July - Week 1 - 2017

Dear Mom, Dad and Susan

Happy Independence day this week!  Dad and Susan, I hope you had a great time! It was so fun to have you here, Mom!

Mom and Ty just hanging out

Monday I took Anslie to see "Beauty and the Beast" at the dollar theater.  She hadn't seen it yet, and it was a super fun girl date!

Girls wanna have fun!

While we were gone Tucker and Tyler prepared family home evening.  They gave us a lesson on our national anthem (I gave them a youtube movie to show us ;)) and made us treats.  The story of the national anthem is interesting, it makes you hear the song in a new way.

Tuesday was the 4th.  The night before we were discussing plans around the dinner table and mentioned to you, Mom, that we would be gone for a couple hours in the morning because we were going to walk in a parade.  You surprised us all and said you wanted to be in the parade in your lie-down wheelchair!  Tucker loved walking in the parade with you while you both waved flags.  And Ty and Ans loved waving to you from the side.  We enjoyed a small fair of sorts afterwards.  It's put on by the town of Flower Mound.  It was more fun as we had Bryce's girls Emma, Carly and Brynn along with us while their parents painted a room in the home they will be moving into soon.

We loved our afternoon/evening at Lewisville Lake.  Isaac reserved us a camping spot on the lake that was more private and secluded.  Elise and her family came with the Beadle family, and Isaac and Rachael with the DeVores.  The kids played non-stop on the wave runners that pulled tubes and on the floating island.

Watching the parade with cousins.

Tucker and Grandma in the parade!

Little fish

The need for speed

The island was a hit! Hours of fun!

Kids are still practicing with swim team everyday.  Someone is in the pool from 7-11 am.  They do most of their chores before swim and then we try to do something fun in the afternoon.  I've loved the routine swim team has given us, and exercise for an hour everyday helps the kids not get the summer stir-crazies!

Wednesday we invited the Carrier kids over.  They played for awhile, then we had a water-balloon fight in the back yard.   We found a new thing -- a contraption that fills 100 water balloons in 60 seconds.  It's brilliant!  I see lots of water balloon fights in our future!

Filling water balloons, get your ammo ready!

No mercy!

On Thursday night Freeman asked what we had going on this weekend.  I joked that this was the weekend that he was going to take the kids away and I was going to plow through my to-do list.  He said, "We should do that!" and he did!  He booked a hotel for two nights and left me and my to-do list.  I got so much done!  They had a blast, and thought I would have liked to be with them, I was super grateful for the chance to catch up as he traveled for more than 4 weeks in the last 8 and will be gone again next weekend.

This picture cracks me up.  So Tucker.  He had Dad take it at the hotel
and send it to me to make me happy.

Last, I have sad news.  Both of the fish we were taking care of died!  We were mortified and couldn't figure out what we had done wrong.  I knew we couldn't handle a dog, but heavens we couldn't even handle two dumb fish!  That night as I tucked Tucker in, he told me with guilty eyes that he had something to tell me.  He had been with the fish when no one was around and noticed that they looked bored.  He had a container of bubbles and a wand, so he blew bubbles into their bowls to cheer them up!  Oh dear!  They both kicked the can within a couple hours.  The poor boy was mortified to realize he'd killed them.  But it wasn't intentional.  We will be making a trip to the pet store to buy new fish!

Here's a few more happy moments:

Green smoothies for everyone!

Summer afternoon shenanigans

Love, Michelle

June - Week 4 -2017: Missionaries, Fun Clubs, New Recipes

Dear Mom, Dad, and Susan,

I hope you've had a great week.  I know all about Mom's week since she's here.   It's been so wonderful to have you and its amazing how fast Tucker's reading is progressing.  We are enjoying hearing family history stories from you in the evening and just having you around!  Its been great to go on dates in the evening and not worry about a babysitter.

Somehow when school is in the house gets dirty and because I don't have time to clean it, I just get blind to how bad it really is!  I'm grateful for a summer schedule that pin me down as much.  I did all sorts of deep cleaning that hasn't been done for, well a long time.  Our bedroom blinds took me over an hour!  The kitchen sink window required steel wool and elbow grease. And the kids didn't recognize the laundry room after I'd cleaned it!  Sure feels good to get it cleaner.  In a week or so the new counters and wall painting will happen, so it will be nice to have some things more clean so we can enjoy the new stuff.

This week we got new pets!  Not really, we are just pet sitting, but its been exciting none-the-less.  We are watching the Coreless family's birds and the Rae family's two fish.  The kids love feeding the birds, they will come and sit on the kids hands if they put them in the cage!  And the fish, well, they just sit there.

We get to babysit birdies!

Monday we invited the missionaries over for dinner but they have a new rule that they can't eat with us after 6 pm and the husband has to be home, but Freeman doesn't get home before then.  So we took them dinner and then came to our house for an appointment.  We hadn't had these elders before and it was nice to get to know them.  Elder Slack, a new missionary, was especially humble and sincere as he bore his testimony.  And we enjoyed hearing about the other elder's adoption from Ghana when he was 10.  It was a blessing to have them in our home.

Missionaries visit for family home evening

Anslie and Tyler are both participating in "fun clubs" this summer.  Anslie's friend organized it last year -- 8 girls all the same age in our ward get together every Tuesday afternoon and a Mom hosts the get together.   The Mom teaches a new skill/hobby/etc and the girls get to be together.  It's awesome because Anslie gets to see her little friends and participate in a fun activity every week, and I only have to plan one!  It can be hard to arrange play dates in the summer because everyone travels, so this is great.  I liked it so much that I organized one for the boys Tyler's age.  And while they are gone Tucker gets to invite a friend over.  And everyone is happy and I get a few hours off.  Win win!

Wednesday most friends were out of town.  The kids stayed home all day and played together.  They put on funny shows for me where Tyler would sit behind Tucker and put his hands and legs in front like they were Tuckers and make gestures.  It was pretty darn funny.  Click here to see one!

Tucker with hands/legs by Tyler!

Toward the end of the school year I realized I was hearing "we're having that for dinner AGAIN!?" often.  Which has never really bothered me before.  But I realized that I was sick of eating the same things over and over too!  So I decided to change my ways and try to make a new recipe most nights this summer.  It sounded daunting but its been fun and not that hard.   I found a blog I really like called "Skinnytaste" that has yummy, healthy stuff.  On Wednesday I made a shrimp, avocado, tomato dish.  I thought they would hate it -- and they gobbled it up.  Hurrah!!!

My favorite dish of the week - lettuce wraps (this is the filling).  Yummo!!

On Thursday they kids got stir crazy and I new Freeman and I were leaving, so to make things fun while we were gone, I took the kids to the grocery store and gave them each $3.  They got to spend it on any food they wanted except treats, and that would be dinner.  They ended up with pizza, drinks, and rolls.  Not the most nutritious of meals but they were OVER THE MOON about it.  They "made" dinner and cleaned it up with gusto.  Its the simple things!

Look what we got for dinner Mom!!

Summer is flying by too quickly.  But its nice to write these things down, capture the fun, and relive them one more time.