Summer has been good but busy. The kids just had their last swim meet before the championships. Emma did so good this season! At the first meet, she could only swim half the length without stopping and then she used the lane lines for help. At the 2nd meet she swam the length by herself but it took her 4 minutes. At the 3rd meet she did it in 2 1/2 minutes. And then at this last meet she swam it in 1 1/2 minutes and swam backstroke in 1 1/2 minutes. She's becoming a good little swimmer. Cameron wasn't excited to do swim team this year, but we bribed him with paying for his drivers ed. He's competing against all of the year round swimmers, at this age, but he still did well and it was good exercise for him. Errolyn and Logan both did well too, coming in at the top of their races most of the time.
Allie is crawling and still a super happy baby. The only sad part for me is, she is starting to self wean... and I am sad. I love nursing my babies! There is such a special bond while nursing that I can't even describe, but it makes me feel so emotionally connected to my babies. Since this is my last baby, I've been extra sad that we are almost done nursing because I feel like I'm losing my baby and I will miss that special bonding time that we have together. I know our family is complete, but one of my favorite parts of being a Mom is having a smiling, happy little baby. I love just cuddling and playing with them. I will miss having this phase of my life!
We are excited for our vacation this summer! We're going to Carlsbad, White Sands, Pikes Peak, Mount Rushmore, Martin's Cove, Yellowstone, 3 family reunions, and Cameron & Errolyn will go to their BYU sports camps. I'm excited to see my family! :) My friend Selena will stay in our house while we're gone since we'll be doing vacationing at the same time and she was planning on visiting here.
For Cameron's 15th birthday, my friend Maryann and I threw a joint surprise party for Cameron and her son, Ben. I made a truth or dare game which was a lot of fun (the truths were "Would You Rather" questions and the dares were more like minute-to-win-it challenges, so nothing bad). The boys were completely surprised, a lot of friends came, and it was fun! The most fun part was probably the tornado warning that came through during the party. Maryann made a duct tape pinata for the boys and right as Cameron hit the pinata a transformer blew, the electricity went out, the girls screamed, and everyone ran inside. So, they played Mafia in the dark until the lights came back on.
Cameron and Errolyn made business cards and they've been getting a lot of jobs. Errolyn has been babysitting for a ton of people and Cameron is teaching piano lessons. They're both enjoying their new found sources of income. Cameron plans on getting a job at Sea World next summer when he's 16 and because they work well with vacation schedules and they pay well.
During the summer, well always, our motto is "Work hard, play hard." So, the kids do swim team, their chores, their music practice, scripture study, reading, and a few other things in the morning and early afternoon, and then they can play with friends the rest of the day or go somewhere fun, One of those "other things" is what I call "life lessons." I teach them a new skill each week. Some skills are for everyone, but some are for just some of the kids (tying shoes, braiding hair, indexing, cooking, ironing, sewing, etc.). I taught Cameron and Errolyn indexing this week (transcribing birth certificates, military records, death certificates, etc. for family history purposes) and they've been really enjoying it. When they're bored or it's super hot, now they like to index.
Logan went to Cub Scout camp this last week (he was upset he didn't learn indexing while he was gone, but he's a little young for it). He had fun doing archery, bb guns, swimming, crafts, and other classes. Emma is our little artist. She has been drawing horses and cats and other things that look way better than what I could do.
I've been busy planning the Messiah. I've been called, for 1 year, to produce the Messiah (I will still conduct too). But, I have some really, really good assistants and filled some new callings so the work load has been much more reasonable this time around.
I ordered Father's Day presents for our dads several weeks ago and then promptly forgot about Father's Day. We got to church today and the Bishopric wished all of the fathers a Happy Father's Day... oops! We normally do breakfast in bed for Mike, but we all forgot, even him. So, we made him a special lunch. But, Errolyn had the idea to make a fake lunch first. We made him eggs, tomatoes, and chocolate milk since he doesn't like those foods. The kids brought up the lunch, handmade card, and sang to him. We could tell he was in shock about the lunch, but he figured out it was a joke. Then we presented him with his real lunch.
We've been working on getting along better in our family and I showed the kids this talk about anger by Lynn G. Robbine in 1998: https://youtu.be/fGzDSurv1Zk. It explains in a clear and concise way that getting angry is a choice. We plan on watching it once month for a while and trying to drive home the concept. Also, every dinner meal, we all share 2 things we are grateful for that day and one way we've been a peacemaker that day. We've been doing the grateful thing for a while, but the peacemaker thing is a new addition. Even though it's a small thing, it's fun that the kids are now looking for a way to be a peacemaker throughout the day so they have something to share at dinnertime.
Life is good! I love my family! :)
