It's been really hot and dry where we live, but I think that's a given in just about every region (cept maybe the East Coast). We've had a few little wild fires too, but NOTHING compared to what went on in Colorado and Utah this summer, thank goodness!
Our back yard has large cracks running through it due to being so dry from all this heat, and the dirt is as hard as a brick, and the grass is dry, brown and scratchy, does not make for fun play time when we are finally able to get outside, which isn't often. It gets super hot and humid really early and stays that way all day.
The kids and I have had fun going to the park (before it got too ungodly hot!) and had fun taking some photos of a friend of mine for her birthday.
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| Fun times at the park! |
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| We took some fun photos to send to Grandma to suprise her and let her know we were coming for a visit, she really enjoyed the photos! The kids and I had fun taking them. |
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| One of my good friends, I took photos of her for her birthday |
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| Another photo of one of my good friends. |
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| Our happy, tired, dusty feet after a long hard day of playing at the park. Those tired dirty feet got got all scrubbed up before bedtime so they could get a good rest and do it all over again the next day! Kams feet are first (her nails are painted black btw), then my feet, then Keegan and then Marshall |
They had several picnics at the park, and they got to go swim at the lake for the first time ever which they really enjoyed, and they go to go hiking on a little trail at the lake.
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| Having fun hiking on a little trail at the lake |
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| The kids looking at the lake from a hill (there was a VERY steep drop off just a few feet in front of them, you can't tell it in the photo though. That's where the lake USED to come up to, but it has dried up a LOT this summer. |
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| The kids having a blast at the beach area at the lake! Their first time splashing in the lake water and running in the sand and building sand castles. They had a blast and can't wait to go back. |
The boys also got tubes put in their ears in June as well. That all went very well thankfully and I think it has been helping them so far, which is wonderful! I was told we would start seeing improvements in their speech, and we certainly have!
The first week in July we went to spend a week with my Mother. The kids really enjoyed that, just wish it had been cooler so we could have done more outside. We were kind of stuck in the house a lot, which 3 small kids in a small apartment...eeeh not so fun sometimes! But we survived and the kids did have a good time. I took a few more photos of my sister, and a few of Kams, and my sisters best friend wanted a few senior photos taken so I took a few for her.
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| The resevoir where we took pics was so dry we could walk directly into the lilly pads and pick them, that is what my daughter is holding! I have never been able to get that close to a lilly pad! |
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| Kams |
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| Kams (I made this dress for her last summer) and she's wearing her favorite "Yeeehaw" boots as she calls them. |
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| Kams (I took a ton of photos of her because she was always wanting her photo taken every time I brought out my camera!) There are maaaany more favorite pics but I didn't post them all |
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| Kams |
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| Kams, I made her hair bow to go with her dress this year |
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| My little sister |
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| My daughter Kams |
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| Kams again (Kamilah) |
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| My little sister |
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| My little sisters best friend |
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| My little sisters best friend |
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| My little sisters best friend |
On the 4th of July they were in a children's parade where they walked my Mother's dog Brian, and the kids and the dog won first place in the pet category (yay!). After that parade they watched the "big" parade where they had fun chasing down candy, freezer pops, and bottles of water that were being tossed or handed out to everyone. When we got back home the boys took a nap so Kams and I took a bit of a walk and checked out all of the town festivities, sharing a bowl of strawberries and ice cream, she got a butterfly painted on her arm by a clown, and we went to see an old train depot. We checked out a farmers market, and watched some people do a water tug of war involving a barrel on a rope and fire hoses from a fire truck, interesting that's for sure!
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| The kids and my Mother's dog Brian ready for the kids parade to start. They took first place in the pets category . |
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| Ready to go to the Children's parade. Kams is wearing the 4th of July dress I made her last year, and this year I made new hair bows to go with it. And I made the boys matching 4th of July visors for the parade. And of course Kams had to wear her "Yeeeeehaw" boots |
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| My little sister with my kids after the introduction/interview portion of the pageant was over. |
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| My gorgeous little sister in her beautiful pageant dress. |
We came home from my Mothers with another puppy. *sigh* Yeh. She was ditched in the middle of a very busy parking lot, and the person that brought her to me knows I work with our local shelter where we live and she wanted to make sure the puppy (named Kolbi) would find a good home. SO she is being fostered with us for awhile until we feel she is old enough to go. The neighbor wants her, but I do not want them to adopt her. They are a bit...unstable. They just had a puppy and then gave it away for pretty much no reason. I don't want this little puppy going through that.
