I promise....I will post pictures soon. But, for now, wanted to give a "quick" update (yeah, right...like there is such a thing with a family of 6). We have one week of "summer" left...which I can NOT believe. It seems like just yesterday that I was picking Benjamin up on his last day of kindergarten and thinking, "What are we going to do this summer to keep this inquisitive, energetic, inquiring little boy from being bored out of his mind and keep his love for learning growing?" And now, two months later, I'm thinking "What in the world did we do this summer to keep this inquisitive....?"
Well, we certainly were not bored!! Each of the three older kids took swim lessons (Benjamin even got to take them twice, taking private lessons for two weeks and class lessons for two weeks). We saw some movies, went to story hour every Thursday at the Clyde Public Library. Spent a total of about 25 days in Lubbock (not all at once, but, still, that's a LOT of time in L-town!). Benjamin got to spend even more time than that there since he got to spend an entire week-and-a-half there by himself with Nana and Papa and Mom-mu and Grandad. We were able to see some great friends from Amherst and catch up. We got to celebrate my grandparent's 60th Wedding Anniversary, celebrate the birth of two new cousins (Welcome Hallie and Lucas!), and celebrate the dedication of the new Fellowship Hall at our church that my husband has been working countless hours on (he's such a trooper). We celebrated Lou's 31st birthday, my 32nd birthday, and our 9th Wedding Anniversary. And, probably one of the most exciting things is Jacob has started making some progress in being potty-trained (baby steps but, hey, these baby steps are getting us one step closer to having one more kid out of diapers/pull-ups and more money in our bank account). He has definitely not been in any kind of hurry...and we still have a ways to go before we can declare him "potty-trained", but it looks like he may NOT be starting kindergarten in a couple of years in a diaper afterall.
And one week from today, we will be celebrating two of the kids going to school! Benjamin will be starting 1st grade and Madilyn will be going to Pre-K. Jacob will be king of the crib (well, except for his little brother who, with each passing month and reached milestone, will definitely be trying to dethrone the current "reigning" king). Our family will definitely be adjusting to these new "normals".
Our family has also struggled with health issues this summer. Our little Noah has had ear infections since January. He had 9 or 10 infections (I lost count) before he had ear tubes put in just a little over a month ago. Poor thing has lived in pain for most of his life. I don't remember having ear infections as a kid, but not long after Benjamin had his 1st set of tubes put in (back in Nov. of 2003), I had an ear infection. It was MISERABLE! I can NOT imagine living with that pain for months. But now he seems to be pain-free! And enjoying life like every 8 month old should. He's been crawling and pulling up for over a month. And he is quick...the little booger can crawl in circles around the house before I can even manage to fix breakfast for the kids (and when I say fix breakfast, I mean pour a bowl of cereal for each of the three older ones and mix baby cereal for Noah).
And then there's the health issues of my "biggest kid"...that would be Lou for those of you who were thinking I was talking about Benjamin. He has had issues of fainting, light-headedness, dizziness, nauseousness, etc. After a few days of this, he finally let me take him to the doctor only for them to tell him they didn't know what was causing this. But while there, they did find that he has some swelling in his colon. So he gets to experience his first colonoscopy this Friday. Hopefully all will come back normal and we can breathe a little bit easier.
Fall is definitely closing in on us...not only with the start of school just around the corner, but with a calendar full of activites. Madilyn started ballet tonight and sometime in the next couple of weeks Benjamin will be starting his fourth season of soccer--this season, he moves up to the next age group. MOPS will start in a couple of weeks, as well, and I will try to juggle Monday MOPS meetings for me and MOPPETS for the kids and weekly playdates, as well as being on the leadership team. Church activities/Bible studies will start soon. Lou's calendar will soon fill with nightly meetings occurring 3 or 4 times a week (an indication that charge conference is just around the corner). Softball started back up tonight and will occupy his Monday nights for the next few months.
May the start of Fall commence...then, maybe I can take a vacation from my summer vacation.
