July 2012 Update

In June my calendar was wide open - July was booked and fairly stressful.  And hot.  Very, very hot.  Highs of 90-100 and lows of 80.  Thankfully the rearrangement of AC window units kept the house a "cool" 79-81 degrees.  Colleen kept on turning off the kitchen/dinning unit because she likes to sit in the chair right in front of it and didn't like it blowing on her or even the sound of it.  Then I would wander by and turn it back on.  Back and forth all day.  I guess it helped keep the electric bill down.  :) 

Sunflower in our garden

Two good things about the heat and lack of rain:  the grass browned up and went dormant which meant Emily didn't have to mow for a month (yeah, I have delegated that chore, I love older kids!)  and there were no mosquitoes at all.  In a normal rain year we get enough mosquitoes in our yard that the kids can't play outside without getting bit up within minutes so I end up spraying just so we can go outside during the day.   We did get just enough rain to keep the corn alive and we only had to give the garden 3 deep waters, so we were pretty lucky.  The three fruit trees we planted in the spring look pretty sad, but they aren't dead yet.

We kept things pretty low key for the Forth of July.  Just a family BBQ and some sparklers.   I walked out to see how the steaks were doing and found Brian sitting cross legged in front of the fire pit with a plate of steaks on his lap and another large steak on the grill.  He was cutting into the steaks with the look of utmost concentration.  (This picture taken after the fact doesn't capture that look at all.)  He claims he was just testing the steaks, but I know what was really going on.  :)

The night before Brian, Emily and Aleah went to see the fireworks display in Slater - our neighboring small town.  I guess the fire department was in charge of setting the fireworks off this year and they went off pretty low, but they had fun.  I was more than happy to stay home with the two youngest - I really don't like going out after the kid's bedtime - I am not a night owl and just want to chill.

A sharpie tie-dye bag I made later.

The 8th was Emily's 12th birthday and she had a few neighbor friends over for a party.  I have always wanted to make the sharpie tie-dyed tee shirts, so that is what they did for an activity, then lunch, root beer floats instead of cake and the traditional water balloon fight Emily has at all her parties.  I didn't take any pictures.  I couldn't find the camera right away and I was feeling rather frazzled, so let's just say that we were enjoying the moment so much that we didn't even think of taking pictures.  :)

On the 12th of July we had our annual review by the City Council about our chickens.  Since they had gotten into our neighbors yard 3 times in February, they didn't want us to have them anymore and our permit was revoked.  I was really sad, especially because it was my fault that they went wandering.  I put an add in Craig's List and someone came and picked them up the same day.  We are keeping the chicken coop Brian build in hopes that we will have chickens again sometime.

I don't think that I touched my sewing machine at all in July except to fix this quilt block that I turned into the quilt block competition at the Iowa State Fair.  (More info on it here, here and here.)  It got an honorable mention and the smocked dress I made for Emily when she was eight got a blue ribbon.

The best picture of Colleen from the month -sorry kid.

The kids all played well together for the most part this summer.  Colleen was super excited that she was going to start school in  August and set up her own school in the living room.  The piano bench was her desk.  She would sit behind it on a little chair, Kate would sit in front of her on another little chair and Colleen would put on her serious voice and discuss with Kate the dangers of germs, read stories to her and have drawing time.

Drawing time was the bane of my existence in July.  It seemed like there was paper everywhere.  To say that I picked up and threw away 20 pieces of paper a day is probably an understatement.  They were pretty good about drawing on most of the paper and even on both sides 50% of the time, there was just a lot of drawing happening.  When we went back to school shopping I let them each choose a cute notebook and put all of the loose paper out of reach.  The paper situation has been so much better since. 

Crazy Haired Kate the Great

I do have to admit that Colleen and Kate's drawing skills have improved.  Kate went from basic smiley faces to faces with bodies, arms, legs, feet and most recently in August a dress and expressions.  Colleen practiced writing her name and other letters and perfected her girls in princess dresses.

Aleah would play along - although it is hard when there are two people who want to be teachers.  There was also a lot of playing with the new play dishes that Kate had gotten the month before for her birthday.   There was little to no playing outside in July.  When it is 100 with 66% humidity it is just too hot to throw them outside much.

Aleah read, listened to books on tape and worked on this paint by number picture.  I didn't realize when I bought it how small all of the spaces were.  This is how it looked at the beginning of July and by the end of July she finished it.

I had a bunch of Dr appointments, had signed up to teach some sewing classes at JoAnn's and had some unexpected Relief Society responsibilities in July.  Emily really helped out by watching the kids on a regular basis.   There is no way I would have been able to get everything done without her help.  She would do activities with the kids, fix them lunch and everything.

She did a great job - although sometimes you have to wonder when you come home and find pictures like this on the camera.  But Aleah looks pretty pleased with the situation, right?

BTW, teaching at this JoAnn's at least is a joke.  I was paid 60% of the class fee per person who took the class and I figured I would be making pretty good money if 3-4 people took each class.  The problem was that my biggest class was 3 (six had signed up) and when the classes go on sale for 50% off, I get paid 50% as much.  And don't even get me started about classes being scheduled and managed by regular JoAnn's employees. Sooo many miscommunications and scheduling problems.   So instead of earning some extra money to put towards my trip to the Modern Quilt Conference in February, I just made my life more stressful.  I don't know when I will learn.  None - Zero -Zilch of my money making ideas have ever made any money.  I am always lucky if I break even.  Good thing Brian has a job.  :)

We also celebrated my birthday in July.  Yep, that is me with no makeup pretending to blow out non-existent candles.  I made lemon cupcakes with raspberry whipped cream frosting.  The idea sounds great, but I need to find a different cupcake recipe and up the amount of raspberries in the frosting - not as good as I was hoping.

This was one of the only non-gluten free things I made in July.  Brian was doing an experiment to see if going gluten-free would help improve his liver health.  It wasn't really too bad, because he wasn't worried about trace amounts of gluten found in condiments and gluten cross contamination like some people have to be.  The kids and I would eat pasta and stuff occasionally and just make sure there was a gluten free alternative for Brian.

After he got his blood tested in August, he stopped eating gluten free.  When he got the results back, we were surprised that his enzymes were at normal limits - they are usually 2-3 times the maximum recommended level.  The plan is to get his blood tested one more time and see if his liver enzyme thing-ies test high again after eating gluten for a month.  If so, we will know that gluten free eating helped and go back to it.

So that was our July - I can't believe that August is almost over!   Hopefully the August update will go up sooner.