Soooo

apparently I suck at blogging.

Oh, where to start.

We've been so busy the past couple of months with the 4th of July, trips to the zoo and worlds of fun, family visits and such, and the old blog has been neglected, yet again.  

So just to warn you, this will probably be the longest post ever.  in the history of blogging. 


Worlds of Fun

The name says it all. :)  My kids love this place.  In fact, the other day, I asked Elijah and Isaac if they would rather go to Disney World or Worlds of Fun, and the both picked the latter.  So, I guess we could've saved alot of money last year. ;) 

Zoo trips

We visit the zoo alot during the Summer months, and we always get a family pass.  This year, they added a new sky safari ride over the Africa section.  Let's just say that I'm sooo happy we didn't get the pass that included that in it.  We went on it once, and I'm pretty sure it's safe to say it will be the last time.  Laney and Chloe rode together, Mike rode with Elijah, and I rode with Isaac and Jett.  First of all, these seats have no belts or anything to strap you in, and the bar that comes down in front of you doesn't exactly make me feel safe....especially with a 3 year old and a 1 year old who's trying to climb out of it the entire time.  Ugghhhh!!!  Stress and fear are the two prominent words that come to mind.  Jett lost his binky somewhere around the giraffes, and I'm hoping that they can get some use out of it.  Do animals use binkys?  I can just picture a sweet little baby giraffe sucking away on a way-too-tiny-for-him binky. :)  So anyway, never again with the African sky safari.  Bad, bad idea. 

But we had fun otherwise. 

{Feeding the sheep is always a big hit!}

{Jett loved them!!}

{This is the sky safari - otherwise known as Doom and Fear!!}

{and that's the binky that belongs to the giraffes now}

{look at those paws!!}

Sliding

These are probably the last pics I will have of the kids on this slide.  It bit the dust this summer, and we're sad to see it go.  I guess we'll have to start saving for a new one.  We really loved this thing!

4th of July

We had our typical 4th of July festivities.  We did fireworks at our house with friends and had a barbecue and more fireworks with family.  Everyone had fun, as usual.

{What's 4th of July without a little watermelon?}

Family visits

Mike's parents, sister and brother-in-law and their kids came to see us, and we had a great time with them.  Every time we're together, we have so much fun and make so many memories.  It really just sucks that we live so far away from them.  The kids all get along so well and we're so sad when we have to say goodbye. 

{Aliya and Jett.  I seriously neglected this child while Aliya pretty much took over the role of caregiver for him. :)  Thank you, sweet girl!!}

{Ma-Maw and Elijah}

{all the kiddos}

{Look at that gorgeous family!}

Whew.

So that's basically what we've been up to this summer!

We're looking forward to a few things coming up really soon, too!!

--Elijah starting school!!!  This will be interesting.  I'm not so much concerned with him sitting still anymore.  Now my major concern is him keeping his clothes on and being able to wipe himself.  I'm preparing myself for the, how do I say it...  interesting(?) phone calls and notes we'll get. 

-- Chloe is starting ballet!!!  She's really excited, especially since I told her that we have to get her a new leotard, tights, a new tutu and, wait for it......real ballet shoes!   We go to meet her instructor and to look at the studio this coming Monday.  She'll start lessons the first week in September.

-- Laney is taking horseback riding lessons!!!  If you know Laney at all, you know that her dream (other than owning her own horse) has come true!!  There are no words in the English language that describe how ecstatic she is about it!  We go tomorrow to take a tour of the place, and there's a good chance she'll have her first lesson then, too.  I was told that it will be Laney and just one other girl around her age in her class.  When I was looking up prices and stuff, I noticed that the cheaper lessons were the group lessons.  I was thinking there are probably 8-9 kids in a group, but they told me group lessons are 2-3 kids.  That was a nice surprise!!

Weigh loss update

I know I said I wouldn't be doing many updates on my weight loss journey, but, well, I lied.  :)  No, I'm only going to post about it every so often, and this is one of those times.
I've been doing Weight Watchers for 6 weeks now, and I'm happy to say that I'm down 14 pounds!!   My friends and family tell me that they can definitely tell I've lost, which of course, is awesome motivation to keep going.  I can tell myself, when I put my clothes on - they aren't as snug as they once were. :) 
The first few weeks, I was charted my food intake religiously, calculated everything I put in my mouth and how many WW points it was worth, and never went over my allotted daily points.  I need to start logging everything in again.  It really does help.  I've only missed 2 meetings, and I really hate when I do, not only because I don't get to weigh in, but because the meetings are so helpful and encouraging. 
I got some new tennis shoes (that actually fit and don't make my toes feel like someone's tearing them off), so I'll be starting the 30 day shred tonight.  After the Bachelorette, of course.  Don't judge.  :) 

Oh, and I bought a new swimsuit.  
Now if I could only get the courage to wear it out in public.

