Where has Summer gone???

I can't believe that is has already been since June 29th that I have posted about my family already! I am stressed to the max, let me just tell you, with the how fast summer is flying by. I have NEVER had a summer go by so fast. School starts for Owen exactly four weeks from this past Monday. How can that be? If you want to hear how stressed I am about it though, go read my other blog at coffeymom.blogspot.com (cause that one's all about me). However, this one is all about my beautiful and fabulously unorganized family! :)

Unorganized or not, we are enjoying our time together. My house may fall down around my ears, and stuff might pile up to the point of exploding out the windows, but I don't want to miss spending time with my kids. With how fast Summer is going by, it makes me realize how fast time flies in general and it makes me scared for the day my kids are gone from the nest. So I am trying to SOAK them in all summer like rays of sunshine. I want them to cuddle me, to play with me, to do everything with me. I want to take them on trips and have fun and new experiences, and I think we've done that. However, since summer is going by so fast, we have also missed out on a lot of things already. We had plans to go camping, and fishing, and put put golfing, and all those types of things and we are very quickly running out of time. So every weekend from now until school starts will be devoted to those things! Bike riding and swimming are MUSTS!

So let's reflect a bit on the past. We have gone to Illinois, which I posted about last, and then I took the kids to Missouri to my mom and dad's lake house all by myself over the 4th of July. We had a blast. We spent all the time we could on my parent's pontoon boat, tried to fish but failed miserably, the kids swam in a blowup pool in their back yard, we roasted weines over and open flame, we made smore's, and had a fun yet scary trip through the pitch black night driving the boat back to their dock after watching fireworks on the lake from the boat.  Tess got her first two teeth this trip and I got to sip some wine with my dad. I ate way to much as an end of my eating whatever I want days and beginning of my dieting days. The kids rode their bikes and we just relaxed. There are pictures from that trip posted here too.

I can't believe that that was already two weeks ago!!! See what I mean? What are we up to now? Well, the boys (O and R) just started swimming lessons on Monday and are doing fabulous. I just took Tess swimming in the big pool for the first time last night with the whole family and she is a water baby through and through. She LOVED it. I couldn't take her out of the water. She is officially 6 months and sits up and gets on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, and pushes herself backwards all around the room and ends up stuck in a corner or something.

Judd has started potty training. It's been in the works for a VERY long time, but he's known how to do it for a long time now, but is so decisive that he doesn't want to, I haven't pushed it. Now's the time though because I need him potty trained before school starts on Aug. 16, so now we are pushing the issue. So I've just thrown him into underwear every day this week with expectations of him peeing in them everytime, but with hopes that he will catch on quickly. He holds it. :( Tuesday for instance, he only went pee 3 times total cause he was trying hard NOT to pee in his underwear, but he also won't pee in the potty, so he'd hold it as long as he could until he'd pee in his underwear. BUT...the good news was that each time he peed in his underwear he'd gasp right before it'd happen like he recognized that it was going to happen. This means a lot in a potty training kids world!!! YAY! There is HOPE! :) I won't take a picture of Judd in underwear yet though until he's trained enough that he gets to go pick his own first package. Right now he is wearing all of Owen and Raymond's old ones for his size as practice ones, cause I know there will be plenty of accidents.

Next Tuesday is Tess' 6 month check up so I'll have to update you on her stats later. Raymond is getting pretty excited to start at Rainbow Factory 5 day a week preschool this year.

Anyways....lots to tell but too many words to tell them in, so this was a summary. I hope you enjoy the pictures and are enjoying your summer. I hope it's not going by as fast as mine!