Sweet July

July was so much fun! Our weather has been relatively mild this summer and we have been loving it. Here's a smattering a pictures and a few explanations to remind me what on earth was going on at the time. 

First up, my kids are always playing outside. Naked. Why??? Why do they do this? Do you have secrets for getting your kids to wear clothes?? Maybe it only bothers me because I don't feel comfortable stripped down to my undies and painting myself in mud?

Michael recently started having a hard time at bed time and nap time. He says he's afraid of the dark (it's not dark when he goes to bed), he says he's lonely, and he won't stay in bed. His solution was to climb in bed with Alex. Even though I always go in and put him back in his bed after they fall asleep, it was often just too cute for me not to stop and take a picture first. Thankfully this is only happening rarely now. 

Taking naps wherever I can convince him to lie down. And my kids still like to read 100 books before they fall asleep

Alex loves to play outside. He also loves to eat dirt and rocks, so I often don't let him play outside...A friend recently asked me if he had Oreo crumbs around his mouth. "Uh nope, that's dirt."

This poor girl! Do you remember the strange mystery where she fell off her bed in the middle of the night and somehow cut off the end of her toe?? Before that one even had time to heal, she tripped outside on the sidewalk and cut her toe so that a big flap was just hanging off. Dance class that week was tough with two sore toes-and it was her first class since she moved up to ballet 1.

 We love BADM free days with friends! This month they had a construction zone set up with real tools that the kids could use to cut, chisel, whatever the wooden beams. Considering our bathroom project and the tools sitting around our house, this was a huge hit with Adaline and Matthew.

Happy 4th of July! For breakfast, we decorated pancakes with whip cream and patriotic berries. After that we went to watch the Brentwood parade with friends. It was the perfect parade-only one hour long and each kid got a small handful of candy. We headed home for naptime before meeting back up with friends for lunch and swimming. That night we let the kids stay up and watch fireworks-it was a special treat.

Random picture of a cute baby...

 Random memory with no pictures...
We met up with the friends at the Brentwood Aquatic Center and they invited us for dinner after. We had such a good time! Michael overcame his fear of the water-which had been overwhelmingly present just the week before-and I had so many wonderful helpers playing with my kids and keeping track of them. Good friends are such a treasure to have.

How does he sleep like this??? His bum isn't even touching the ground!

There is a 7-11 near our house and Adaline started asking when we could get slurpees almost every time we passed it. I was so glad I saw someone post a pic to instagram so that I could "remember" in time to take my kids over

This was the cost of a nap one day. Please take note of the tape web under the desk that caught a handful of pens

Eating popsicles with good friends. This was the day they decided they're going to get married- "because they're both 6"

Our peach tree nailed it this year! The perfect medium size, about a bowl-ful ripe at a time, and delicious! We ate peaches for weeks, and now they're all gone except for the ones in the freezer.

I hate giving babies haircuts-they just get old way too fast

Lately he has gotten so tan and blonde and I can't even handle how cute he is in his church clothes

Just a couple of diapered babies snuggled up and snoozing

July brought more visitors and we loved it so much. Andrew's brother and family came out to have a CA adventure. They took a day out of their trip to come hike at Black Diamond Mines, swim at Contra Loma/play in the sand, and hang out at our house. It was so fun to chat and to watch the kids build their friendships. They don't see each other very often at all, so it was sweet to see them find friends and warm up to one another. Sarah taught my kids the banana joke (the one that ends with, "Orange you glad I didn't say banana?") and Michael has since used that pattern to come up with his own joke:
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Poop
Poop who?
Knock knock
Who's there?
Orange
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn't say poop?

On the one hand, thanks a lot Sarah. On the other hand, I about died laughing when he came out of his room on Sunday morning and busted that out.

They are only about 4 months apart and they became friends so quickly

I put the chairs on the table to spray off the deck and later found this top secret meeting taking place.

My little sister got to come visit!! Andrew and I split into the library team and the airport team to pick up Chloe and go check out all the space/astronaut fun happening at the library. My team got to get Chloe AND go to the library afterward, so it was a pretty sweet day for us.

We got to meet a real astronaut! 

One of the activities was making slime and they needed to play with it again as soon as we got home. 

Adaline was SO excited to play dolls with Chloe. She had made a deal with me a while ago that she'd get to play with my American Girl doll only while Chloe was here. They both loved it, and Matthew of course observed the whole thing.

 While we had Chloe all to ourselves, we went to the library; ran night-time errands with just my sis for makeup, treats, and just browsing the aisles; went to Buchanan Pool and mastered the obstacle course; played at the park; and read countless books.

