Weekly Happenings: The main happening this week was our Fourth of July festivities. We went to a waffle breakfast at church, Paul grilled hot dogs for dinner, and we enjoyed the neighborhood fireworks show (the rain almost made us postpone, but it stopped in plenty of time for us to still have fun). We’ve also enjoyed having Paul home from work since he took the two days after the holiday off from work. It made for some good family time.
The Weekly Weather: Mostly warm and dry (by means of precipitation, not humidity, haha), but we’ve had a few storms come through, which were much needed.
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been busy with work, school, and family fun. He was also called to be the secretary in the Young Men’s Presidency.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’m just trying my best to keep the kiddos happy, healthy, and relatively entertained.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He enjoyed the Fourth of July fun (especially getting to try a root beer float for the first time, which he said he really liked). He’s also been a super helper with Abigail. She loves to play with him (he’ll get her to chase him around the house, which is pretty entertaining to watch, albeit a bit hard on the ears, what with all the shrieking). I’m so grateful for the great little boy that our family has been blessed with!
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s been battling a bit of a summer cold, which has made her a little crankmeister at times, but for the most part, she’s been her normal happy-go-lucky self. She’s getting better at walking and we purchased a Mickey table and chairs set for her to be able to practice sitting (she’s had a couple of tumbling-out-of-chairs moments at nursery, so we felt the need to give her a bit more exposure to see if the practice will help avoid that in the future).
This Week in Pictures:
Constant growth means new dresses for church. 🙂I told him he could help carry the recycling to the street. Next thing I knew, he had it out the front door and down the driveway all on his own. Workin’ myself out of a job and not feeling the least bit sorry ’bout it.Getting the both of them to settle for a picture can prove…challenging. Joseph is usually a willing participant, but now that Abigail is even more mobile…forget about it.Yup. Still trying to escape.I gave up after this one, haha.She loves looking out our storm door.Taking advantage of the covered patio to grill the hot dogs for dinner (since it was raining at that point).Catching rain on his tongue.Enjoying a root beer float.Sparkler time!A pinnacle of perfection for food placement.The other night, Abigail decided I needed all of these things in my lap. She’d bring something over to me, shove it in my lap, say “thank you”, and then she’d be off for the next thing.Checking out her new Mickey table. It’s got a storage area in the center that’s covered by a panel. She seems mostly interested with taking the panel off and then trying to put it back on, but she’s getting better at sitting on the chairs (as opposed to trying to scale them and then jump off).
Bonus Video: The fireworks that our neighbors were setting off (hopefully the fact that Joseph was wearing hearing protection in that one picture now makes more sense).
Weekly Happenings: This week was pretty much the quintessential definition of “lazy summer days”. We didn’t really go anywhere (well, one morning we did scoot over to the zoo) or do anything (other than avoid the heat at all costs). It was rather nice.
The Weekly Weather: I’m not sure why I keep this as part of my posts during the summer…it doesn’t really change much: hot, humid, bug-filled…ha.
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s still pluggin’ away with school. The end really is in sight, though. He just has a few more weeks and he’s done! It keeps him busy along with work, of course.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve mainly been keeping the kiddos entertained. My calling (assignment) at church; secretary for the Relief Society (women’s organization) presidency keeps me busy, too.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been soaking up sleeping in, playing, and all the other lazy summer days things.
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She rocked her first day in nursery at church this past Sunday, even though she fell out of her chair and destroyed 3 paper water cups (consequently we’ve been practicing chair-sitting and she’ll just bring her sippy cup into nursery tomorrow).
This Week in Pictures:
All ready for nursery.Practicing chair sitting.Can you spot the Komodo dragon?Checking out the elephant (“Okay, Mom…it’s starting to get a little warm.”)An okapi and a boy who is DONE. After this, we headed back to our air conditioned car.Trying to figure out how to build things.She loves to give him hugs.She also loves to back into his lap, sit down, and shove her head into his face…I guess this is the flip-side of the cuddles, haha.Can you spot the baby? I’ll give you a hint: she and her stuffed unicorn are plotting their escape.
Weekly Happenings: Sunday was Father’s Day. I got up a bit early and made Paul breakfast. Joseph made him a card and also gave him the present he made while in school (way to think ahead, kinder teachers!). His big gift was one of those laptops that completely flips around to become a tablet. We sure love the daddy in our home! Monday, for a fun family night, we took the kids to La Cantera (the outdoor mall close to home) to have a treat and play at the playground. Much fun was had by all. On Wednesday, the missionaries from our ward came to visit us (and to practice teaching). It was a pretty fun visit. The rest of the week was a chill-at-home type of a week, which we really do love.
The Weekly Weather: Hot, humid…pretty much copy-and-paste from last week, haha.
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been pretty busy with school. He had a lot of programming projects as well as a couple of papers to complete. He’s just got a month left, so we’re cheering him on to the finish line!
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I hosted book club, which was a lot of fun. I love getting to have some grown-up time that contains intellectual conversation. Other than that, it was pretty much the regular weekly stuff.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: The big news for him this week is that he lost another tooth! This one, we encouraged him to pull out since it was literally hanging by a thread (he could even twist it 360 degrees) and I was rather concerned he would swallow it while sleeping. He was excited to find that the tooth fairy left him four shiny quarters (two extra for being brave enough to pull the tooth out himself).
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She had her 18 month check up. She is 23 pounds, 7 ounces and is 31 and 3/4 inches tall. She loves to dance, bounce, take baths, loves to play with her brother, enjoys stacking Mega Bloks (and any blocks, really), loves to give hugs and high fives, blows kisses, waves, and is interested in anything anyone else is doing without her. She can say: dadeee, mama, Bubba (brother), bah (bath), car, cra-cra (cracker), tayoo (thank you), “Gickey” (Mickey Mouse), wuz-at (“what’s that?” while pointing to something), and something that sounds a lot like “see you”. Oh, and did I mention she finally decided to leave the safety of the furniture and walk independently?! She’s practiced a lot walking very short distances, but never more than 2-3 steps on her own. The other night I looked up from what I was doing to see her just get up and walk across the room to get to something she wanted. She still crawls a lot (or “walks”on her knees), but she definitely is incorporating more walking into the equation.
This Week in Pictures:
Paul’s Father’s Day breakfast: fried eggs, bacon, grits, and iced peppermint tea.Joseph’s fun present for Paul.The front of the card Joseph made Paul.The inside of the card. 🙂She wanted to wear the oven mitts.She liked clapping with them on.All matchy-matchy for church (Joseph was super excited when he realized Paul had bought a matching tie).No nap because of church means that you fall asleep in your car seat the split second the car starts, don’t even wake up when Momma takes you out, and also don’t wake up when Momma hands you over to Daddy.You won’t even wake up to take a picture with Daddy and Bubba. 😉Sunday evening, right after dinner. She reached up, grabbed a pillow off the couch and then proceeded to do this.Paul took this picture. Can you spot the dragonfly?!He also took this one. We hear the cicadas all the time. We don’t often see them, though!Playing tic-tac-toe with herself at the playground in La Cantera.She really liked spinning the tubes.There’s a bar with black things on it that lift up. When you drop one, it hits a piece of metal behind it and makes a sound (kind of like a xylophone). She spent a long time here.Oh, Texas sunsets…I love how the air even seemed to be tinged with pink, orange, blue, and purple.A proud boy holding his tooth.Where has the time gone?!