I've still got a ways to go, but knowing that I have a little bit behind me is nice.  And at least I know it's working!

Schedules

Is it just me, or whenever you see this word, do you also sound it out in your head like a British fellow...shedules.  
Anyone?  No?  Alright.

Anyway.
First of all, I want to say Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband.  He's the only man in the world I would want to be the father of my children, and I'm so happy he's mine.  I love you, honey!!  You're the best!!!  =)

On to more good stuff...

Mike's job is going great!  He comes home happier, less stressed, and earlier in the day.  But that's about to change.  Well, the earlier in the day part, anyway.  Starting next week, he will start working 4 days a week - 10 hour days.  So, instead of getting home at 4, he'll get home at 6.  Which, if there wasn't some sort of benefit to this, would totally suck.  But here's the awesome part.  Since there are 2 electrical/instrumentation techs at this plant (Mike being one of them, of course), they will switch back and forth from one of them working Mon-Thurs and the other will work Tues-Fri.  So, Mike will have 2 day weekends one week, and 4 day weekends the next.  They switch the on-call back and forth every week, so the weeks that he has 4 days off, the other technician will be on call.  So every other week, Mike will have 4 day weekends, without being on call...which is pretty much amazing!

I'm so thankful that God has blessed Mike with this job, and also, just the ability to work.  He's such a hard worker, and it's not just sitting at a desk type of work either.  I'm so happy I got a blue collared worker, they're way sexier, with their hard hats and tool belts. ;)  Sorry to my family that reads this.  haha.  =D
He got called in alot this past weekend, which kind of sucks, but at least he gets overtime for it.  He worked a total of 17 hours on Friday, and then to top off the weekend, on Father's Day, he got called in at 7am and didn't get home till 4.  He's an amazing man, and I wouldn't trade him for the world.  I love him more than life itself.  

Long time...

...no bloggy.

This may or may not be a long post.  We'll see.

We're up to more projects.  Mostly out of necessity, though.
I go into the boy's bedroom the other day, and smell a funny, mildewy smell coming from Elijah's bed.  We've been having problems with them taking cups of water into their room and pouring it down their race car track that looks like this.

They say it's a water slide.  Go figure.

So anyway, I know they've been into water again, and I'm sniffing around like a K-9 dog trying to find out where this smell is coming from.  I lift up the mattress on Elijah's race car bed, and the whole wooden board underneath it is soaked.  I lift up the bed itself, and water just starts pouring out from the corner.  Ughhhhh...  Isaac's toddler bed isn't holding up much better, with half the boards missing under the mattress, so needless to say, we decide they need new beds a new bed. 

We decided on a bunk bed with a full-size mattress on the bottom.  When Jett is big enough to start sleeping with the bigger boys, we'll move the girls back upstairs.  They are currently downstairs in the playroom, which, if I was a child, would be ideal and totally awesome.  But no, Laney and Chloe (Laney mostly) are asking to come back upstairs and have their old room back.  Ok, whatever.  I'm thinking along the lines of, ok you have a room that's like 4 times the size of the one upstairs, and you have your own TV and pretty much every toy known to man at your fingertips down there, but whatever.  Weirdos. 

(totally kidding, by the way. I don't mind having them closer at night, being the paranoid person that I am.  :D)

So I started googling cute boy rooms to get an idea of what I wanted to do in the boys' room.  Then it hit me.  This is their room.  How 'bout I ask them what they want.  So I did, and they chose Mario.  shocker, I know.   While I would prefer that they have a cute nautical themed room (which my husband said was totally gay) or an awesome outer-spaced themed room, or some kind of dino room, I guess it comes down to the fact that they are only gonna be little once.  They are only gonna ask for a Mario room one time. (hopefully)  They have the rest of their lives to have grown-up rooms.  Let them be little, right? :)  So we got them Mario bedding, and we would love to eventually paint their room like this -

I would actually not mind a Mario room myself, if it looked like this. :D

Let's see...what else?

The girls are on Summer vacation, which means....EXTREME.LOUD.NOISE.ALL.THE.TIME.  I have 6 kids here, every day.  A lot of times, there are 7 or 8, when their friends come over.  I usually can't even hear myself think, but that's okay. 

We (meaning myself, my mom, my sister, my 3 nieces, 2 boyfriends of nieces and partridge in a pear tree) took the kids to Worlds of Fun last Thursday, with my friend Cathy and her little boy, Daniel.  They all had fun, of course.  I'll post pics of that as soon as I get more time. 

Oh, one more thing. 

Mike's mom and dad are moving moved closer to us...like only an hour away close.  We're so excited!!!!  Now, if we could only get Sheri and Sheila closer.   That's our next project.