Summer update

Hello long neglected blog. I’ve been spending every night from 8 to midnight working on my latest business endeavor. It’s so much writing and blogging that to sit down on Sundays to update the family blog kind of seams like working. So neglect has set in.

So sad, because I love writing about the family and our adventures. Now that it is summer we are playing, playing, playing and I love it, love it, love it.

Pool, bikes, parks, picnics, soccer, tball and lazy days around the house with a good pile of books.

Poor Monkey Three. He just gets carted around. I figure one nap a day is all I can promise him. Sometimes it happens at the park in the stroller. He’s surviving. I just hope he doesn’t get out of the habit of napping. I have some serious plans for his nap time once school starts up again.

His latest accomplishments/quirks are: sleeping in the stroller, enjoying sweltering at the pool side, drinking from a bottle (hooray!!!!!!!!!), feeding himself finger foods (annoying – what a mess!), not loving being spoon-fed (double trouble there since he still has no teeth – well, almost, one just broke through the otherday) and making the little rolling walker thing go all over the house.

He sits, plays, laughs, babbles, but does not roll much, nor does he seem to be making any progress towards self propelled motion. Some say it’s less trouble, but (and I know this from prior experience) there comes a time when he is ready mentally to keep himself more busy, but he hasn’t done the prep work of learning to scoot and crawl, so he just sits and cries – because what else is there to do when you are bored?

Monkey Do is playing t-ball! Oh, how I love it. I don’t think there is a more complicated game out there, something I didn’t realize until I watched 5 year olds try it for the first time. The whole concept of watching the batter, knowing when it is your turn to get the ball – very tricky!

Equally difficult is understanding the concept of “rounding the bases. I can’t tell you how many times the kiddos go straight on down the foul line. Love it. I also love the inattentiveness of the first baseman, between not paying attention to the pitcher throwing the ball to him, and insisting on standing on the base at all times – wow, that kid gets clobbered a lot. However, it’s not making much of a dent in his performance.

Monkey See is reading up a storm. He loves his action figures and Legos. It’s actually been quite a challenge to get him outside this summer. He’d rather hunker down in the basement and play. But we created a reading area in a grove of trees by our house, so he’ll take some books out there when I absolutely insist on it.

He is in swimming lessons and is doing amazing! Within two weeks he has learned to swim the length of the big pool. Maybe he’s got the fish gene. Who knows.

As for me – I decided I have three pressing things in my life – play with the kids, work on my business and keep house. I can only handle two of them. So while the house falls to pieces, I am having lots of fun with the boys.

I also went to fourth year girls camp. So fun (thank you Max for taking a bottle, and thank you, Mom, for doing a marathon stretch with grandkids!) It was only a day and a half, but was a much needed break.

We rafted the Arkansas river, which was very fast and very fun. The girls had a great time, no one ejected from any rafts, though we got pretty wet. I had to donate my pjs to a girl that didn’t bring any extra pants to change into. So I slept in a tent, in my jeans, on the ground and I got the best night’s sleep that I have had in 9 months!

Joseph is a dear and is diving into the yearly “tear up the dead sod” project. He finally gave into my pleas and capped off 17 sprinklers, rented the sod cutter and is now busting through the removal process (with my help of course, but still, he brings the muscles to the family).

Next will be shoveling large amounts of rock, hauling trees, digging holes, filling in with topsoil to build me flower beds. We hope all of this effort will finally get the areas designated for grass down to a manageable size. Who knows, we may even get grass to grow there.

We can only hope.

PS – These photos are from some of our hiking outings we’ve taking lately. We’ve hiked Devil’s Head, Red Rock Canyon and Castlewood Canyon. All amazing hikes and all except the last one with the boys complaining every step of the way. So Joseph and I rebranded our outings. Instead of going hiking yesterday, we went “exploring.” It was much better received. Score one for the parents! I wonder when the Monkeys will figure it out.

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