Summer project and summer fun!

YUM! look at that sweet face. Theres no story behind this picture of Max, only that he's super cute and has the most kissable cheeks (although I may have said that about all of my babies).  I bring him into our bed most mornings to feed him around 5:30/6:00am. I hate to be awake at that time, but I love these morning snuggles and his precious, loving looks in the morning... like he did something hard by being away from me all night and is finally basking in my presence or something.  That sounds weird and its hard to describe.

So.... we decided to remodel the guest house! This couple contacted our President Linford, our branch president and asked if anyone in the branch had a little apartment or something they wanted to rent out. They are looking for something for only 9 months or so and most places in town were asking for a year's lease. Chris and I had already told our trek daughter, Emma Grace, that she's welcome to live with us if she needed a place in Starkville while she goes to college and so we've been thinking about cleaning out the guesthouse for her, but then we found out she would only need a place for a 2 months and the money to completely redo might not be worth the meager rent we'd charge her for 2 months. Then this couple came on our radar and we thought 9 months rent would make it more possible and Emma Grace was ok with living IN our house for the short time she needed a place.  We were hesitant to start on demo until we were SURE it'd work out to have renters, but with summer underway, we really needed to get started.

Demo Day(s).

A view directly inside the front door. Theres the AC unit and water heater within a few feet of the door, and then a small (chemestry lab style) sink and a rickety counter to it's right.  Then a door on the left would take you into a small closet area with a bathroom to the right. The bathroom was poorly designed and obviously made with scrap left overs - a large pedastol sink that left about 10 inches of clearance to squeeze onto the toilet and 3-wall tiny shower with a dingy curtain next to that.  Then there was another doorway that led into the back room that felt fairly spacious compared to the rest of the place.

Our plan was to knock out some walls and really open it up as much as possible. We had to re-position the water heater and change the AC to an over the head wall unit. We originally planned on leaving the drop ceiling and just replace whatever wall tiles we needed but once we started the demo on the old stuff we just couldn't stop and wanted to take out everything!  We were just piling all the debris on the ground outside while we figured out how to get a dumpster.  Before we took down anything potentially structural, we called our contractor, Vick Pitts from our kitchen remodel to come look over things with us. He helped us find a dumpster guy and recommended some plumbers. It was so helpful!

Despite my own feelings and tendencies, we couldn't just work on our project 24/7. Chris still needed to go to work and the kids needed some summer fun. My good friend, Audra helped get us out of the house for Lake Tiak-o-khata's opening weekend. Max's first time in the water outside!  Remembering how fun we had at the lake the few times we went last summer when Freddy was independant enough to just wade and hang out in the shallows with a life jacket and floaty and the big kids off doing whatever with friends, I didn't fully prepare myself for how challenging it is to be at the beach with a baby.

Someone pretty much had to hold Max the whole time, even during his naps. I laid him down once under the shade of an umbrella all wrapped up but he woke up right away. It was SO SO SO hot. These pictures make it look really nice but it was so so humid and high 90s. Even the shade was sweltering.  Alec was so helpful though. He never complained once and even though he didn't have a friend his age to play with, he entertained him self wonderfully and played with Freddy or other little kids.  He's amazing in circumstances like this.

It would've been pretty difficult without my friends there to help hold Max and assist Freddy or the kids with food when ne

Good thing Max is so cute!!

End of School Year!

All of the kids' Awards Assemblies happened while Chris was gone in Florida, so Max, Freddy and I went.  Alec wanted to dress up a little this year. (In past years, he doesn't want to stand out at all and will wear school uniforms no matter what) He looks so handsome!! He's such a good looking kid, he looks so much like Chris, lucky boy.  His VIVA art class this year (that he had to try out for at the end of last year) did cool fundraising thing with making wooden blocks and selling them. (Which, admittedly I wasn't super happy with when it happened.  There are always a million fundraisers it seems. This one in particular felt a little forced since Alec told me that if we didn't buy one, he wouldn't be able to make one. Anyway, they ended up making over $2,000! The kids chose to donate most of it to other groups, like charities and to a boy in our school district that got diagnosed with Cancer a month or so ago.  It was a neat opportunity for Alec. 

Then, of course, there are all the good grade awards. Alec got a Presidential award and a few others for good grades.

Gwen and Charlie actually didn't have any awards assemblies (that I was aware of!) But they each got straight As this year and are amazing students. 

For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to invite a bunch of kids over for an end-of-the-school-year party. Alec invited 4 or 5 friends from his team (including a girl Chloe... ooOOooo) :) And Charlie had his friends Dash and Brennan over.  I didn't have any more seats for more people.  We got out the water fun with our little wading pool, sprinkler and whatnot and I had some treats. Hurray for Summer!

Chris' birthday

For the first time in a few years, Chris was home on his birthday! We gave him breakfast in bed and a few presents then had some friends over later for cake and ice cream. 37 looks so good. :) I don't remember much else about his birthday except I accidentally ordered 2 of the exact same white belt, so I wrapped both up and gave them both to him as a sort of joke, but he didn't really laugh or think it was that amusing. He wanted me to return one, and I totally should've but for some reason, I'm terrible at returning things, it feels like an impossible mountain to climb. I'm probably just crazy and now I'm rambling so I'll stop. 

I love Chris. I love how hardworking he is, how uncomplaining, how compassionate.  He just quietly goes about doing the right things and I probably don't celebrate him enough! 

Max and Freddy

These two little boys. Oh I love them. Our mornings together are often so fun as I watch them play together. But also, individually these boys are just deliciously adorable!!

One morning while Chris was gone either in Florida or for his Dad's 60th birthday Golf Trip, we sent him this picture to let him know we missed him.

