Friday Favorites: 4th of July

We had a fairly easy week this week - a nice change from being so busy last month. Monday, I went to visit Mikenna and Daniel a bit before they went to my mom's house for a sleepover. 

Tuesday, we stayed home all day - that's a definite favorite! 

Wednesday, we met Mikaela and the kids at lunch for pizza - another favorite, especially for Zeke and Zoey. We also went to the store and got everything we needed for the Fourth. Daniel came home with us for a few hours to play. 

Thursday, we went down to our pond and grilled burgers, sausage, and hot dogs. I also had chips, baked beans, a fruit tray with pineapple, oranges, apples, grapes, and strawberries. I made cookies, too - peanut butter cookies with a Hershey kiss on top and some red, white, and blue sugar cookies. 

We invited our friends and neighbors, Kasey and Matt, with their three kids; my sister, Ashlie, and three of her kids; my brother-in-law and his wife, Cole and Abby, with their two kids; Mikaela and her two kids; my parents; and Mercie's boyfriend and his dad. Almost everyone swam in the pond, including me! (Zoey hated the pond, so my mom sat with her and Mikenna in the shade.) We had a blast - and I got sunburned! We stayed in the water close to three hours. It was 95 degrees and HOT. I'm so thankful for friends and family that I enjoy spending time with. It was my favorite part of the week, and one of my top days of the year so far.

Weekend Recap: Wrapping Up June

We had a great weekend to wrap up the month of June and welcome in the month of July!

Zeke finished his swimming lessons on Friday. He did such a great job this week! He is learning to doggy-paddle, can put his head all the way under now, and can swim by himself across the pool using a pool noodle. 

Saturday, we hung around the house and played outside. It was hot, so we stayed in the shade as much as possible. I finished Gendaling's stocking, except for adding the fuse stabilizer and sewing on the back, then adding her name in glitter glue. That won't take long at all!

My next project is this Nativity wreath! I'm excited about this one and plan to start today.

Sunday morning, some of the kids in our church played the handbells! They played "America the Beautiful" and "In the Garden." It was their first time playing, and they did such a great job!

Sunday evening, we went to a community fellowship at a duck lodge not far from our house. They had a big waterslide for the kids, lots of barbeque chicken and side dishes, and the best fireworks show I've ever seen! It was a fun evening, and we didn't get home until after 9:00 (which is late for us.)

From left to right

My sisters step-son Garret, my husbands 16 year old brother Ruben, Silas and Zeke, Mercie, Cole (the boyfriend), Titus, my niece Laylah

Mikaela, Kenneth, and the kids came in for the week, so we went to visit them this morning. It's so good to hug those little necks! Zeke and Zoey had fun playing with their toys. Something different always feels so fun, right?

How was your weekend?

Friday Favorites

This was a very, very busy week! I feel like we haven't even had time to breathe this summer between baseball and summer camps and VBS and speech therapy and football workouts and church activities! This week was no exception, but I honestly do think that next week will be the start of a slow(er) July.

I put Zeke in swimming lessons this week, every day from 11:00-12:00. He was in a class with two other kids, and there were three teachers/helpers, so it was basically a one-on-one class. Zeke really surprised me and did such a fantastic job! It was fun to watch him learn a new skill and thrive in a new environment. 

Monday, I dropped Titus off at the Ag Center to go to 4H Camp. This is his second year going, and he had a blast. He did watersports as his elective, and he learned how to paddleboard! I think I'm going to buy one for our pond.

Tuesday, I took Eli and Silas to Monroe for Eli's birthday and to take care of some business. My mother-in-law took Zeke to swimming lessons for me, and then he went home with her for a few hours. They also got pizza for lunch! My mom met me halfway and picked up Zoey for the night. We had a good time shopping and eating pizza - Eli's choice! 

I came home and got some stuff done, including working on Gendeling's stocking for Christmas (fingers crossed she'll be able to be here by Christmas). This is my second stocking to make - I made my granddaughter Mikenna's last year! My mom used to make these stockings for all of her daughters, their husbands, and the grandchildren, but she passed the baton on to me last year. It's so much fun, but very time-consuming. I do feel like I'm much quicker and more efficient this year, though. 

