July recap

Mike played on a soccer team with some guys from the ward. They weren't the best team ever, but they got lots of exercise.

Benson finished up his t-ball season.

The kids and I went to the Beach Museum of Art at K-State

Benson, Grace, and Sabrina were very good chalkboards for Family Night

We went to the Museum of Natural History at KU on our way to take Mike to the Kansas City airport. After we dropped Mike off the kids and I ate at Five Guys, it was pretty yummy.

Mike flew down to Houston for the weekend to explore possible job opportunities and more importantly to be there when his younger brother Stephen went through the temple for the first time and spoke in church prior to leaving on his mission to Kennewick, Washington.

While Mike was gone, my parents and sister stopped at our house on their way home from Wyoming. They helped me survive church on Sunday and then took Benson, Grace, and Sabrina with them back to Oklahoma for a few days. Jillian and I headed down later that week. We had lots of fun, minus our trip to the ER for Sabrina.

Aunt Jenny and Aunt Sarah playing with Jillian's hair. It's amazing what they could do when they had so little to work with. Poor girl!


Grandma and Grandpa took Benson, Grace, and Sabrina to the Kiddie Park one night. Always a highlight of Bartlesville in the summer!

Of course there were MANY trips to the pool interspersed between all the other activities!

Celebrating Independence!

Our 4th of July weekend started early with Mike coming home from work before 3pm! We all headed to the pool as a family which was a lot of fun.

Poor Jilly has taken many a nap in her car seat at the pool this summer, such a trooper that kid!

We came home from the pool and grilled kabobs which were delish!

Then we headed outside to do our fireworks since the forecast for the rest of the weekend called for rain.

On Saturday morning, Mike took the kids to Home Depot to make parascopes.

On Sunday it rained most of the day, so we watched the NYC fireworks on tv and then put the kids to bed. The city of Manhattan still did their fireworks, even with all the rain and we could see most of them from the house.

On Monday, Mike was still off work, and it was still raining. It cleared up enough for us to grill hamburgers and we made festive cupcakes. Mike also took the kids to see Toy Story 3, which was VERY disturbing for Grace. She bawled during the movie and for quite some time after it too. She'd look at me and say something about the baby crying and just sob, it was so sad.

1 - Mike had to take a picture because all 4 kids were playing together with no fighting!, 2 - Jilly enjoy the spoils from our BarBQ!, 3 - Our 4th of July cupcakes

Lucky 7

Our little Jilly bean is another month older and gets to be more fun with each passing month. Here are some things about her at 7 months old.

Jillian is definitely mobile. She doesn't crawl forward yet, but she is so close. She will get up on her knees in crawling position and then up on her feet. She can scoot backwards, roll, and pivot on her tummy to get anything that she wants. In the last few days she has figured out that she can go from crawling position to sitting up all by herself and how to balance on just one hand while in crawling position. She has all the pieces, she just needs to figure out how to put them all together and keep her balance. She's not very fast, but she definitely won't stay in one spot anymore. She is constantly getting stuck on or between pieces of furniture. She even started to go for the books on the bottom shelf of the bookcase the other day. Soon nothing will be safe!

Up on her hands and feet


Sitting up by herself


One of the places she has gotten stuck, we have since put the bouncer away since it was really only serving as an obstacle.

Jillian has started to do some self-feeding this month. Mike gave her her first pancake, she's had crackers, and she loves cheerios and fruit puffs. She has also decided that she does like baby food. I usually give her some baby food at lunch time and then she has some cereal with baby food mixed in at dinner time. The only thing that she hasn't really liked so far is green beans, everything else she eats really well. And she still has no teeth, and really no sign of teeth coming.


Jilly is more interested in toys these days. Her favorite is probably the Little Tikes piano, she loves to smack the keys. She is good at passing toys back and forth between both hands. We also bought a new Baby Einstein bouncer/exersaucer toy that will entertain her for short periods of time. She hasn't quite figured out the jumping part and I'm hoping once she does it will be a little more entertaining. She is also MUCH more interested in Baby Einstein. The older kids have also rekindled their love affair with Julie Aigner Clark and get excited when I ask them to put a video on for Jilly. Their favorite these days is probably "Meet the Orchestra." Who would have guessed that you could please your 6 year old and 7 month old with one show? That's Baby Einstein, bringing families together. We should do a commercial!

