Fourth of July

Summer contains a lot of fun in vacations and graduation parties, and bedtimes that delay until the sun finally decides to go down - but as for our holidays, she's really only got Independence Day.

The fourth of July has been my favorite holiday for most of my life. I can't sing the National Anthem without getting choked up during the line, 'and the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there.'  As hard as it feels right now to watch America, as a people, I still am very thankful for America, the land.  (I think America, as a people, could use a heaping scoop of humility and lovingkindness...but that's not a tangent for this post).

We had an awesome two-day long celebration for America's birthday!  We started by stopping by Gigi and Pappy's house after church on Sunday and hoping to get to see our Gilmore cousins while they were in town for a little bit.

And that little visit quickly morphed into a pop-up pool party!  The kids were thrilled to get to spend time with their cousins whom they love so much but we just don't live close enough to see each other more than a few times.  We all shared a big pot luck lunch with Daddy and Pappy at the grill, Reid and Greyson shucked all the corn cobs, and finished up with Gigi manning the smore station.  I had my hands free for quite a bit of the afternoon with all the family loving up on Rustin.   

It was a really beautiful day that was perfect for swimming - the kids were little fish all afternoon, Grey even- emboldened by his older cousin- took his first leap off the diving board sans floaties!  

After the pop-up party, we tossed the kids in the car and ran home for a minute to take care of the dogs, before heading back out Sunday night to the Altoona Curve baseball game (minor league) with Abba, Chum, and Aunt Uch.  Grey took his mitt just in case and Gemma, just like her momma, loved all the music and shimmied her way through the stands.  We got to see some baseball, I introduced the kids to cracker jacks, and we even got a photo with the team mascot, Loco - Violet's obsessed with our signed souvenir photo, hhaha.

They had post-game fireworks that were awesome and Gemma could not believe how much she 'loves this holiday!' and thanked me with hugs about a million times.  Violet was less enthused and spent most of the fireworks with her head buried in one of our necks while Greyson, the ever protective brother followed her around to hold her ears.  Besides the standard fireworks, we also noticed at least three kinds of fireworks that we've never seen before - they were all beautiful!  Rusty made barely a peep the whole time while he slept with his ear muffs on (haha, so much for witnessing the main event of his first holiday ever!)

We didn't get home from the game until almost midnight and everyone was totally wiped out.  So we let the kids sleep in on Monday, the fourth, before we sang Happy Birthday to America over sparkler candles on our toaster strudel (hah).  No photos because it was pretty hectic and then Violet touched the burnt out sparkler, so it was a bit of chaos there for a minute.

By three o'clock, our family had arrived to celebrate the day with us and despite the rain, we all still had a great time eating delicious food, potluck style again - and laughing as the kids played together with sheer delight.  We set up the canopies and lit a fire and made the best of the rainy, chilly weather as we could.  The big boys took the rain and mud as an invitation to get totally filthy and then use the hose to spray each other down in the middle of the yard.  The girls floated in and out of the house playing babydolls, and holding baby Rustin, and putting on shows for Lisa and I. Violet eventually just totally passed out for the night on the couch amid all the noise and movement.

By the evening, we had pulled out the sparklers and poppers and bottle rockets and the kids were high on silliness and smores.  Reid and Greyson even got to light some bottle rockets which made them so happy I thought Grey's face might break from his huge smile.

And to close out the night - the big boys participated in their favorite activity of 'horsing around' while the big girls snuggled up together, sharing a blankie.

Such a great weekend of family - who are also our friends.  So thankful, as I always am - but reminded especially so during holidays, that we are surrounded in love by family and friends.

Around Here Twenty-Seven: 07/01-07/07

A peek into what it is like to live in our home just this minute.

