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Summer Fun

We’ve fully entered summer vacation mode. Lazy days, playing in the back yard (when it’s not too hot), and chilling in the house (thank goodness for AC). I’ve managed to switch my piano students to mornings for the summer, so that it leaves the rest of the day to do things. It’s nice not having students right before I need to start making dinner. We’ve also jumped in with both feet getting Abigail transitioned from Pull-ups to regular underwear. It’s not been as bad as I was anticipating, so I think she’s more ready than she was the last time we tried. I still put her in a Pull-up for when we leave the house to go somewhere and for overnight, but we’re definitely making progress! Paul has been super busy at work and has also been busy building a new little free library for the neighborhood park (people in the neighborhood have donated materials, and a guy from the neighborhood offered to help him with some of it, so that was nice). Monday was quite an adventurous day. I loaded the kids into the car to go to the grocery store and then started the car. It struggled turning over, but it started. I thought it was a little weird, so I went to the gas station to fill up and get a car wash (which was an adventure in itself because the car wash wasn’t working…which I didn’t figure out until after I purchased the car wash at the pump…luckily, I was able to go the next day and still use the same code). The car struggled again to start up, so I decided to go to Walmart instead of H-E-B and have them look at the battery. Sure enough…it needed replacing. Luckily, it was still under warranty, so it didn’t cost anything. After we got the battery replaced, we were off to H-E-B for our groceries. Whew!

Super Abigail to the rescue!
Some of my friends went to Disneyland and when they got home, they surprised me with these fun hand towels.
They also brought fun Mickey suckers for the kids.
She liked looking at Mickey in between licks. 🙂
I love big, poofy clouds.
I especially love when there is a stark contrast between the dark and the light.
I got some more bins to better organize Abigail’s dress-up area. Before, that striped bin was overflowing and she couldn’t really find anything without dumping the whole thing out (which usually took place right in front of my bedroom door). I bought three bins: one for gloves, one for hats, and one for accessories (glasses, masks, etc.). Now the striped bin is for anything else that doesn’t fit into one of those categories. The hooks hold complete costumes (and her cowboy hat since it’s kind of big). It’s been so much better!
Paul switched out the incandescent bulbs in our bathroom as well as in the kids’ bathroom for LED bulbs.
It actually made it so that the rooms don’t get as hot as they did before. It’s been a nice change!
I zoomed in super close to get a clear picture of this guy. He’s really only about as big as half my thumb, so maybe a little over an inch? Baby toads are cute!
Playing “knock over the dominoes”.
On Thursday, I got the sprinkler out so the kids could play in the water. Joseph got the slide wet and then told Abigail to slide down. I told him he needed to stand at the bottom to catch her (since it would be super-slick and she hasn’t quite learned to put her feet down to stop herself). It was a good thing he did, because she shot off the end of that slide like a rocket, haha. Luckily, the grass is super-soft, thanks to all of Paul’s hard work and all of the rain we’ve been getting.
I love that we have this back yard for them to enjoy childhood in!
When she finally filled in her “stay dry” chart (we’ve been working on it for a month or more, but she hasn’t been very motivated until right towards the end when we switched the Pull-ups for undies), she got a surprise. She loves the cartoon that this dog is from…so she was really excited to see this new stuffie.
I love seeing moments like this!
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I 💜 summer sunsets!