Around Here Week 30: 07/24-30

 A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this moment. 

photo cred: Heather

Studerbabies Toy Truck Day1

Studerbabies Toy Truck Day1

Studerbabies Toy Truck Day 2

Studerbabies Toy Truck Day 2

Studerbabies Barbie day

Studerbabies Barbie day

photo cred: Lisa

photo cred and fly tying credit: Grey

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 522+ hours (of 1000)
Summer thunderstorms rolled in this week pretty strong, but we still earned plenty of time at baseball games, and Studerbabies events. Plus a full day while visiting Hershey Park! 

Reading almost nothing if I'm being honest. 

Getting a new phone because mine was water damaged last week. The last place I ever want to go is to the Verizon store, but it was actually fairly painless this time. 

Grateful for fun opportunities for the kiddos. Heather took Rusty and Violet to the Que for swimming and lunch on Sunday so they didn't have to attend another one of their big bro's baseball tourneys (thank you!), Violet and Gem got to spend an afternoon bowling with their friends the Mock sisters (thank you!), and Grey hung out at the Huffman's house on Wednesday after football conditioning to swim (thank you!) When people constantly ask us, 'how we do it' it's because we have so many kind and thoughtful people who show up for us and the kids! Seriously, we couldn't do it without you all. 

Hosting 3 Studerbabies events at our house this week. The weather forced us into having two toy truck days (which was actually for the best because we had 10+ kids each day!) and then we had our Barbie field trip day too! They all turned out to be so much fun and the kids were really sweet. We had a snack, read a book, and mostly free played the whole time. The kids leave sweaty, tired, and joyful - which is the whole idea! 

Squealing over the cuteness of Liv in overalls. Just the sweetest, squishiest darling!

Inspired by this podcast with Mo Gawdat. Like literally blew my mind multiple times. I kid you not, I was writing notes down and legit printed off his happiness equation to hang on our fridge like a full blown nerd. And then the ending!! when he talks about AI....cannot stop thinking about it.  

Rollercoaster riding at Hershey Park! We were able to squeeze in one final day of summer fun into July (I keep saying that August is for crying, cleaning, and organizing - LOL) Grace slept over our house on Wednesday night, then the 7 kids and I headed out to Elizabethtown first thing in the morning. We had breakfast at our Gilmore cousins' house (thank you Lisa & Ray!) and then we all made our way to Hershey Park for the day. It was blistering hot, so the kids were thrilled to stand in the splash zone of one of the rides during lunch. Violet and Rusty got to ride their first upside rollercoaster (The Sooper Duper Looper) and Red, Liv, and I took a little detour to ZooAmerica (the zoo inside of the park) while the bigger kids rode a bunch of big rides.  I rode one roller coaster with the kids (Trailblazer) and while we were on it, it started to rain and then pour and then we got stuck for about 15 minutes while we waited for maintenance to save us! We left the park around 9p, so it was a huge iced coffee for me and then the 3 hr drive home - but it was worth it because the kids and I had a blast and it is always so good to spend time with the Gilmores. 

Talking, pro/con list making, and stressing over our plans for the fall. It is impossible to be a mom; never knowing if you're doing the right thing but just trying to do the best you can do with what you got at the time. Time marches on and I know everything shakes out somehow, but I am giving my self permission to feel all the things and worry all the worries because the pressure cooker is on full blast inside my guts. 

Party-hopping on Saturday. We had a graduation party for Brandon's former basketball player (congrats Logan!) We got to catch up with the Hintons (love you guys!) and one of my former students was there, which was funny because neither of us expected the other to be there being so far away from our home school (haha, hi Ethan - proud of you!) Then we headed over to the McKool's annual summer party. Always a great time, but the babies were pretty tired by then (me too) so I took them home and B stayed with the bigger kids for awhile. 

Sporting with the first week of fall sports practices. Gem had her first cheer practice where I held a parent meeting to start the year. Violet had her first flag football practice too. Grey had one football conditioning practice and finished up the VEA tournament on Sunday (2 games) before starting his last little league tourney in Somerset on Saturday (2 games that day). Gem and Grey both played pick up playground basketball at the high school on Monday night (thanks for organizing, Coach Ang!) B participated in a golf outing on Monday too! 

Making chicken and broccoli casserole (thank you Heather!), spaghetti with meat sauce, French dip sammies with au jus, beef vegetable soup (used leftover from the French dip roast), candied kielbasa, cheesy Italian sausage bake (thank you Heather!), and taco pasta. We ordered in pizza one night and ate great at the graduation party on Saturday. I made a batch of chocolate chip cake mix cookies to send to the Que with Heather and the kids, and I made zucchini bread and zucchini cookies thanks to the veggie gifts I got from Coach Ang (thank you!) 

Keto check-in - oh man, doing terrible, just straight up terrible. Haha, I'm cracking it up to stress-eating - thinking about the very quickly approaching school year. I know I'd feel better if I can get back on track, come on, Tab!