Intentional Hours Outdoors: 268 hours (of 1000)
Up 19 hours this week - thank goodness for the fourth of July celebrations which had us outside almost the full day on Sunday and for a quite a few hours despite the rain on the actual holiday.  Grey had all-star baseball practice this week and we followed that up with an outside shower for the kids which they thought was hilarious. I was grateful to get a quick trip to the Que dam in when our cousin Taush told me to bring the kids out while Brandon worked an overnight reset - it was the last little bit of energy release all five of us needed that day (thanks Taush!) I really could have used some more time outside this week (for my own sanity) but long days with Rusty trying to get him calm has kept me frustrated and inside.  bleh.  Doing some calculations - to get to 1000 hours before the end of the year, I'm going to need to strive for about 30 hours each week from here on out, which is only about 4 and a half hours a day....game on!

Reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (almost finished!) and finished Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks.  Really, really loved that book and finished it with tears in my eyes (both from the story and from the dedication of the author).  Brandon came in and took one look of me with a closed and finished book in my hand and said, "Babe. You loved it then?" hahah.

Creating our Birthday bags for our June Kindness project.  The kids and I put together four birthday gift bags of an assortment of items including cake mix, candles, frosting & sprinkles, and balloons.  We're going to drop them off next week at a local organization that works closely with kids so that they can hand them out to kids who could use a little birthday cheer.  June's kindness task was in honor of our newest birthday boy, Rusty!

Celebrating America's birthday with two days of fun!   I have a full post coming about it, but we definitely got in our fill of sparklers, bottle rockets, and poppers last weekend!  So much fun with our family and cousins!

Calling the pediatric nurse line with tears in my eyes yesterday as Rusty had a very hard day.  One of his hardest with crying over an hour and half with nothing to console him.  I've completely eliminated caffeine and really trying hard on the milk (that is so hard to avoid  thank you so much to my sweet friend Haley for sending over a whole list of non-dairy snacks! you're a blessing in my life, seriously) and we've done the Mylicon drops and gripe water.  A chiropractic appointment is scheduled for next week and we do his little 'fart exercises' with his little legs in the bicycle motion.  With no spit up and nursing going just fine, the nurses were both (yes two of them were listening to me) assured me that he probably just has colic and I should keep doing what I'm doing and hang in there; that he'll outgrow it.  I know my voice was cracking a little when I said, "I know, but it's just so pitiful and I'm really trying to do everything and he's still crying." because then the nurse was like, 'well you need to take care of yourself too...it can be very...it can wear you down.'  I really did burst into tears after getting off the phone then because it really can wear you down, feeling so helpless - plus so tired, plus the other kids that I don't feel like I'm loving enough everyday, plus the husband who definitely is not getting enough of acknowledgement (let alone intentional kindness).  gosh.  After I recovered from my meltdown, I threw all the kids in the car (rides settle him to sleep!) even though everyone was dirty and Violet literally had no shirt on and spaghetti stained all over her face and I took them for ice cream an a quick stop to the playground.  #survivetheday you guys.

Orchestrating a pet birthday celebration yesterday for all three of our furkids.  The human children and I had a little birthday brunch with Lola yesterday complete with muffins, homemade party hats, and some cat treats.  Lulu kind of just endured it (as the way with most cats, ha) but we gave her a hearty birthday song; she's eight years old (!), and the kids loved seeing her in a tiny party hat.  After dinner, we had a party for Bullet and Trixie with ice cream birthday cake that Brandon brought home, more homemade party hats, and bones for the dogs.  The pups loved it - Bullet is seven  and Trixie is five - Grey was amazed to know that Lu and Bully are both older than him, but proud that he was older than Trixie.  We went around and said the things we like best about them.  (Mine were: I love Lu because she was our first pet ever - there was a time when it was just me, Daddy, and Lulu.  I love Bullet for making me get exercise because he needs it, and I love Trixie because she is the a;ways the first to tell me when Daddy is home each day). Celebrating our furkids was one of my 100 small things list items, number 68!

Feeling much more relaxed about Rustin's colic after a long chat with Bud last night and talking through things with a clear mind about what works for him.  We've started now looking at it as not a digestive problem but actual colic and we're moving forward with what seems to work in terms of situational versus digestive - and it's already a big difference.  The swing makes him happy, as does car rides.  It's been important to stop nursing to burp often and be ready for really long burping time post-nursing.  I feel a lot better to feel like we have a plan (kind of) and that we can also look to it ending at some point (hopefully around month three) when he outgrows it.

