid so we didn't really want to be outside.  
Emmy is still dragon obsessed and I bought this ribbon on a whim... she wanted me to make her a dress out of it.  I can't make a dress out of ribbon.... so she picked out this cute vintage floral from my stash and there was just enough fabric for this cute little number.

 Complete with a "How to Train You Dragon" ribbon belt.  I just tacked it on at the sides so if Cadence and Miriel are not as dragon obsessed it can just be a cute vintage-y dress again.  :)

 Cecily has been begging to play Mario-Kart Monopoly for ages... I agreed to play once around the board with them.  Cadence wanted to 'play' too.  It was stressful.  This is why I don't play games...  

I've been fighting a cold/cough/sore throat for a while, pretty much the last two weeks. It got better and then the last two days it was worse again. Ugh.  That plus the heat and sweat and I'm ready to take off on the 70 degree road trip and never be too hot or cold again.  Ha. Not that that would help my cold...
Blessings. 

Birthdays and Fireworks

So while we unpacked and worked our way through the mountains of laundry we celebrated Cadence's 3rd birthday!  She was pretty excited about her Paw Patrol cake.

 It survived the freezer!  The color flow colors did some migrating though- I wonder if regular food coloring doesn't work well and if I needed to use special food coloring- next time I'll look into that.  I know I gave it plenty of time to dry in between colors.  Oh well, if you squint it looks ok, and Cadence didn't care.  

 She begged to open her presents all morning, so we let her after lunch.

 Uncle Jakey and Aunt Rachel even sent her a present. :)

 She wanted to help make pizza for supper.

 Just couldn't resist the flower decorations on the cake.

 Pleased as punch.

 We may need to work on blowing out candles.  haha. She had a good birthday.

 So my brain is mush.  I somehow managed to schedule Miriel and Cadence for checkups on the same day two hours apart- because I didn't put either of them on the calendar.  Thank goodness for reminder calls.  Miriel went first, then we picked up groceries and got milkshakes/slushies before heading back for Cadence.  Not my favorite way to spend an afternoon.  

 We had plenty of time to study the infectious diseases poster at the doctor.  They had so many questions... so I told them about how my great-aunt Madelyn had polio when she was a girl, and my great-uncle Elvin... he was paralyzed from the waist down and 'walked' by lifting his legs and feet with his hands.  They tried it- "this is hard!" 

 Mom sent me this page about him from the Romersberger book:

 While we were on our way home from the doctor we saw the Wienermobile!! It was quite exciting.  For the sake of summer learning, or something, I told Cecily to do a journal about it like she did in school.

 We tried out the bubble gloves that Kaleigh brought the girls. :)  

 We needed a hot afternoon activity so they painted magnets.

 Some were more neat than others....

We didn't do much on the 4th.  We were feeling festive though! 

 I dug out the star cookie cutter for lunch, that plus fancy paper plates and the girls thought I had actually tried.  :)

 We went to the farm for supper to celebrate Cadence's birthday. And we got to meet little Logan, and Ned was there.   The birthday girl was just a little bit shy about getting sung to.  

 The two and three year olds made very short work of opening presents... haha. 

 Then it was off to Eureka for fireworks!  We weren't sure if it was going to rain on us or not; it stayed dry and the girls enjoyed playing at Ron and Kary's.

 Just chatting with Suz.

 I forgot to bring glow sticks.  Sad news- but Aunt Shelly came through!  

Miriel did pretty well- I think she nursed through most of the fireworks show.  And then we had root beer floats and got home way too late and the girls were very grouchy today.  
Summer seems to be flying by.  And I just realized that this week is the first week I've had to cook in quite a while.  Haha... and actually do a meal plan...  it's always rather humbling when people bring food.  Partly because so many people are so generous, and partly because our friends and family are much better cooks than I am!
Blessings.
p.s.  Here's 1-4 on their first 4th.