Squeezing It All In

With the summer ending, we squeezed as much swimming in as possible. I see other Moms laying in the sun reading books and at times I'm a little jealous (who wouldn't want to relax, right?) but then I know this is just a moment in time and 4 kids at the pool requires more than a book and lounge chair. Millie was all over the place following the lead of her older siblings who all LOVE the water. Thank goodness, not sure I could handle cranky water babies. Matalley did like to relax every once and a while by the side of the pool.

It didn't last long though before the water called her name. This is the last day of summer pic...compared to the first day of summer, all are a little browner skinned with lighter hair and a lot taller.

 

We were fortunate this summer to be the stopping point for friends heading to and from CO for the summer. We got to catch up with college friends and the kids got to play. John was Matt's best man and I think G and David had a good time together.

 

We love visitors!

 

We also threw in a service project on the very last possible day we could do it. I just LOVE Grayson's heart for service...he's in his element when there is a task to be done and kids in need. The kids willingly filled lunch bags and then delivered all over town. It was cool to see them working so hard.

 Millie also got her cast removed within the last few days of summer...yay! (see swimming picture above) It was definitely a longer ordeal that we would have preferred so tossing her like a canon ball is off limits (not that it wasn't off limits before but it is strictly enforced now). She went from a soft cast (notice that it does not prevent her from destroying our house..she likes marking up EVERYTHING with marker),

to a hard cast,
 
 

back to a soft cast (which got messy quick because I don't pay attention to her eating ketchup)

and then to a splint that she liked to remove as soon as I got on. Every car trip resulted in a rewrapping of the arm as soon as we arrived at our location. So yes, I was excited to have it removed. She liked to use her arm as a weapon as well and got quite good at blocking me with it. It also slowed down our tapering of the paci (or bapi as Millie calls it). We were doing just night time, but then felt she needed it while her arm was causing trouble and now we are back to just night time. I see braces in her future. And with that our summer was over.