The Heat Is On

Oh boy is it ever hot!  I guess that is what we get for complaining about the cold late start summer....

This week has been horrendous so far. It is one for the record books for sure!
I call this week the "perfect storm" - Billy has had to work until well past bedtime all week, Alex is gone at Scout camp all week, and the heat is atrocious!

Day 1 - Monday: One if the boys decided to try out our 911 service. We got two police officers to pay us a visit.
Day 2 - Tuesday: We found out that Alex's brand new bike was stolen. :( I had to file a police report.
 
Then later that evening the little two boys got into some craft paint that had been put up high. Paint all over my room and bed. :(
 


Day 3 - Wednesday: One of the boys threw a fit and tossed a broom at the big living room window. Thankfully only the inside pane was broken. We can replace it later then.

Tomorrow is day 4 - I am very afraid!

So I think the key is to keep these little stinkers busy. I am going to fill up their schedule with library craft/fun days and maybe even some Vacation Bible Schools...

In other news, I ran 7.5 miles last weekend! I was on vacation, but my brother-in-law and Alex ran it with me.

Abigail is as cute as ever. She has started rolling over more regularly and I keep finding her on her tummy after nap times.
Doesn't she look proud of herself!


Until next time, and hopefully here's to a boring rest of the week!!

Happy Fourth of July!

We hope your Fourth was as fun as ours!

The Boys and I spent our Fourth cleaning up the yard and rock beds. I think at one time they were meant to be flower beds - but the only thing they are growing now is weeds and toys.  My plan is to build raised garden beds. Yay! I am a brown thumb at heart (everything I plant dies) so we'll see how that goes.

Then in the evening we did fireworks, Daddy was trying to get out of it this year, however we were woken up with two very excited little boys this morning asking if it was time to go see the fireworks yet. We bought some of our own this year, which the boys had a BLAST with (literally!) and then drove down to a better view of the big fireworks. Finally we finished the night off with ice cream treats on the way home. Yum!


The boys getting ready to do our firecrackers...

Watching the neighbors firecrackers...

Sparkler fun!

Boys and their explosives!

This is Abby's first Fourth of July! She wasn't scared of the lights and noise one little bit. She was just amazed at it all! I took pictures, but in those pictures she was very hard to see and crappy picture quality. :(

Happy 6 months!

Baby Abigail is now six months old!!
That means she can start eating solid food....Yikes! I have experimented with some rice cereal with her already, and she does pretty well. I can't wait to see what she thinks about pear and carrots and peas though!

Abigail is still a tiny thing, however. She is finally grown out of 0-3 month clothes for the most part. She is still in some 3 month sized clothes and 3-6 month clothes. I've noticed the sizes vary widely on brand to brand. I put a 3-6 month onesie on her yesterday that I could barely snap! However, she still has 0-3 month outfits that fit as well.
This is a stark difference from my boys who were basically born wearing 0-3 and 3-6 month clothes and were grown out of them by 3 months old! My boys would have been in 6-9 month clothes by now, snugly. ;)

Abigail is also a bit behind on the milestones - however if you go by her due date, she should only be 4.5 months old. She has rolled both ways, but not on a regular basis. She's not even attempting to crawl yet and I have a feeling it will be months before she crawls. She likes to make sounds and baby talk, but not the typical 6 month old baby talk - more like 3-4 month old baby sounds still. She is also pretty wobbly still with her neck/back control. Although she is able to sit pretty well  now if I'm supporting her, and in her Bumbo seat.

At her 6 month well-baby check-up today she weighed in at a whopping 13 lbs and 8 oz, 23 1/4" long! Wohoo! She's actually ON the growth curve now - 8% for weight.

Everything else looks good. Yay!

My new adventure

As I've posted before- I have an exercise blog that I've been keeping up with also.

Today we did 7 miles!! That is jogging, no walking. Our time was 1:44...just about ten minutes slower then the previous 6.5 mile weekend of 1:35. Yes we could be faster, but after a night like last night - I'm lucky to have even showed up. I saw a quote once (Pinterest, ahem!) that said something like "no matter how slow you go, you are still lapping the person sitting on the couch". ;)

I really had every intent on getting a good night's rest last night before our big run. However, well...you know how those things go.

