2018 chapter 27 & 28: July 11

We had the missionaries over for dinner tonight. During their lesson they asked Wade what he loves, Wade responded, "Trash." Such a weird kid. Then they asked him if he likes to talk to people about trash, obviously he does, he had been talking to them the whole time about it. Then they made the analogy of wanting to share what we love with people, so we should share the gospel - hilarious when  they said the words of "so, the gospel is like trash." After we found this origami shirt left for us, Wade asked if he could take it upstairs to add it to his, "smelly garbage pile."

I missed last week since it was a holiday! This was the first year we took our kids to the fireworks. Wade asking things like, "Can we go home so I can get in my bed?" and "Did you bring my pillow? Where am I supposed to sleep?!" And Blake kept swatting at the bugs and then telling me about it and showing me how she was swinging her arms. Jac was fine, nothing to report. Overall, they were very underwhelmed about the fireworks.  These are the best pictures I got. Put ear muffs on to keep the ear plugs in. 

During the day on the fourth I went to the thrift store with my kids and my girls found some awesome princess dresses that I had to take the tags out of to buy, cause they were not taking them off. Then we went swimming and turns out Blake is our water baby. All three of them have puddle jumper life jackets and I realized that I can do the pool with them by myself, so we've hit the pool a few more times since and it's been a blast. Wade and Blake can both wiggle (not calling it swimming, ha) wherever they want. Jac could, just doesn't, she whines and acts all distressed the whole time. 

The weekend before the fourth my cousin came for a long layover with her family. It was so. much. fun. Her son came in and found a GeoTrax part and immediately inquired about where the rest were, and that's where the boys were the rest of the time. And, where Wade has been ever since. 

We joke that Jac is our Zella - their energy level is far above regular children (my brother also has a "Zella" child. His name is Drew). Within three minutes of everyone being in my house I found Jac laying on Zella. They've never met. How did she know? How did she know that this girl should be her person? And then Blake found her Nancy. Sort of. Blake doesn't care enough about people, so poor Nancy really wanted to be her person, but they still had fun. It was crazy how Zella and Jac physically looked cut from the same cloth, and then Blake and Nancy looked like they were. Even their body movements were similar. 

We're going out to Utah in a few weeks and I'm so excited to stay with these people for a few days. Oh, speaking of looking similar, people at church kept saying how much Kris and looked a like, and I just had to laugh. We're both Caucasian. And girls. And have teeth. 

Okay, I'm not going chronological, but that's what happens when you have two busy weeks to cover. I did the all-nighter at girls camp. It was fun. And stupid. I was soooo tired the next day! Nana came into town and took the kids to the farm over night and what did I do with my gracious given kidless time? I slept off an all nighter. Does that count as magnifying my calling and I'll get blessings? 

Nana took them all on her brothers boat and everyone went on the the inter tube with Bryan's cousin. They had so much fun. Of course they did. 

We got to have Nana and Papa in town for almost two weeks. We went to the pool, the lake, the library. We went to a new library, it was great. My girls wore their fourth of July thrift dresses and there were other girls there that were all kinds of jealous of them. 

We're still getting water in our basement (which I'm secretly okay with because the flooring being torn up isn't because we're lazy, but cause there is still a problem) so we torn up part of our garage floor and then had to shove a ton of sand into the space between our garage floor and driveway. We shoved 1/2 cubic yard down there. No wonder we're still getting water. The girls were so helpful. Don't you love when projects like this come up when it's 100 out with high humidity? 

Wade fell asleep that night at 6 and just stayed asleep. But we kept the girls up to get their handprints in the cement and then we woke up Wade for it. He was so mad that we woke him up. And we thought we had the drying time right, but it had gotten too hard. Stupid. 

Yesterday was "cow appreciation day" at Chick Fil A, you get free food if you dress up like a cow. We did three free meals. I should be embarrassed. We did our regular Tuesday morning free breakfast. Then went there for lunch. Then when daddy got home we went again. Blake kept calling herself a bunny. Jac tore off her cow ears and put on a headband she found. 

Oh, oh - Blake is potty trained!!! Her last accident was on Sunday and it was right in front of the potty, I think it was just cause she was wearing a princess dress - she needed me to be like a maid of honor and hold the dress up while she peed. 

We've been making some new friends and met up with them today at the pool!

I had planned to paint my room and bathroom on my kid-free day, but, as stated before, I slept that day, so I started painting on a random day. My kids were up late and judging by their tantrums (Jac had a tantrum in Costco that people were talking to me about it when I ran into them later into the store), I thought for sure that I'd get a good nap out of my girls. Nope. I was so wrong. But they all sat in my room, watching me. The threat of having to leave made them behave! 

Turned out pretty good. 

Having lots of paint open with lots of children gets one thinking. I am so capable! I've done amusements parks, water parks, lakes, pools, parks, built a sand pit, used power tools and done so many other things by myself with three kids in tow. Not to mention the countless shopping trips, hours in the car, cleaning, ect. Oh, and I'm driving out to Utah in a few weeks solo. Not solo, with my kids. I love help, I love the company of others, but I am so capable to live life with my kids. When everyone was little (littler) I would try to do EVERYTHING when they were sleeping. That's hard. And I was always waiting for them to sleep. This year I've been doing more and more with them with me and it's great. Some days I have to remind myself that they are my joys. Some days I have to remind myself that we do not have a time schedule and if it takes us 20 minutes to walk to our car, that's okay. But my kids get see me do stuff that makes me happy. My kids get to get out and have so much fun. Sometimes I feel like being a mom to a bunch of littles is my super power.