Also while we were up visiting back home we got to go see my old home town where I grew up and I got to get some photos of the kids visiting a few places I went as a child! It was bitter sweet. I have a lot of good memories from my tiny little home town, but now the place is so run down and such a dump. Makes me so sad. My old house, looks soooo boring and plain compared to what it used to. There used to be gorgeous flower gardens and lilac trees, and everything has been cut down and ripped out and mowed over. Even the 4 gorgeous peonie bushes, and the day lillies, tiger lillies, poppies, tulips, cup and saucers and every other plant/bush/tree my mother, grandmother and I ever planted. Absolutely heart breaking! They ripped out the grape vine, and cut down the plum tree and cut down one of the silver leaf maple trees too. Broke my heart. Atleast they left 2 of the pine type bushes, for now.
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| My kids sitting on the steps of my old church back home, I used to sit on these same porch steps growing up. |
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| My children sitting in front of the small town community center. I have so many fun memories of this community center! |
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| My kids swinging on the same swing set at the tiny little park back home that I used to always play on. This seriously brought tears to my eyes! |
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| My kids cheesing it up with several of the other members at my old little church back home. There used to be a LOT more people that attended this church. I miss everyone that used to go here. SO many of them have passed away, they will always be loved and remembered. I'm glad my kids get to experience, even if only once or twice a year the small church that I grew up in. |
My old church I grew up in from the time I was 2 till I was 18 has gone down hill so much. There are very few people that go there now, and it used to be the biggest country church in our area. They no longer have a piano player either, and the place is in need of some repair. So while we were up visiting I played the piano for them so they would have a piano player for church service!
I have so many memories of that church and have lost so many people from that church that I loved so very much and who were such an important part of my life.
Also while up visiting I went out to the boonies (she lives waaay out there and it takes forever to get there I swear, and it's even worse when it's a million degrees out and you have no AC and 3 very ticked off grumpy kids in carseats that you are trying to keep cool!) to visit my stepsister, and FINALLY visit my nephews! They are so cute. We had a nice visit and I'm so glad I got to see them.
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| Me (horrible photo! AH!), my stepsister, and our little sister. |
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| My son Marshall, my nephew Freddy, My nephew Charle, my Stepsister, my daughter Kamilah, me, and my very VERY unhappy son Keegan, poor kid, he wanted to go play on the slide not take a photo with us, thankfully it was a quick pic! |
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| My stepsister with her two little boys. Freddy and Charle. My stepsister found out that Charle is autistic, but he is one amazing little boy. I am so very proud of my nephews and love them dearly. |
Then next weekend I have to go back to my mother in laws to throw my sister in law her baby shower. (There's a soap opera if you ever wanted to hear one), but I don't mind having the baby shower for my sweet baby neice who is literally due any moment.
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| Me and my sweet Kamilah |
Next month all three kids will be going to preschool, they are all excited, well cept Keegan. He is not so excited. Also in September we are going to a camp for families that have a child with cancer. They whole family gets to go, so I think that will be good for all of us.
We also went to our church's picnic out at the park before we left to go visit my Mother, that was really fun. My kids were very well behaved that day, yay! Ha! They had fun walking down the lake picking up goose feathers and throwing water in the lake (our lake here is not for swimming in but is ok for fishing if you want to swim you have to go a town over and swim in their beach area).
Other than that? Not a whole lot going on. Still working with the local animal shelter photographing the dogs there to help them get adotped out. It's something I really enjoy doing!
Anyway, sorry this post is so photo heavy, but there are more photos to share that say more than anything I could type. Just not really in a typy mood lately. Anyway, that's about all we've been up to. Visitng family and having fun back home. Now we're home and just relaxing and starting to prepare for preschool starting and trying to enjoy the last few days of summer, and hoping and praying it rains soon! We missed the small town air show that we usually go to, they had it while we were out of town, go figure. We missed the county fair too while we were out of town, but it was all worth it!
Mae
