almost august

We are coming to the end of summer. I am happy to report that it has actually been quite lovely. I have managed to keep a good mix of doing fun summer things and letting the kids sit in front of the TV so everyone is pretty happy and rested. Don't get me wrong. I'm ready for them to go back to school FOR SURE. I've just enjoyed the summer more than I have in the past. Math and reading have been thrown completely out the window, however, and no one cares about ice cream anymore. And there's TONS of fighting. I'm pretty much just a referee these days.

Addie: Mommy Winter poured water on my head without asking!

Winter: I wanted it to be a surprise!

Me: Laughing

Addie: IT'S NOT FUNNY!

Addie named our van Vannie. She named Dan's truck Truckie. I know, super original, but in her defense she was 3 when the names were given. We bought the van in 2013 when baby Addie was in my belly and we needed an upgrade from the Corolla. When we first got it I was afraid to park it anywhere. I kept a very safe distance from any car, bike, motorcycle or pedestrian. Three year old Winter handled that little obsession with her bike handle bar making a giant scratch on the side. Gold fish crackers, granola bars and milk quickly broke it in on the inside. Dan used to insist on keeping it really nice, taking it to the car wash frequently and making sure to keep trash from piling up in the back. He's let that go a bit.

Fast forward to 2019. Vannie is 6 years old. She is still in pretty good shape but I've noticed that she rattles a little bit in the back. The seat warmers only work for 30 seconds before they shut off. The passenger side sliding door shakes when it closes and doesn't work at all when it's raining. Someone shoved a penny in the CD slot. And then another someone tried to be helpful and pushed it all the way in with tweezers so we can't use the CD player at all anymore. And when I make a right hand turn the penny inside the CD player slides over just enough to switch it from blue tooth to CD mode and tries to load the penny until I hit the blue tooth button and switch it back to Kids Bop. I do it without thinking now. I make a right hand turn and reach over and smack the blue tooth button like its part of the turning process. And today her battery died. There's no story there. We just gave her a jump, took her to the mechanic and replaced it. I say we, but I have no idea how to jump a car. I'd probably electrocute myself but Dan has done it lots of times.

2 year old Angus and Vannie

3 year old Addie, 3 year old Vannie and 6 year old Winter.

This is an ad for Honda Odysseys.

I am super thankful for my Van. It holds our whole family and keeps the kids from opening doors into other cars like I did when I was a kid. Mom always left a note. Sorry mom.

We're in the home stretch of summer which means the kids have spent way too much time together, so I'm making sure the girls get some play dates with other kids. They're lucky to have some lovely young ladies to call friends.

Mya isn't allowed to go in the pool or to the beach yet because of her wart operation. So she's hanging out with my mom and aunt for a few days which she loves because she generally enjoys adults more than kids her age. 

We got to spend time with cousins because this angelic nephew of ours was baptized. 

  

I did some early back to school shopping at Walmart since I probably won't be able to until school starts with camping and Mya's birthday etc. I scored this fab unicorn binder for Mya. She's all about the unicorns.

This is Winter and Addie being lions. When Mya wants to bribe Winter she says, "Winter if you do this for me, I'll let you be my lion for 20 mins." And Winter always agrees because who wouldn't want to be someones lion?

These days, I don't really get woken up in the middle of the night. Maybe like once a week someone is scared or thinks they saw a spider or has a bad dream. But early in the morning, it's pretty often that I get to wake up to someone wetting their bed, or the dogs puking or one of the kids making noise or in this case someone having a bloody nose. Winter came in my room and said, "Mommy Addie's nose is bleeding. Aaaaaand it's all over the couch." Ugh. That's the cushion on the floor to the left of Angus.

Winter painted everyone's nails a few days ago. Angus loves having his nails painted. At least they match his shorts.

Angus: Oh no my nayo powish is tomin off!!

Airplanes need undies too.

All the chairs at the table and they choose to sit together on the bench and fight about their space being invaded.

Dan is such a loving dad. If it were me in this pic, I would be crying. But the kids know that I cannot handle this much love.

Every manly cabinet builder needs a manly notebook to take down measurements and stuff.

For my food items this week, I found half eaten things at Target today I had to share. Someone got hungry. But they didn't want to eat all of them so they put them back in the oatmeal section. 

Then they had a craving for funions. I can't blame them. They're pretty good. Again, they didn't want to eat the whole bag so they left it with the powdered lemonade.

So this isn't edible but I just found these and I'm excited about them. I usually get my Neutrogena make-up remover wipes at Costco but I saw these at Target and had to grab them. They're awesome little travel size wipes you can keep in your purse or car or travel bag etc. We're going camping next week so I'll be using them for sure.

Happy Wednesday and happy almost August!