Jilly loves being outside, which is great since we spend much of our time outside these days. She especially loves going to the pool, seriously she hardly ever cries when we are there. Here she is lounging in a floating toy one of our friend's brought to the pool the other day. She relaxed in this thing for a while, until she decided to roll out onto the hard concrete. She wasn't injured though, when I picked her up she was smiling really big looking like she was so proud of what she could do on her own.


Jilly loves to talk. Her word of choice is "dada." The other morning after I had fed her in our bed about 6am, she rolled over after she was done eating, looked straight at Mike and said "Dada" in the sweetest little voice. It was precious and of course her Daddy picked her right up and snuggled with her.


Jilly is a snuggler. Which isn't really a surprise, because all our kids have been very snuggly. She will cozy up to you while sitting on your lap or lay her head on your shoulder when you are holding her standing up. She hasn't really developed a fear of strangers yet, she will still give everyone who looks at her her biggest, most dazzling smile.

Oh what DO we do in the summertime?

The other day on the phone, my brother Paul asked me what we do all day long. So I started thinking, what have we been doing? So here is a recap of our month of June. Maybe in July I'll do better about blogging about things during the month, but no promises...

Dentist appointments - Benson and Grace's 2nd, Sabrina's 1st - no cavities plus new toothbrushes and balloons made for a great afternoon outing


T-ball - Benson has been playing t-ball all month. His team is the Twins and Mike is an assistant coach. Benson is a great hitter and is learning lots about how to play in the field. Sometimes he gets frustrated because he doesn't know what to do with the ball and there are usually lots of people yelling different instructions when he does get the ball. But overall he's had fun and made some new friends. We run into his teammates at the swimming pool a lot which has been fun for him.


Swimming lessons - Benson and Grace are just finishing up two weeks of lessons. They have both improved lots and had fun. Benson started in Level 3 and finished in Level 3 but his kicking has improved so much. Grace started in Level 1 and was able to pass it off! She got to have her own teacher since she was the only kid in our session who couldn't stand in the big pool by herself. Grace will now jump off the side of the pool into the water and puts her face under ALL the time. We are so proud of both Benson and Grace, I really don't worry about them when we go swimming anymore because they are such good swimmers. Sabrina enjoyed being able to play in the baby pool during lessons.


Grandma Stacey's visit - no pictures, sorry. We (and by we I mean Grandma) finished the curtains in the eating area. We took the kids to the Insect Zoo and bowling at K-State. It was a fun visit, and we are glad she could squeeze us in between multiple trips to Utah this summer.

Grace's birthday and trip to Omaha (see previous posts)

Watching Daddy's soccer games - Mike's been playing on a Rec Soccer team with some other guys in the ward. He's had fun and it's been a great way for him to get some exercise, which is something that has fallen low on his list of priorities in recent years. The other night at one of the games there was a bleacher full of the wives and kids of the players on our team and the other bleachers were full of parents of the players on the other team. Needless to say, they aren't winning since most of these kids are almost literally half their age, but I think they are still having fun.

And then we fill in with trips to the park, pool, and splash pad, playing outside in the backyard on the swings, in the water table, and with the slip n slide. Once a week we go to the library for story time and to get some new books.


So we are staying pretty busy. It's harder for me to find time to get things done like cleaning, blogging, etc because I spend a lot more time entertaining these days. But summer doesn't last forever, so we're trying to enjoy it while we can.

Whatever gets you through the day...

I have a few posts I'm working on for Grace's birthday, but in the meantime...

Last night I was up working on said posts (at 12:30am) and I heard a weird noise. After listening for a minute I realized it was one of the kid's trying to open their door without actually turning the knob. It was Grace. She was so sad and saying over and over "I have the flu!" And it was true. So after 45 minutes of cleaning up, we put her back to bed. She's been fine all day, but we were supposed to go on our first field trip for the Field Trip Playgroup that I'm attempting to get going. Bummer for us.

About 11am I realize Sabrina's laying on the rocking chair, looking like she's going to fall asleep. Never a good sign when she wants to take a nap before noon. She's running a fever.

So we read some books, play a game, watch a movie and by 3pm I'm losing my mind because they are all going CRAZY. So what do I do? I send them outside to play in the water - fever, stomach flu and all. Because really some days it's just about whatever will get you through the day.

Aftermath on the patio

Laying out on the front porch

P.S. This is one of those things that I would have said that I would NEVER EVER do

BEFORE I had kids.