Thoughts

1. This past week has been a rough one. It has been physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. Basically, I am beat. I'm not going to go into details, but I just want to say that we learned first hand (once again) that the Lord is in charge, not us, and that faith is real and requires action on our part.

2. We have done so many fun things this past week. It has been a week of fun, fun, work, and fun.

3. School starts in 15 days. 15 days! Where did the summer go? I'm still waiting for it to get here. It has been a weird summer for sure.

4. The fact that school is starting has made me think a lot about my little man. See that picture up there? He just kills me. He starts first grade in 15 days and will be in school all day long for the first time ever. To say that I am nervous for him is an understatement. You see, he is and has always been his own special person. He is delightful and funny and creative. He loves nothing more than to pretend, play with friends, and play video games. He is seriously one of the sweetest boys around. He also suffers from anxiety, panic attacks, and some mild agoraphobia, struggles with some developmental delays, and battles a bit of ADD. Needless to say, first grade is going to come with some struggles and it makes me incredibly nervous for him. Luckily he has some fabulous teachers at school and we have recently started working with a psychologist, but I still worry.

5. Little man needs his tonsils out. I have been putting it off for a year now and dreading it with everything inside of me. But, I will pull up my big girl pants and get it done (at some point before the year ends.  :)

6. This past week we probably got about 4 months worth of work done on our house. We may actually have this baby on the market by the end of the month.

Random pictures that I found on my phone

 I posted here a picture of Sparky as he was headed off to a week of scout camp. Here is a picture of him when he came home. I'm thinking he didn't get much sleep during the week.

 We've had a lot of rain this summer. Here's some hail that fell during a freak storm one day. Some pieces were even bigger than this and the kids thought it was great fun to watch the hail bounce all over the place.

 A friend invited Sparky to go swimming one day and he forgot his goggles. Apparently the pool was a little heavy on the chlorine that day because his eyes were blood red from swimming. This is a picture of when he was looking much, much better.

 I walked into Woo's room one day and was greeted by this sweet scene on her dresser. They are all eating at a restaurant and the little bunny with the top hat is the waiter. I just love her imagination.

 The 4th of July was a very wet day for us out here. It basically rained all day long and so we spent the day doing American things like eating sandwiches and watching Captain America. Since it rained all day the kids were very worried that they wouldn't be able to do fireworks that night but luckily the rain gave us a little break in the evening and so Aunt Katie and Uncle Chad were able to put on their fireworks show and everyone was happy. Plus, since it had been raining all day we didn't need to worry about everything catching on fire, which turned out to be a very good thing.

 Sparklers are always a crowd pleaser.

 One little sleepy head. He meandered his way into my room way too early one morning and proceeded to catch a couple more hours of sleep. So glad he did, because that was the end of my sleep for the day.

 With all of the rain we had, it was basically unnecessary to wash the car, but that didn't stop Tiger. He thought the rain was a perfect excuse to get out the suds and make sure our ride was looking good.

What a goof. Playing in the rain in his pajama bottoms. It's been tough getting this guy dressed this summer and even tougher getting a shirt on him.

Last month our little man had a birthday

Another year has passed for this boy and he has now reached the ripe old age of "7". Much to his chagrin it was a low key kind of birthday with just family around to help him celebrate. Nevertheless, I still think it was a success.

He requested chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, and chocolate ice cream. Definitely my kind of boy. Since Grandma had included all kinds of Avengers party paraphernalia in her birthday party box, I decided to make his cake an homage to Captain America and covered it with red, white, and blue star sprinkles. The birthday boy was quite pleased.

A birthday isn't complete without cards and presents. He was showered with both, but for his birthday this year, all Tiger really wanted was a bow and arrow.

What my boy asks for, he gets. At least at this point in his young life. When he opened his present he was shocked and thrilled which is always a good reaction to a birthday present.

Happy, happy, happy.

Doug wasted no time at all in getting the boy out to practice his shots.

They set up a target and had their first lesson. Of course safety was heavily emphasized.

My boy is now one step closer to becoming a hunter. Look out future deer.

More of Batman

Remember a few weeks ago when Tiger had his face painted like Batman? Here's a couple of other things that our little super hero did that day while wearing his face paint.

Batman likes to draw comics.

Batman also likes to ride his bike.

Mini Grandpa

This is my boy. Around these here blog parts we call him Sparky. Sparky last week for Boy Scout Camp, but before he left I took this picture of him. I took it because he was so happy and excited for camp and all of the things that he would be doing there. I'm sure it's not because he was going to get a break from me for a bit. After he left I immediately posted this picture to Instagram and as soon as I opened the picture up I was hit with how much he looks like my dad did when he was young. It is quite freaky actually. When my dad had his 60th birthday party a slideshow of pictures was put together documenting his life and at the time people kept commenting to me on how much Sparky looks like my dad did when he was little. Sure, I saw it at the time, but for some reason this picture of my boy just really hit it home for me. I always knew he had a lot of my family in him and now it is proven. He is grandpa through and through.

Family Fun

Every year Doug's work has a Family Fun Day. Usually Doug is out of town and we aren't able to go, but this year Doug was actually in town and so we headed down for a little free entertainment. There were all kinds of games to play and food to eat. Yay for a free lunch!

 There were huge inflatables to climb on and slide down.

 Sadly, shortly after lunch Doug had a meeting he had to go to and so the two kids and I were stuck wandering around on our own. Luckily we know how to have a good time even when dad isn't with us.

 Tiger was all about having his face painted.

 He wore this face paint proudly all day and was very sad when he had to take it off before bed.

Batman loves a good party.

 There was also an inflatable laser tag maze. Tiger was all over this as well. As you can see, he means business. Woo wasn't quite a thrilled about the laser tag as Tiger, but she was a good sister and played a round with her brother. In the end she had a good time as well.

Batman means business. 

Sparky is at scout camp and so he wasn't able to come with us, but we were still able to have a good time without him. Plus, it helped to take our minds off of how much we are missing our boy.

This week

1. My boy is going away for his first ever full week of boy scout camp next week and I am trying to get all of his stuff together. The biggest challenge for me is going to be sewing his patches onto his scout shirt. They are all stuck onto his shirt already through the use of iron-on stuff, but they're not super secure and must be sewn on. I am not looking forward to doing this.

2. Laundry, my arch nemesis, and I will have a little rendez-vous. It will not be pretty.

3. I will start painting baseboards. I have been dreading and dreading this task because it is tedious and annoying and inconvenient and no fun at all.

4. Last week Tiger came down with a cold. Now that he is much better, the bad habits that resurfaced while he was sick must be dealt with. This too will not be pleasant, for any of us.

5. I will continue to spend hours working on the wedding pictures that I took while trying to figure out this dang Mac computer as well. All I can say is that I am very grateful for the internet and the fact that I can find the answer to anything I need.

Hooray for summer!