Joel Turns 11 and Aron Goes Back to Wyoming

HAPPY JULY!

I'd love to know what you think about the weekly themes I've been trying out. I'm really doing it for some discipline on my part.

For instance, Wordless Wednesday is easy ... I have so many cute kid pictures that I wish Wednesday was like 3 times a week so I could post them all. Maybe I'll also make it Workout Wednesday.

I like doing reviews of stuff I have around the house, so there's Thankful Thursday.

Tackle-it Tuesday is to hold me accountable to doing SOME task I've been putting off ... weekly!

Monday will probably evolve from Moshi Monsters to something else depending on when the kids get tired of them.

Am hoping to get back into the Aron and Kerrie Love Story, and you'll see why below. Here's the weekly wrap-up:

Sunday Joel turned ELEVEN, we went to church and Aron left for Wyoming. We had a friend over, and later my niece/goddaughter, 2 nephews and SIL came over. The littles had some zipline fun while my SIL and I hung out talking. It was really nice.

Avengers Legos!

A Thor hammer! I'm so glad he still likes this kind of stuff!

Me and the boy who made me a mommy 11 years ago this day, the best 30th birthday present ever (5 days late).

A hug before Daddy has to leave. I can't look at this without crying.

Monday found us at the movie BRAVE with 2 extra kids. Yes, I am a little crazy, but it is a GOOD crazy (there is a diff!). So me and 7 kids went to the movies. Do you take food in? People still hop my butt about my McDonald's sock thing, and I wonder if they shower before they get in a public pool, if they never take food into a movie, NEVER break any dumb/expensive rule. Good for them. I wish I had a picture of the kids in their 3D glasses!

Tuesday was Belton Water Park, Tutu's Valentine's present for the kids in lieu of junk and candy! We hadn't been to her place for a while and it was nice to chill there.

You gotta have nachos at the pool!

A great woman from church gave Michael this shirt for his birthday ... My Life Rocks.

Wednesday found us at my friend's house, and another friend came over. There were 15 kids there! I splurged on California rolls and a big watermelon fruit boat. We stayed until late at night, and the kids had a blast. I have found a friend I can be with all day and we can watch kids and cook and clean and I can work on the laptop while she reads a book and the kids watch a movie. We are like Sister Wives (!!!).

Big Eva (Beva) likes to wear Little Eva's (Leva) clothes. The problem is that Leva is at least a year younger than Beva.

This is my friend NOT freaking out when the kids spilled soapy water all over the floor. She threw towels down and soon had a clean floor!

We have a friend who used to have a Facebook profile picture of herself  with a book covering most of her face, so we did a photo shoot so we could have pix like that, too. It turned goofy.

Thursday ... ugh. Dentist for 2 deep fillings (don't put off dental work, people!) and a cleaning. Jordan, thank God for her, watched the kids and nobody cried when I left. On my way home I stopped by the apartments where Aron's friend lived in 1995 ... where we met! It made me very nostalgic and made me miss Aron so much and want to dive into writing more of the Aron + Kerrie = Love Story! Later we picked up a friend and went to the pool.

Friday meant cleaning for Joel's birthday party, going to the party store and grocery store, baking banana bread. Later our friends came over to play for a few hours.

Saturday was Joel's birthday party. We sure do have some great friends and family. Tutu and Dave came later and sprung for pizza. UPDATE ON KITCHEN: I actually picked up the sanding tool thingie and USED IT for a few minutes! Yes, I am sanding the wall a little before I spackle it and then sand it again 100 more times. I've decided to tackle that project since I'm just shuffling writing papers around anyway and accomplishing NOTHING.

We sang Happy Birthday to Joel before my friend came with the gluten-free (don't ask!) cake. I gave him this cupcake and told him we could not afford an entire cake. Haha.

Here's the gluten-free cake (actually very tasty!) because a friend of mine eats this way with her family and offered to bring it, which was super sweet. I am freaking out that he is 11.

I'm thinking about doing this kind of stuff as a video for you to watch. What do you think? I have a camera on my laptop and it might be faster (and super funny with kids running around behind me in various states of undress since it's summer) to do posts that way once a week. If Aron keeps traveling, he might really dig it ... to see us as we are in daily life.