The last few weeks in pictures

Just hanging out, leaning against the back of the kid chair, acting like she's not going to follow over the back, eating some chips. She didn't, but thankfully.

This girl and her purses. And stuffed toys. Dog in a purse!

Wearing one of my dresses from when I was a baby.

She's a water lover. Just try to drink some without giving some to her. She'll let you know how she feels about that.

Spencer's creation this week at Lego Storybuilders at the library. 

I have a picture of Genevieve in this same outfit at this same age that is basically identical. 

Spencer picked his outfit for church and don't even try to tell him it's July and 95 degrees outside and humid and a sweater vest is overkill. He rocked it regardless. lol.

Take a picture of Goonie, mom.  

They love their new swimsuits from Grandma. Ignore Aaron's expression. And I've noticed lately that Genevieve always throws a pose. It's hilarious as I scan through pictures on my phone. 

July is better

Where June was a month to get past as fast as possible and never look back, July has been just lovely. I could stay here for awhile. 4th of July was not just an awesome day but an awesome entire week. Aaron's birthday was the next week and we had a great time. This last week my brother came. July has treated us well.

Aaron is my big three year old now. That kid. He's fabulous. He's mischievous and determined. He is a problem solver. He uses whatever tools he can find to get what he wants done. He's obsessed with bums right now. Potty humor is his jam. He's a great little hiker. He loves to climb on anything. He is loud all the time. He carried the bug net the entire hike on the Appalachian Trail on Friday just because he wanted to catch bugs like his uncle. He has an innate handle on comedic timing. He got that from his dad and it's hilarious. He talks up a storm but he still has a bit of a baby voice so it's surprising sometimes what he comes up with. That mind of his is noticing everything and making a million connections a minute. He loves the color green and his Goonie stuffed animal and wearing his swimsuit and riding his scooter. He equally pesters and loves on his siblings. He's totally not above a cheap shot to the head and he's getting more and more into wrestling with Spencer, which Spencer both loves and hates. Aaron will snuggle up to me and be completely content. He still naps daily, though it means he is usually wired at bedtime. I prefer that to cranky from 5-8pm. This kid is just a treasure.












My brother came into town to visit us last week. He came all the way from Utah to do some bug collecting in Tennessee and was only going to be three hours from us, so he came that much further. We had a fabulous time, including staying up all night the night he arrived talking, taking him to our favorite local waterfall, and driving up to Tennessee to hike on the Appalachian Trail where he was searching for the bug he wanted. It was all great fun and I'm so glad he came.























Bill's mom sent the kids new swimsuits. They love them. They also fail miserably at taking pictures in them, lol.



And Chloe fails at taking a smiling picture in her cute new dress. 😊

Turning a corner

June was a month. Boy howdy was it a month. I got an IUD. It didn't agree with me. I'll leave out the details but it took the entire month to fix that and it was unpleasant in the extreme.

I started to get trigger thumb. I did a 12-day diminishing steroid treatment. That fixed it for the most part. Yay!

I got stung mowing my lawn. First time bee sting. I made it 34 years. Thankfully I'm not allergic. At least not in the anaphylactic shock sort of way. But I have a beastly local reaction. Then I got stung the next week I mowed. Then the week after that I got four stings. Turns out we had at least two yellow jacket nests in holes in that area of the yard. They've now been gassed. Hopefully that fixes the problem. I took another three-day round of steroids to help with that. Today was the last day.

I finally got the hospital bill for my kidney stone surgery back in January. It was for $2,000, bringing the total for that little medical surprise that happened the day before my anniversary and four days before my birthday up to $3,000. Weee!!!!

Chloe got a cold and passed it right along to me a few days later. I'm now on day ten of it and it's finally winding down. Hers turned into a middle ear infection so she has ear drops and amoxicillin for it. And Spencer needed drops for a similar infection earlier in June, then Genevieve got an inner ear infection mid June. Aaron hasn't gotten the memo thankfully.

So yeah, June was a beast! This year has been a beast. Who am I kidding? 2017 is only halfway done and it is already going to go down in history as my worst health year ever.

But never fear. July is looking up. My brother is coming to visit. I am nearly back to full health. I started running and biking and yoga back in earnest about ten days ago in the midst of all the health disasters in some sense as a reaction to handle all the crazy and I have crazy amounts of energy coming back. I love how exercise does that for a person. There's something magical about the self-discipline a quality exercise routine brings to life. It seems to beget more energy and more can do attitude. Maybe, just maybe I'll be able to kick the last 10-15 lbs of baby weight from Chloe. But even if not, I feel better already and that is enough for now.

And this has been a fabulous week. We took our kids to their first fireworks show the 3rd of July. Clemson sure knows how to throw a good party. The festival beforehand was the perfect amount of fun for us. The fireworks were amazing.

Yesterday we went to our friends' annual 4th of July pool party. We've gone every year since we moved to South Carolina. Every year has been fun, but this was by far the best because my three biggest put their vests on and I didn't have to worry a bit about their imminent death by drowning. Hahaha! I just put Chloe in a baby floatie thing and she was happy as can be. Both Bill and I got a chance to sit and shoot the breeze with friends. That has never happened before. We always have a good time at this party but leave feeling totally worked over making sure our kids didn't die.

Then last night we hosted some friends over to another bbq and roasted marshmallows and our kids ran wild and we ate good food and it was just lovely. I had to run to the store to get some paper plates and plasticware because I really don't know when the last time was we had friends over. I love hosting parties but my heavens, the first year with a new baby is a total black hole and we haven't done anything lately. It was so nice to do that again.

Today I took my kids to their first ever movie in a real theater. Our local place does free movies every week and this week it was Kung Fu Panda 3, which my kids have seen and love so I knew it'd be a home run. They loved it, of course. Chloe even fell asleep on me so I was able to watch too without wrangling the one year-old who isn't even remotely interested in watching a movie. My kids laugh so loud. Haha! Especially Genevieve. I hope she never loses her amazing cackle of a laugh.

After last month and let's be honest, this whole year, I feel like something has changed. Chloe is walking. That's a huge deal. That's when the new baby black hole ends for me. I still carry her a lot, but I don't have to. She can follow along and it only gets better from here. It's like I can breathe again and that feels really good.

Aaron turns three on Monday! Time to party for him! We have four summer birthdays we get to celebrate and it's so fun.

It's crazy but we only have six weeks of summer left. And this week has been so fun already. I want more of that in the next six weeks and I think this newfound sense of energy will help make that happen. So goodbye health problems and colds and stress. Hello enjoying the rest of summer. Maybe we'll make it down to the beach. We'll certainly do lots of hiking. It's going to be great.