Random summer photodump

The traditional these-were-intended-to-be-separate-posts-but-now-I'm-hitting-you-with-them-altogether post.

Happy summer!  Once again, Virginia is trying to woo us with diludherin' lies that it is a lovely and pleasant state in the summertime.  We've only had a handful of truly beastly days -- everything else has been 70s-80s with low humidity and gentle breezes.  And here I thought it was going to be the worst summer in Virginia history, since I was due the first week of August!

WE'RE ON TO YOU, VIRGINIA.  No matter how lovely you PRETEND to be, YOU STILL AREN'T SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

according to Andrew, the proper way to weather a thunderstorm: curled into as tight a ball as possible with a giant book to block out all sight and sound

It's also been raining like crazy -- our back yard is a true jungle.  Poor Mr. Pickles -- he feels the burden of it the most since I'm now completely worthless for any kind of yard work. (Well, I did go out and murder several evil pokeweed bushes with a shovel.)  Everything is growing like mad!  We really need to photodocument the yards every week -- so many of the huge plants that we thought were pointless weeds are blooming brilliantly!

I didn't know we had hibiscus!  They are everywhere in the back, and gorgeous

Because of the rain, and the mad dash to Do All The Things before baby comes, we haven't been to the pool too much, once again.  Although the couple times I actually made it into the water were wonderful -- what a gift to feel weightless!

Even though we haven't BEEN to the pool much, the kids are still getting a significant amount of pool time in.  Our next door neighbors got an enormous inflatable pool (kinda like the 12' version of this one) with a filter and everything, and Miriam and Katie along with the girl next door have been spending as much time in it as their respective parents will allow.

Jojo will sometimes join them too, but the mutually-agreed-upon rule is that I have to be present if Daniel or Andy want to swim too.  Since I don't usually have 2 hours a day just to sit in a lounge chair and watch little people swim, sadly, and Daniel was feeling left out one day, I scrubbed out our own wading pool and set it up on the deck.

the neighbor boy joined us for the fun too

 The irony is that as soon as I got it set up, all the big girls came over to the little tiny pool.

water is the best!!

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Well, water is great... when it's not flooding your kitchen floor.

Our dishwasher suddenly decided it was tired of emptying itself during the wash cycles.

Thankfully Mr. Pickles cleaned out the almost-blocked hose so there is only a small puddle left at the end of the cycle, and the "drain" button works to empty the rest.  Hopefully we can make it limp along for a little while longer...

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Vacation Bible School!

Our parish uses the Kids4Jesus program, and it is fantastic.  It's a huge highlight of our summer every year. 

Katie waiting for the signal to lead the "captains" into the morning's opening assembly

Only Joseph (in the blue group) and Daniel (in the yellow) were actual campers -- Miriam and Katie were both old enough to be helpers this year.

that yellow plastic sheet was shredded by about day 3

Miriam was actually MC!  (Lots of memorization, but after playing both Viola and Beatrice, what's a little skit?)  I never thought she would be the type to enjoy the role of having all that attention on a stage, but she OWNED it.

every day she added something funny to her outfit to see if the kids noticed -- the last day was kitty ears

The day began and ended with all the kids singing their camp songs together.

everyone's a critic.

I made the mistake of offering to help with one of the stations (never, ever offer to help in the beginning!), and almost got put in charge of running one.  But I played the pregnancy card to good effect and got demoted back to "extra body in the room."

whew!  we survived!

The kids loved it and are still singing the songs.  But why is VBS always so exhausting?

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Fourth of July was relatively quiet for us this year.  As a family we didn't go anywhere to watch fireworks, although the neighbors kindly invited the girls to come with them and park at the Pentagon to watch the DC ones.

We also made the traditional blueberry & strawberry dessert.

4 for the Fourth, of courth!

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Until I pooped out, I was making jam almost every week.  I wish I could have gotten a couple more batches in, though.  We missed the strawberry season this year, since we were traveling, which is So Sad.  But this year I made something I hadn't in a while -- blackberry jam!

Look at how enormous these babies were:

and oh, SO good

We've been going through jam at an alarming rate.  I hope it lasts until Christmas!

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A couple weeks ago was our Standardized Testing Week.

We got the scores back and they were ridiculous, as always.  Apparently Joseph (the 1st grader) has the same vocabulary as the average 7th grader.

I try not to give too much importance to the results when they come, but it's hard not to feel a little relieved -- and maybe even proud -- that they're so far above average in almost all the subjects.  The only test-taker who scored a low average was Katie, who had only made it halfway through her math book when we had to take the tests.

So I think we're doing alright.

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Another thing we did in July was our first house painting project!

while the paint dried the girls got to sleep with the gerbils!

I wish I had panned the camera up to include about another 2 feet -- you would see big fat plaster patches on all the walls from when we got some new insulation put into the walls.  Since the plaster in the girls' room had to be painted over ANYWAY, we decided to go ahead and repaint the whole room!  And by "we" I really mean "Mr. Pickles and the girls", of course. (see "pregnancy card," above)

 They had fun with it, though.

...and got fairly speckled in the process.

Some friends were also getting rid of their loft bed, so we snatched that up!

Their room was always nice, but now it's truly a lovely space -- really bright and open.  I picked about 20 paint color cards from the hardware store, and they managed to hone in on a mutually-agreed-upon light turquoise in a matter of seconds.  We still need to get better window treatments, move the desk in, get a rug and a bean bag or something comfy for reading, but bit by bit it's really turning into a nice big-girl space!  (With occasional sightings of Ponies.)

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Remember in the Birthday post, when I mentioned Daniel's snits?  We call it being meepsy.  You have to say "meep" with a pout -- that's the only proper way to say it.

Here is Daniel being Mr. Meeps:

And here is Daniel after his sense of humor came to the rescue:

I think that's a carrot stick stuffed up his lip -- he was laughing so hard it kept popping out before Miriam could get a good shot!

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The last thing I've been doing this summer has been Getting Ready.  Lots of last-minute organizing going on!

I realized that keeping my sewing machine in the computer cabinet and using it on the dining table was guaranteeing that I would use it exactly never, so I FINALLY gave myself permission to have an actual sewing/craft corner in my bedroom, yay!

that giant pile to the right of the pink drawers is five years' worth of mending.  Maybe now I can actually get to Katie's size 5 shirts!

(The blue exercise ball is my seat -- very comfy actually.)

Got all the homebirth supplies ready to go...

two tubs: one for labor & delivery, one for immediate postpartum.

Got the cradle all set up...

(I tried to get the bed ready, by covering the nice sheets with plastic and then putting older sheets on top, but everything kept slipping & sliding so we'll wait until actual labor to make the bed.)

I hit a wall about a week ago when I think the baby dropped, so I erased my long to-do list and replaced it with a much more reasonable one:

It was SO freeing just giving myself permission to rest!  It was really hard to stop feeling like I had to Do All The Things, though -- when you've been running ragged for weeks on end, it takes more than a day to shut that drive off.

Now we're just waiting for baby to make his move!