Making these very blueberry muffins as part of Lola's birthday celebration (we love muffins for breakfast over here!)  We had a lot of yummy cookout leftovers this week for lunches and meatballs in the crockpot on Tuesday provided meatball subs that the kids loved - followed by using the leftovers for spaghetti and meatballs the next night (another big whole family hit!)

Around Here Twenty-six: 06/24-06/30

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

Intentional Outdoor Hours:  249 hours (of 1000)

I'm slowly increasing my hours now at four weeks post Rustin- up 21 hours since last week.  Violet and I logged quite a bit of time on the tractor earlier this week (surefire way to get her to nap!) and Saturday was a big outdoor day as we graduation party hopped three times between basketball players Jake and Cody, and then on to our favorite twins Bryce & Taylor's party.  It was so nice to spend Saturday evening with some of our closest friends growing up (my Tap Run ski club family!  miss you already Tif!!) On Monday morning, Bullet and I took a 2 mile walk together at 5:30am because I was up and feeling ambitious and excited to be moving towards the mid point of the Rotten eight.  I'm hoping to do it more often, but for this week - it was just that once (hah). 

Reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks with our Inspired Readers Book Club.  I have already recommended this read to at least two people because it's so so good.  This quote gave me a bittersweet smile about kids learning and trying new things and the messes that go with that (p. 6), "The world can be so complicated for Max.  Even when he gets something right, it can still go wrong."

Relishing a weekend with only the two little kids!  Gigi and Pappy took Grey and Gem for the weekend to Ocean City, MD and they all had a blast.  They rode bikes on the boardwalk, collected seashells, flew kites, and the kids even got to choose their own hermit crabs to bring home! It was a lot more quiet and slow at our house this weekend and it was so nice to be able to give some one-on-one time to Violet and Rustin.  We missed Grey and Gem though too and it felt like a big step for them (and us, gulp!) that they are big enough now to spend a whole weekend away making their own memories and visiting new places. 

Taking a bite out of Shark Week, hah. We enjoyed the shows at night (Grey most of all) and I tried to incorporate some type of shark or ocean themed activity during the day.  We played a game of Shark & fishies outside on afternoon and worked on a Shark writing prompt during 'summer homework'  We've also been doing double checks on all the facts we hear on the shows in our shark nonfiction books - Smart Kids-Sharks and Sharkopedia. 

Enduring Violet this week.  yeesh, it was a 'no, no, no day' almost every day this week.  Lots of whining and fussing and No, mummie. No, mummie'ing.  She's still working on potty training and it's going alright but she's seemed to have lost a little bit of interest - so we're following her lead and not pressuring it, just helping her on the potty when she requests it.  She is head over heels in love with the big kids' hermit crabs asks them about twenty times a day to bring their cages down and let her hold them.  

Eliminating caffeine and dairy from my diet to hopefully try to help our Rusty boy.  After every single feeding he has his little face all scrunched up and a tight belly and cries for about twenty minutes.  every.feeding.  We do the bicycle legs which make him feel a little better and he loves to sleep on our chests and be held.  We've tried the drops but they don't seem to make much of a difference.  Next stop is the chiropractor! 

Loving our new patio pillars that got capped this week  We still have one to go but they look beautiful and were a double whammy - using up the bricks from a big pile that has been sitting out back since we bought the house and provides seating around the fire pit, giving it a polished and finished look.  Seriously, i'm obsessed. 

Making these easy applesauce blueberry muffins for breakfast and day-long kid snacking, crockpot cooking this delicious Italian Chicken dinner (we ate it over noodles) that we received as a freezer meal from my dear friend and cousin Heather (thank you! it was delicious!), and making our family favorite Korean Beef over rice because everyone eats a ton of it and there's no complaining!