When Max is sleeping, Freddy just follows me around the house, playing nearby me or snuggling next to me if I'm stationary doing my scripture study or something. He loves to quietly look through books. Often, he'll fall asleep.

End of Preschool year

It is so exciting to have finished the preschool year. I always loved planning and seeing the kids and there were always fun teaching moments, but it was challenging at times and took a lot of preparation and mental effort. Baby Max is getting to need more attention and help as he gets older and its been difficult trying to juggle it all.   I've learned so much about myself, about having a regular 'job' for the school year and I've had SO. MUCH. FUN making art, cooking, dancing, singing, reading, exploring and playing.  I compiled an end of the year book from all of the Instagram posts I did that documented each preschool day for the whole year. It's really interesting to look through and Freddy LOVES for me to read it to him.  Frederick has been an amazing preschool helper this whole year.  He's shared his toys, his mom, his house with an extraordinary lack of complaint. He listens well, gets excited about learning new things and is a sweet friend and imaginative playmate.  

My older kids all wanted to stay home from school and help with preschool at various times during the year and I told them they could each choose one day to do just that! Charlie did it early in March and Gwen and Alec helped during our last week.  The preschool kids loved having big kids to play with and I'm pretty sure one little girl fell in love with Charlie. 

And I'm done! I did it!  I started my own preschool, taught for a whole year despite having a baby in the middle! I had a few kids drop out at random times without notice and some people say they couldn't pay for a month or two but I kept going and had so so much fun. Frederick absolutely loved it and asked almost every morning with hope in his voice, "Is it preschool today?"  Most kids cried when their parents came to pick them up and more than one kid told their parents they wanted to live at preschool. I'm going to call it a successful venture. But I am SO glad I decided to do something a little different for next year. It was a VERY difficult decision and it took a long time to decide but I feel good about it.  I'm going to do a playschool session, once a week, for only 2 hours, without collecting payments so I can maintain a sense of low-keyness (since I tend to easily get ambitious and try to do too much!) and give me the freedom to cancel whenever I feel I need to.

To celebrate, Chris and I had some sparkling cider and homemade popcorn and a movie night... on a THURSDAY! 

Then on Saturday we invited all the preschool families over for a BBQ 'swim' party. (Then I was really officially done) Whew! Sweet Sweet Freedom!

Max is growing! Charlie Pitches!

Max loves to kick his feet. He loves to sit in the bouncer on the counter because then he can watch me cook. He seems to need to watch me or he gets unhappy.  He just follows me with his eyes, sucks his hand and kicks his feet.  He loves to be tickled and we all love to hear him laugh. 

Lately, when I change his diaper, he'll put his hand on my arm and just rest it there while I change him. I love it.

He found his toes! He loves to hold them and bounce his legs up and down. This is the only way he will roll over to his side but then he just lets go and rolls back to his back.

Charlie has really enjoyed baseball. This is the first year that they have the kids pitching. Its very difficult to get a hit in for Charlie. He's had some good swings and is even better at NOT swinging at balls. He gets on base from a walk most of the time. The coach started him out in 8th batting position but then moved him up, eventually to 3rd or 4th because he consistently gets on base and will follow the coach's instructions.  He mostly plays 2nd base, one time he played first base and another time he pitched! His team was ahead by a lot so the coach switched the pitcher and catcher around and put his own son in as pitcher in the last inning. The other team got a lot of hits and was scoring fast, so he took his son out and all of a sudden gave Charlie a chance to pitch. He just needed to get 2 outs. Despite having NEVER pitched before in his life, Charlie was willing to try and gave it his best shot.  The ump had a 2 key bad calls (in my opinion where Charlie SHOULD'VE gotten a 3rd strike) and our team lost our lead. He stuck in there even when it was hard and got a strike out to end the game. WHEW! It was a good experience and I'm so proud of Charlie. I have never been so NERVOUS at a kid's sporting event, ever. 

Garden Trial 1

With how crazy fast things grow down here in Mississippi, we've always wanted to do a garden, but other house projects combined with an unclear idea of WHERE to do it seemed to prevent us from actually doing one. We've had the supplies for a garden box in our garage for over a year and decided to just get it done even if its not perfectly planned out. In a few hours we had the frame built and filled with dirt. We hooked it up to the hose and got a timing system rigged up so it wouldn't die from our lack of attention. 

It looks so cute! I love it.  We have tomatoes, peppers, cilantro ( fresh salsa anyone?), parsley, squash and cucumbers. Let the fresh produce begin!!

When we were in the middle of dumping the dirt. We heard a big crack and CRASH! We walked around to the backyard and found a tree had fallen over. Just like that. It wasn't windy or anything. It was one of those Hackberry trees that rot from the inside out and just came crashing down. I had thought it would make a great tree house tree but Chris didn't think it was a good idea because it was a Hackberry. Good thing we listened to him and not me!


Since I'm writing this post 6 months later I can tell you how badly we failed in our garden. Something started eating the tomato plants so we covered it with netting and ramshackled it up with wood we already had and bought some pvc pipes to make something more permanent but never got around to it. The squash didn't end up being squash, it was all cucumber plants and they took over the entire garden and grew in and around the netting so its all stuck and the cucumbers taste horrible and something ate our peppers before they finished getting ripe, but that didn't really matter since before many peppers or tomatoes could grow the cucumber plants cobbled them up. I did harvest some cilantro for a meal once and some parsley. But that's it. Man, I wish I had a greener thumb.  Our guest house remodel took all our time, energy and focus.  Here's a picture of the garden 1/2 way through the summer.