The first Week of July *July 1st-4th 2013*

Olivia enjoyed some time reading with her big sister.

Brooklyn was in town for a visit and she loved helping with Olivia!  At times she made me a little nervous but she was very helpful.

I was working on making Olivia's blessing dress and my sewing machine kept acting up. The needle kept unthreading and the button holes weren't working. It was very frustrating. I finally ended up adding the button holes by hand. It took forever but I finally got it done and it was very pleased with how cute it was.  Despite it being a pain I still want to make Elese a dress like it for her baptism...maybe I should start on that now. My mom and Brooklyn came over to help.They helped cut out petals and entertain the kids.

The 4th of July
I cleaned the house and grocery shopped in the morning while Steven and the kids watched Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles - Max's currant obsession.  Then Steven took Max and Kaden (our babysitter that we pay in comics) to the comic book store.  Meanwhile Elese put on a puppet show for me and the littles.  It was all about me loving fireworks and Steven didn't and he was worried that the kids would stay up too late and I said they needed to stay up late for the fireworks. So basically it was pretty much the opposite of real life. I filmed a bit of it on my phone.  It was very cute and hilarious.  Look how festive my girls are!  Liv's onsie is way too big but I figured it would likely be her only chance to wear it.

I think Elese went to play with Shaylee after that or something so Sam Olivia and I sat together and watched Justice League.

Max hasn't progressed much in Karate and Steven and I were beginning to think that it was a waste of money.  Because Max was showing some interest in baseball we told him that he had to quit so that we could afford to pay for baseball.  He had been saving up for sparing gear and so to soften the blow we told him if he quit Karate he wouldn't need sparing gear so he could buy himself all 4 ninja turtles.  He was Thrilled!

Someone (I think Chad and Ria) had given us a Famous Dave's gift card for some reason.  I'm thinking it was maybe for our anniversary or something.  Anyway  - we decided that this would be a good day to use it. It was as fun as it could be with all the kids...Sam refused to eat and Olivia cried.  After that we came home and lit off some fireworks. A couple neighbors came over to watch.  Yes - it is still day light outside. Don't tell my brother Eric - he will say what an awful mother I am for making my kids go to bed before the sun.

It was a great day.  It was really nice to have a "free day" without any responsibilities. Saturday is the day we clean our house and yard so this was just a day to do whatever we wanted.