7:00pm - Went to my nieces' choir concert
8:30pm - Home, and 5 yr old asleep (YAY!) - Began to get rest of kiddos ready for bed and feed baby girl
9:00pm - Still working on getting kiddos to bed, baby girl still awake. Ten yr old and 3 yr old running through the house singing and screaming. Five year old wakes up. Mommy goes crazy. Kids go quickly to beds.
9:30pm - Baby girl asleep YAY! Kiddos settling down. Mommy goes to store to buy lunches for tomorrow's Cub Scout day camp.
10:00pm - Home from store, mommy bribes/punishes 13 yr old with making six sandwiches since he was on the laptop when he was supposed to be babysitting. grrrrr Mommy has to start some laundry for clothes tomorrow and make sure everything is laid out and ready for the morning because mommy's run gets over around 8am and the boys need to be leaving for Scout day camp at 8:15am.
10:30pm - Mommy has to take an online Scout Youth Protection Training because the training is only good for 2 yrs and hers ran out...today and she may have to volunteer tomorrow at day camp.
11:00pm - Youth Protection Training DONE. Passed 100%...hitting PRINT to get my certificate for proof to the Scout leaders...
11:02pm - Computer froze. Must re-do training all over again.
11:32pm - Youth Protection Training done a second time, finally. Mommy can't keep her eyes open.
12:00pm - After some final prep for tomorrow, mommy hits the bed..zzzzzzzzzzz
1:00am - Mommy awakes to a crying, hot, puking 5 year old. His brain hurts. His temp is 102 and he puked in my bed.
1:30am - Mommy goes back to sleep
2:00am - Baby girl wakes up to eat....
5:00am - Alarm clock goes off for mommy's 7 mile run. Mommy turns it off and goes back to sleep.
5:30am - Second alarm goes off. Mommy reaches for last thread of energy she has and gets ready for her run.
6:00am - Mommy runs 7 miles

So yes, I'm tired. I'm not going to lie - I went back to sleep after I got home from running and baby girl had her morning bottle and was ready for a morning nap. zzzz

BUT I finished, and I feel good. I hope next weekend, 7.5 miles, I can get some SLEEP beforehand!

Summer Fun!

Whew! School is out, summer is here - but where have I been? Busy, that is! Blogging has been pushed to the wayside I'm afraid.
SO...here's is a huge catch up post. Its hard to believe it is still only two weeks since school got out. We've made good use of that two weeks! I hope our summer starts to wind down, but I've yet to see an end in sight....

Okay - now, updates via pictures:


Abigail was blessed! :) Here she is on her blessing day, dress and headband courtesy of Grandma. Grandma made the pretty dress from a pattern that her mom had made for her as a baby!

Just a cute Abigail picture - TOY OVERLOAD!!

Okay, so shortly after school got out we took the boys for a day hike up to Deception Falls. They brought along a friend too. IT was fun!

After the hike, we went to a reptile zoo. The boys LOVED it...mostly...

Then, last week we went camping and went to a big family reunion. Billy Jr loved helping with carrying the fire wood.

Posing with little sister...first time camping for Abigail!

Nana came by to visit and a deer decided to drop by for a bite to eat also! Nana is feeding the deer oatmeal in this picture.

Then the deer decided to overstay his welcome and almost got into the food in our trailer before we had to chase him away.

Other activities this summer so far that I didn't get pictures of was a fun camping trip to Daddy's favorite place earlier in the summer. It was cold, so Abigail and I stayed at Grandma's house!  Also, Brayden and Owen have done Cub Scout camp. Fun! Alex's boy scout camp is coming up soon...

I am happy and enjoying summer. Everyone is well and we're just trying to get some sort of summer routine. uggh

Until next time!!
~Bethany

Missing in Action...

Oops! Sorry its been so long since my last update. Please don't abandon me yet!

I'm currently in the middle of my college daze (yes DAZE...staying up until 2am studying is not meant for 30 yr old mommies of 6). 
I hope to be back to posting regularly in another month  :)

In the mean time, I will be trying to at least keep my exercise/running blog updated. Crazy me got talked into training for a half-marathon. I've never ran before and I hate running. BUT we did our first 5K last weekend! I never thought I could do that either, so who knows what I can do!

See Mommy Run - My running blog

Flashback Friday 3/09

My first baby - wasn't he a cutie!! Alex at about 12 months old :)