A Busy June

This has been a busy few weeks. We had a ward luau that was a lot of work. The Young Women leaders were in charge of decorating and so I was at the church until 1 with my kids on Friday, but others stayed way longer than that. The luau was on Saturday and the decorations and entertainment were awesome. The turnout was higher than expected and the program was great. The only downside was that many people brought friends, but not extra dishes, so the food we had wasn't quite enough.
         
The week of the 11-16 of June we had girls camp. Luckily, it was only the 13-16. The Tuesday before, I was supposed to pick up Greg's mom from the airport and the electricity went out. I kinda thought there was a way to open the garage door without the electricity, but I was panicking and thinking I was stuck. Well, I got someone to agree to let me use their car as a back up and then like 20 minutes later the electricity came back on. I went to camp Wednesday and while there someone asked me if Greg was ok.(During this same week, he was at Scout camp.)Apparently he had pulled a muscle in his back and had to make a painful three hour drive home. One of the guys that wasn't going to stay at scout camp all week, had to. So that was crazy. Thursday I stayed home, as planned, and we hung out. Greg slept and tried to stay flat on his back. The sweet mercy of this injury is that his mother got to take care of him. He wouldn't have seen her at all if he hadn't hurt his back.

 Friday I went back to camp early in the morning. I had 30 girls attending camp in my ward. We had the biggest group(like 2x the next biggest ward.) My girls had been trying hard all week to get the spirit stick. Friday, they upped the anti. During lunch we performed the haka. The girls sang camp songs constantly. Actually, they only sang 2 songs over and over: "The Great Ship Titanic" and "Sipping Cider". I swear I tried to teach them other camp songs, but we'll try again next year. They didn't win the spirit award that day and were disappointed(but did win the spirit award during the camp awards for the most spirited ward for the week).

During free time I went to the "batting cage" in quotes because it was the most pitiful excuse for batting cages ever. They didn't have it set up until 20 minutes into the 30 minute slot and only had one ball that went into the machine. I then taught the girls in the pond the correct way to splash from a canoe. It's a hard life, but someone has to pass on these little used skills. I then went to the archery range where I managed to hit someone else's target during my first round. Yes, I have skills. That night we had our bishop's dinner, stake fireside and then ward testimony meeting. We actually had one of the bishop's counselors bring us pizza and some of the Young Women's Leaders brought sheets and sheets of Texas sheet cake. So we gorged ourselves physically and then spiritually. I was so glad to be able to attend some of girls camp and to tell you the truth, it wasn't as hot as it could have been.

That night I drove home exhausted and I got home around 12:30. I had talked Debbie Gessel into picking up my sister, Bonnie at the airport. Her flight came in at midnight and I knew I would be tired and probably not be a very safe driver. And again because of my husband's back injury, he could stay home with the sleeping children. I fell asleep before they got home. Saturday afternoon I went and picked up a few camp things and then took Debbie to the airport.

Sunday was father's day. I made Greg eggs and french toast and gave him Legos from the children. Our church was canceled because of fumes from the new hardwood floor they had put in that week. Greg went out of town on Monday for a week to Banff, Canada. So Bonnie and I hung out all week. Friday we went to The Woodlands Children's Museum. There was a firetruck there that you could steer or turn on its lights. There was also a pole and dress up clothes. So basically Luke spent the majority of his time there since he is obsessed with trucks but particularly firetrucks. We then went to the fountains on the waterway for about 20 minutes until Luke got bored. It was super hot and he didn't want to get wet. It suited me fine. He fell asleep on the ride home.

Saturday we went to the mall for a "children's fair", more like 5 booths. It was outside, but they did have free snow cones so that was nice. Luke ate 1/2 of his and 3/4 of my snow cones. The ladies working the snow cone place were entranced by his cuteness and gave him another snow cone and a lei. Luke got a monkey face balloon animal to wear on his wrist. We then went to the mall playground for about 10 minutes. It was a zoo there. They kicked us out to clean it so we left. Greg came home that night around 7. It was nice to see him because I had hardly seen him the previous two weeks. I had to wake up at 4 the next morning to take Bonnie to the airport. We had so much fun with her and I'm glad she had a week off to come visit us.

Sunday our ward got split. It seemed like a stake conference the way there were people all the way to the stage. It was sad. I was so certain I'd be in the new ward that I had prepared to say bye to those people but not the others, mentally. But they kind of cut around our subdivision and we are right on the border. I do know that the split was inspired so that makes me feel good about it. I do feel bad about our Young Women that was split in half. Luke is doing well in his potty training. He has the basics down. I just have to remind him sometimes to go pee pee so he doesn't get so caught up in playing that he has an accident. Going poo was a little harder for him to get down, until we started offering popsicles and candy as rewards for it.

Baby girl went in for her 4 month check up yesterday. Caroline weighs 15 lbs 7.5 oz (90%,)is 24 1/4 inches (50%,) and her head is 16 1/2 inches (75%). She tried rice cereal yesterday for the first time, and, no shock, didn't love it. She rolls from back to front and then cries 'cause she doesn't like tummy time. She came out with a bunch of bonnie brown hair but the sides and back were wearing thin, so we decided to give her a haircut. It is basically a mohawk. On the one hand it doesn't look awesome, but it didn't look great before.

You remember last post on Luke's bed. Well, last week I kind of lept onto it and broke it. That was embarrassing and exasperating, since it was like 3 months old. I decided a week and a half ago that we were going to start potty training Luke that day. I went and bought Disney underwear, juice, carbonated water, MnMs and an MnM dispenser(1 or 2 at a time). Luke has been doing really well, right away. He had shown some interest before when one of his friends came to our house and used the potty. So at that time we let him tell us when he needed to go. But now we are serious about it. He hasn't had very many accidents unless you count poo in his underwear. And I really do. He sometimes will tell us he needs his diaper on, so he can poo in it. But has kind of refused to go in the potty, unless we can catch him and throw him onto the potty. Any tips would be helpful. We think we need to up the anty for the poo treats. As soon as the MnMs from the dispenser are gone, tomorrow or the next day, we will change the pee treat to stickers. Baby girl is so cute and sleeping through the night!

Greg and I went on our first date in quite a while to the Gun Range. I shot a Sig 357 and a AR 15. The hand gun was surprising in how much it moved after you fired it. The Rifle was just super loud. It was my first time firing a gun and I enjoyed myself. But would need lots of practice. Last weekend I went and picked 13 lbs of blueberries at a local patch. It took me a 3 hours to do plus $2 a lb. Daddy stayed home with the babies because they would have gotten bored quickly. I won't go back by myself. Maybe with a group. The end