Around Here Twenty-Eight: 07/08-07/14

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

Intentional Hours Outside: 297 hours (of 1000)

29 hours this week...only one hour short of my goal, boo -- but also yay!! because that's pretty darn good after weeks of being well below 20 hours.  We were pool hopping every day from Sunday-Thursday, so that accounted for quite a bit of outdoor time.  We also grabbed more hours at Greyson's all-star baseball tournament last week and his practice this week, where we load the whole crew up in the car and spend the evening outside with snacks and babydolls while his team practices. 

Reading The Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain and finished The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, which is my second most favorite book ever and to re-read it was one of my 100 small things tasks for the year.  There are so many great bits and pieces throughout the book, but one of my personal favorites is this bit, "Well, maybe I just want to know the future so I can prepare myself for what's coming.'  "If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise,' said the seer.  "If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur.'..If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it.  And, if you improve the present, what comes later will also be better....Each day, in itself, brings an eternity." 

Celebrating with family and friends this weekend at our dear friend's Bruce and Jessica's wedding on Saturday night.  The kids had a blast dancing and sneaking into the photo booth multiple times.  Then on Sunday, we had a beautiful Baptism ceremony for our Rustin James followed by a pool party at Gigi and Pappy's house in his honor.  It was a perfect day for it and our kids were thrilled to get to spend it in the pool with their cousins and friends. full post about that special day coming next week!

Worrying about my momma who is suffering through kidney stones since last week.  She's always on the go; cleaning, gardening, working, and helping others - especially her elderly neighbor - so not only has she been feeling awful with pain, but I know it's also been making her crazy to be forced to slow down and rest (she's where I inherited that personality trait!)  But, I believe she's on her way to healthier days after taking care of herself (good job, Abba!), and we are all looking forward to seeing her feel better!  Love you, mumma. 

Visiting our newest baby cousin Blake this week.  We drove out to Cranberry for the afternoon to spend time with Tete, Mallory, Hunter, and baby Blake at their local pool and the kids basically had their best day ever.  Violet was jumping off the sides in her puddle jumper (head underwater and all) about thirty times in a row.  Gemma got braver with going underwater to swim and jumping off the side.  And Grey, well he's a full blown swimmer now, wrestling, flipping, and switching from kiddie pools to deep pools by himself.  It was such a perfect pool day and I loved having all the cousins together and spending the day with Stef (aka Tete).  Baby Blake is the sweetest little darling and he and Rusty are exactly three weeks apart in age.  I love that all our babies will grow up together just like Stef and I (and our siblings) did too.  cousins make for such great friends! 

Holding onto random little bits of things that feel very fleeting at the moment in my preemptively nostalgic mind.  Like how the kids all say, "Will you wake me up when we get there?" anytime we take a drive and they start to feel sleepy.  Or the way Violet says "Dop it" (stop it).  I've found myself trying to remember the last time I picked Grey up, it's really now only if he falls asleep in the car and I'm the only one home - but I keep thinking about it since reading The Last Time poem, "...and then one day you'll carry them around on your hip and you'll set them down.  And never pick them up that way again." 

Relaxing into what it feels like to be a family of six now, while rounding out week six of the rotten eight! Rusty still has bouts of colic, but it feels more manageable now - whether that's because he's feeling better or we, as a family, are responding better to him is a mystery - but we are all a little more comfortable this week.  (Thank you all so much for your words and messages of support and encouragement last week on raising colicky babies.  It is so comforting to feel not alone!) The big kids are really helpful for the most part and we have a 'rule' that only one kid can cry at a time -hahha, which helps manage whining.  I snuck out of the house to make a Walmart run at 6am before B left for work on Tuesday morning and the cashier said, "boy, it's awfully early out to be shopping!' to which I responded, "it's either now or with four kids under six in tow!"   Most people who have seen us out and about have commented, "wow! you have your hands full!" which is certainly true...but my favorite response to that comment is, "you should see my heart." 

Starting the 21 day fix challenge!  I have been considering starting Shakeology for quite some time, and after reading about Shelly's thoughts on it, I finally decided to jump in.  My cousin Stefanie is a coach so it was perfect to talk to her and she hooked me up with Shakeology and the 21 day fix special that was running.  I only started yesterday, but I'm really loving it so far - Brandon pointed out that the reason I'm liking it so much is because of the tracking sheets for the containers - I'm so motivated by marking things down and having data (hahhah!) I'm excited to see what happens but mostly excited to have more energy in body and spirit!  I want to be able to play more with the kids and feel more comfortable.  woohoo! 

Making this grilled lemon salmon recipe that were so delicious and family favorite YUM chicken in the crockpot.  We were lucky to enjoy two meals at grandparents' houses this week:  pizza and evening swimming at Gigi and Pappy's and a cookout with grilled steak so delicious I'm craving it right now at Chum and Abba's house.  I also got a night off of cooking thanks to a frozen meatloaf that my Aunt Dar brought to us earlier this month.  thank goodness for my village - seriously.

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!)