Looking Back July Edition

We tried to squeeze every bit we could out of July. With school starting back in early August and my hubby going back to work mid July we wanted to have a good fun July to finish off the summer. A lot of July I specifically posted about so i will just add links to some of these photos.

We started of July with Little girl getting to read a verse in both contemporary services at church. I posted about it here.

my hubby and i were able to take a quick date to our favorite Mexican restaurant for a margairta

we celebrated the 4th with family and friends at the front of the neighborhood to watch the fireworks.

last year we watched them over the Washington Monument

This year it was over the Space and Rocket Center

The next day we dropped the kids off with each set of grandparents and headed to Destin for a few days. I posted about it here.

This guy got his 3rd pair of hearing aids.

We also celebrated him turning 11 with a family swimming party and a fishing cake that he picked out and designed. I posted about his actual birthday day here.

Little girl got to attend a painting event with some friends from school. They painted a mermaid tail and did a pretty great job. we will for sure be attending another class next summer. she loved it.

Golden boy had never seen the Original Jurassic Park so we watched it with him 

we played with some fun face filters that are on my phone first

and he held onto this Lego Raptor through the whole movie

The kids did WinShape Camp again this year. It was Golden Boys 4th year and Little Girls 2nd.

Golden boy say the Incredibles 2 with my parents earlier this summer but said that he would want to see it again if we all went and we have been waiting for a squeal for years, as i am sure everyone else as been too. So we went to see it and loved it. i hoped to get a family selfie but managed to snap this one when we were leaving.

A local Orthodontist office rented out a trampoline park and our office was invited so we attended and had "the best time ever." ~Little girls words

We ended the last weekend in July with a trip to the Lake.

We caught the train at the exit that we take. When Golden boy was tiny, catching the train was the best part of his day.

Little girl couldn't wait to get out on the tube when we got there.

my social butterfly and her Bear

i got on the tube with them. it was fun

my momma and me

when we left the lake we went to spend one night with my sister.
there was cartoon watching......

super hero uniting.....

Popsicle and all the snack eating, swimming.....

and me watching this beautiful-ness unfold. 
i wrote about this photo over on instagram. this is what i said:
I'm going to admit that I am not the best at teaching the kids how to do some things. It's easier for me to just say, I'll do it myself and do it. It's something I am working on being better at. 
I'm hoping it just comes naturally for him. It appears to at times. Today his little cousin wanted to know how to load the nerf bullets. Sawyer patiently sat there and showed him the button to press to release the cartridge. He unloaded the bullets and showed him how they go in and how to load the cartridge. I was smiling at how sweet and kind he was being. I want to be more like him and take time to teach instead of just doing. It's a process that I am trying to learn. 

Books read this month:

Sunset Lullaby by Robin Jones Gunn

Austenland by Shannon Hale

My Plain Jane

Three Wishes by Lisa Tawn Bergren

Kitchen Update

the label 2016 flood will take you to all the posts from when we had the house flood an the kitchen remolded. 

there were two parts that we didn't get completed.

one of them was the back splash. it wasn't something that we had initially so we knew that any back splash would all be out of pocket and that it would be something that we could do later, when we wanted to.

the other thing was a decision about putting the Smokey Joe back in. 

 we  had multiple people tell us that we could not put the original one anywhere else in the house but exactly where it was before. sure we could have gotten a smaller pad for it but to relocate it was out of the question. we could relocate a newer model but not the original. after the project was completed and the Smokey Joe was removed we loved how open the space was. so for the last year and a half we have had this pipe hanging out of the ceiling. i hate that this is the only photo that we have of the pipe. it is much bigger that the picture looks.

we made the decision this summer to have someone come and remove the pipe and then we had someone else come and do that sheet rock work and then paint the area, as well as some sheet rock work in the living room.

we had the smoke stack and ring removed. 

the roof had to be repaired.

so there was a piece coming out of the roof (smoke stack)
there was a piece in the house (black ring)
and then when he removed the inside piece there was a piece between the two and it was nailed into the wood studs in the attic
it was nailed with 12 pretty long some rusty nails. it was a long and loud process for the guy who did it and i think he was surprised that he had to get it out but he did it.

we knew that they weren't going to be able to sheet rock it so he just put a piece of plywood over the hole. when i head a spray can i thought, "what is he spray painting?" i looked in and saw that he was spray painting the plywood white. i thought it was funny. it didn't really make it any less noticeable but sweet that he was considering that aesthetics.  

thankfully we didn't live another year and a half with the ceiling looking like that. it was about a week and we had another guy come out and patch and plaster one day. 

he sanded it the next day

and the last day he came back and primed and painted it

along with the kitchen we had some air vents in the living room that needed to be taken out (it was the last three from when the ac/heating unit was running through the attic)

we also had areas that we messed up patching ourselves and places where we covered a hole with white duck tape. 

YES! i know, crazy.

this was the patch work to fix the holes

we covered everything for sanding and painting day

here is is all painted. it looks fantastic. i am so glad that we had it done. we thought about putting 4 canned lights in here because that track lighting on the other side of the room is the only ceiling light. we do have a lamp too. we decided against it for now. we plan on replacing the track lighting because we just don't like it but we think the room gets plenty of light for the day time and usually we don't have the lights on in here at night and if we do the lamp is plenty.

My Summer in Books

so i get summer is not over and i am in denial that it is swiftly coming to a close but i wanted to post about what i have already read this summer and what i am currently in the middle of or hoping to finish my the end of summer (the end being when school starts for the kids)

first up is by one of my all time FAVORITE authors. I have been reading her books since i was 11 or 12 years old. The series that i started reading by her is called the Christy Miller Series and in honor of Christy's birthday this month Robin has been having some sales on her books. 

I read the first Jane book last year. It was delightful.

This one was very good and i laughed a few times. 

Now this book. Oh my.It had me major confused and tempted to reach for the back to check out the ending. (which i seriously NEVER do) But i stuck with it and loved it. It was just so, so good. in the process or reading it i found out that it was also a movie so i am hoping to rent it on Amazon very, very soon.

I just finished Austenland last night. Here are the books that i am currently in the middle of reading:

quite possible the best parenting book that i have ever read.

i have really been thinking and try to implement all that i am reading. i'm going to be honest it hasn't been easy and i am pretty sure that i will end the book and pick it right back up but if you haven't read it then i would suggest reading it.

i don't even remember how i stumbled on this great book. i am a little less than half way through it but am loving it. so many great book suggestions and i love the way she writes.

a few years ago i read a Lisa T. Bergren book series called The River of Time and loved every single one of them. I have read quite a few other of her books over the years so was just doing a search for her books one day and came across this series. It is called River of Time California (so far it looks like there is this one and then another.)

I ordered this one last night for Prime Day on Kindle. I am not a huge fan of e-readers but it was only $3.99 and plan on ordering the other one by the end of the year and they were offering 30% off the next order so i guess you can't beat that. Also i contacted the library about getting a copy of this ordered and they told me that they could not get it. (insert sad face)

I also have one waiting for me at he library so i am pretty sure i won't get all of these done in the next 3 weeks but we shall see.