Just so I can feel more empathy???

My first opinion is that a mother should never get sick. Something in her biological make up should change when she births her first child. (There should be a provision for those who adopt too.) But monthers simply shouldn't get sick! But then I think when I am sick I have greater empathy and understanding for what my children and husband go through when they are sick and I am more patient and tolerant towards them in their illness. So this week I am being reminded how painfully awful an ear infection is. I can't ever recall having one before. Nathan just had one a couple weeks ago and maybe I was less than sympathetic to his plight, although we did get him to the doctor and get medication for it, I suppose I didn't have a strong enough grasp of how painful and awful an ear infection can be. So it is my turn to remember and know the pain. I have been awake at night so incredibly tired and exhausted and unable to sleep because of the pain. My Doctor prescribed me $50 ear drops which better work given their hefty price (and that's with insurance covering the remainder of the expense!) So far I haven't found relief, but I only got the drops yesterday and am supposed to be on them for a week. So much fun!

Almost 8

Like I said I have a lot of catching up to do. I have hundreds of photos of this summer and am trying to post about everything that has happened.

I did Ada's "Almost 8" photo shoot right before bed on July 3rd, because I remembered that I wanted to do it then. So in a lot of her pictures she looks tired. But I liked the way these two turned out:

Cherries (Ode to Summer)

In our back yard we have 2 cherry trees. Each summer, we all look forward to our cherry crop.

The kids love to sit in the tree and pick and eat the cherries. It signals the beginning of their "summer snack season."
They love to go out back and snack on cherries, plums and grapes as they ripen. Every year we've lived here we have taken pictures of the kids in the cherry tree. It has become somewhat of a tradition and a way to mark their growth.
We have a great backyard. Summer just isn't quite right without our cherry photos.

Even though our trees didn't yield too many fruit this year, the kids still enjoyed getting out there and picking them with their friends and sharing them with the neighbors.

So here's to fresh summer fruit and family traditions!

Ada's Birthday Party

(click on photo to view larger)

I will have multiple posts concerning Ada's birthday since it was on the fourth of July. But I thought I'd start with recent and work backwards later. Because her birthday was on the 4th and we had a family reunion and her baptism and I was leaving for girls' camp--we postponed her bday party til today. 8 is the age I let my kids have a big party with lots of friends, but Ada opted to invite only 3 (which of course is perfectly fine with me). Ada wanted a soccer themed party, so I made a soccer cake, we had an obstacle course (which Kielle and Nathan made up for us.), They played "pin the soccer ball on the goal", and made visors. I think they had a lot of fun and the party was just the right amount of time. All the other kids were so good at pitching in and helping with party. I'm glad it went well.

Wordle

I just found a really cool site that makes word clouds for you. I just plugged in my blog address and it came up with this:



which kind of highlights the summer. Cool! You can also type in specific words so that you get exactly the words you choose. Enjoy!

Seven Peaks (Ode to Summer)

We have a tradition every summer of going to Seven Peaks for an entire day. The kids earn a free ticket by reaching a reading goal at the end of the school year. This saves us A LOT of money! We were a little nervous about going on Wednesday because the forecast was thunderstorms, but we had planned it and decided to try it out. Happily, the weather was agreeable and we all had so much fun. I only have photos of Ryan and Tessa because they were our buddies. The older three were off doing their own thing and checking in with us every hour. We also ran into some friends and the kids had even more fun getting to play with them. We all look forward to this activity each summer because Aaron gets the day off work and we get to have a lot of fun as a family together.

Owlz baseball (Ode to Summer)

My friend Heidi put a challenge on her blog to essentially have fun this summer. She made a list of all the things she wants to do If you do something on her list, post it on your blog and let her know she'll give you a J-Dawgs gift certificate. So in an attempt to catch up on my summer and take my family to J-Dawgs for lunch (to complete our summer fun) I will be posting many odes to summer--I hope.

Monday night we took the kids to the OWLZ baseball game. I am not joking when I say that this was the only OWLZ game that will work for us until the end of August. There is so much other stuff going on! But my kids have free passes from their reading programs at school so we had to take them. We were able to go thanks to Granny May. I had a work dinner that Aaron & I needed to go to and so May took the kids and we met them there after dinner. We arrived after the 1st inning was over. It was a lot of fun to go to the game. The kids got there early enough to get a ball they had caught at a game last season signed by lots of players--They were really excited about that. We also got to enjoy dippin dots that were thrown out to the crowd! I also love the playground there and think that all stadiums should have one!

Tessa missed me

"Mom, while you were gone at girls camp it was like my heart was split in two, but now it's whole again"

Just checking in...

I have a whole month's worth of stuff I want to post about but I am super busy and feel like I have no time to blog (or feel like I am neglecting other duties by doing so.) I am trying to get caught up on work, get prepared for Ada's upcoming birthday (Friday)and baptism (Saturday)and family coming to visit. and then off to girls' camp (Monday). Am I ready for any of these things? Not really. Will everything turn out OK despite it all? Most likely. So I am just trying to take it one minute at a time. In addition to those things Nathan has had bronchitis that escalated to pneumonia and a raging ear infection over the past week and a half and Aaron and I have been working on a little landscaping project on our front lawn (will post photos later.) Needless to say I am keeping myself quite busy this summer. Fun Fun.

P.S. my car is in the shop getting fixed now.