Wednesday, I woke up early as usual. I baked a huge (11 x 19) lasagna! Our Children in Action group at church had a service project. We invited a group from the Mary Biggs Day Developmental Training Center in town, which is a program for developmentally challenged adults, to come to the church for a meal and a craft. The kids served the adult students a lunch of lasagna, green beans, salad, garlic bread, and several yummy desserts. After we ate, the kids led them in the making of a craft - contact paper and tissue paper sun catchers! It was such a good morning! The kids were blessed, the students were blessed, and I was blessed as well! It's definitely something we want to do again.

My mother-in-law took Zeke to swimming lessons and Silas to football practice for me. Then I met them in town and headed to Tallulah to pick up Zoey from my mom's. She lives about an hour from me. I also took my niece, Laylah, and nephew, Liam, with me and left them at my mom's for the night. On the way, I got a call from camp that Mercie was running fever over 100, so I called Eli and asked him to run and pick her up for me. It was only about an hour's drive, and now her throat is hurting really bad.

Zoey had a blast at Nana’s! She got to swim, get her toes painted, and was the center of attention the entire time!

We stayed at my parent's home and visited for a while, but there was a potentially big storm coming our way, so we headed home to beat it! We got home, stopped by the church for the leftover lasagna (I left it in the fridge), and came home. Zeke had picked out a new toy when he was with my mother-in-law, and Zoey really, really wanted it. He told her, "I bought it for us to share!" They had fun playing together for a while, but she's pretty bossy, so it didn't end well. 

Thursday, I made Mercie a doctor's appointment because she still had fever and was coughing pretty bad, as well as her throat being really sore. After her appointment, she picked up Titus because he returned from camp. I took Zeke to swimming lessons, and Zoey came with me. Zeke did such a great job, even jumping off the diving board! He doesn't like his head going under, but they worked on that, and he finally got to where he would very quickly pop his head under and back up. Zoey and I watched Zeke and then we walked around the property a bit. It was actually a nice 81 degrees - compared to the 95-degree weather we've been having, it felt so nice. 

I took Zeke and Zoey to eat pizza after swimming lessons, and then we came home and played outside since the weather was just too nice to go inside.

Zeke has his last day of swimming lessons tomorrow, and then I think our summer will finally slow down just a little bit. I'm ready for some rest! 

Eli Turns 19

It's so hard to believe Eli is now 19 years old and a married man! Gendeling, his wife, is in Nicaragua right now, still waiting for her I-130 to be approved. He is going back in July for a month before his college starts back for the fall quarter. It's looking like February will be the month it's approved, but hopefully it will be a little quicker. 

Eli had to go get some more passport photos taken for supplemental documentation for the application. He already has a passport, obviously, but they needed some more photos for some reason. So we had to make the hour and a half drive to Monroe again (I just made this trip last Thursday) to the Walgreens to get the passport photos taken, and then take them by the lawyer's office (also in Monroe). 

Funny story - he was wearing a white t-shirt, so he had to swap shirts with Silas! They just changed right there in the middle of Walgreens - boys crack me up.

We decided to go ahead and get his birthday gifts while we were there since it was his actual birthday. He asked for some new jeans (since the kind he wears cost $80 a pair - Ariat) and some new t-shirts. He wound up getting two pair of jeans, five t-shirts, a new phone charger, and a huge bag of Mike and Ike's (his favorite candy). 

I told him we would eat wherever he wanted to. He wanted to go to the mall for Sbarro's Pizza (of all the places we could have eaten, he wanted pizza...). I decided to get some, too, and it was really good! 

We made a stop at Walmart on the way home in an in-between town (I love going to different Walmarts - I'm that kind of rural). He also wanted an Oreo pie instead of a cake, so I picked up another one for him. We had a great day, and I'm so thankful I got to spend it with Eli. I told my husband this would probably be the last birthday I get to take him shopping and out to eat like this, because his wife will be here next year and I'm sure they'll want to spend it together - which is exactly what I want them to do! 

Eli and Gendeling