Riding bikes to the park while I followed

Probably the best fort we've built thus far:

The section with the green paper taped to the wall is apparently the baby section and just for Alex

Intermission while I complain about something that was happening all month long:

Do you ever feel like your whole house is falling apart? I do!! It has been nuts recently! First, our master bathroom situation which is still completely unresolved. Then I heard exciting noise coming from Matthew and Michael in the little boys' bedroom and had that feeling that I should investigate. I walked in to find one half the curtain rod barely hanging on. This came a week or two after the pulled down the curtains in the other bedroom. Then, while my sister was here I noticed that when the water drained from the washer, it was backing up and spraying on the garage floor. I ignored that for the time being because it would eventually drain and it wasn't really that much water. Then, a couple days after Daniel got here, Alex put a toy in the toilet and Andrew (unknowingly) flushed it down and then jammed it in while trying to unclog it. So we spent Sunday afternoon taking the toilet off, fishing out the toy, and re-seating it. It was a terrifying activity because this was already the only toilet in the house, we knew it had been leaking and severely damaged the floor, and the toilet was old with lots of bolts rusted out. We felt like we were taking such a chance and had no idea if we'd be able to get in put back on without having to deal with the other issues or breaking the toilet. Thankfully, miracles happen and we got the toy out, re-seated the toilet, and it is no leak-free. The following Saturday (shortly after Michael stabbed me in the eye, in case you've already heard about that), Andrew noticed that the laundry sink was filled with water and not draining and the bucket the we had underneath to catch the drips (from the leaky drain) was overflowing onto the floor. He emptied it out and did his best to snake the drain, but no luck. I made an appointment for a plumber to come on Monday, but this meant we couldn't use our kitchen sink, dishwasher, laundry sink, or washer until he came. The next morning while I was walking back to see the doctor at the urgent care center, I got a text saying the plumber was on his way. Huh? Apparently, with my bad eyesight, I had made the appointment for Sunday morning rather than Monday morning. Thankfully, I'd had a friend drive me to the urgent care, and we still had Daniel and Chloe with us, so that all meant Andrew was relatively free to run home from church and meet the plumber. He was able to get it cleaned out and now my garage floor doesn't get soaked every time I do laundry. I never would have purposely made the appointment for Sunday morning, but I was so grateful that I did! In addition to all of those things, our kitchen faucet recently started leaking in a new place, and the list just seems to go on and on. Home-ownership is not for the weak, amiright?


Back to the fun stuff! About a week after Chloe got here, Daniel got to come! Since we had to go to Oakland to pick him up, we went ahead and made it a zoo day. Andrew snuck off and picked him up while I stayed with Chloe and the kids. No one knew he was coming right then and there were lots of excited smiles when he showed up.

Brother, sister, brother, sister 

The whole back row was asleep at one point, but I didn't quite catch it in time.

She is so proud of her tiny carrots she's been picking all summer

The number one to-do item for my brother was to go shopping, so we started off the new week by heading to Walnut Creek. While the oldest three checked out some stores together, I took the 3 little boys (who struggle to behave well in a store) for a walk and eventually trekked up to Lakeshore where we met back up with everyone and played with toys for awhile. Afterward, we just wandered around the shopping center and eventually landed in a bookstore where we all happily spent the remaining time on our parking meter. I told my siblings that once we went in, we would never be able to get the kids back out, and they certainly saw what I meant. My kiddos love books.

How cute are all these book worms?

On Tuesday, we filled some water balloons and headed to the park. After a quick, but epic, water balloon fight where I got far more soaked than anticipated, we played in the sand and on the playground until Michael peed down the slide (on purpose). Clearly, it was past time to leave.

Long live bucket head

Okay, seriously how does he sleep like this???

 That night we checked out the food trucks and games at the park across town. Played some Jenga and corn hole, ate some treats, and my big kids got their faces painted.

This was a really big deal to them and they were both so cute about it

Taking pictures is hard...

Wednesday brought a doctor appointment and science experiments at the library. You know what is awesome about having teenagers live with you? They can stay in the lobby with your children while only you and the baby go back to see the doctor. Alex and I had so much fun playing together while we waited on nurses and the doctor. I loved it!

Finally weighs over 20 pounds!

 We won a puzzle from the library this summer! Everyone wanted to work together on it when we got home, but sharing puzzles isn't one of Matthew's favorite things. Instead, I saw some older children sneaking puzzle pieces together-ha

In addition to the daily adventures, we had a few nights of getting candy, ice cream sandwiches, movies, or Mexican ice cream after we put the kids to bed. It's always fun for me to get to hang out with my youngest siblings and have a taste of what it might have been like to grow up in the same house as them.
I'll cover the rest of the trip next time!

Oh Daniel...when I went to visit my family in April, we had the boys (3 of my brothers and my dad) babysit my 3 boys while all the girls went out to celebrate Chloe and Adaline's birthdays. When we came home, we learned that they had put Adaline's Frozen pj top on Alex and called him "Lucy." Apparently, my siblings felt the need to recreate the event and then Adaline made sure to document it with a photo. And sometimes my older kids still call Alex "Lucy". Oh brother.