Summer Time

Its been warm. Not hot, but warm. That being said it has been rainy... really really rainy and muggy. We maybe get to see the sun twice a week (If we are lucky) and it has been this way since May. I love the sun. I miss the sun. Come back sun!!
The warm weather makes things fun though and the lightning bugs are starting to show their little glowing rear ends (on the occasional evening that its not raining)
Sometimes we go outside and if it hasn't been raining too hard there will be dry spots under the trees where we can color with sidewalk chalk!

We have had some fun adventures...
We went to this awesome trout farm that is just down the road from us (who knew?!) and had a blast playing in the overflowing water that Im pretty sure we weren't supposed to be playing in.

We got passes to the zoo and have been a few times and Im sure we will be regulars there from here on out.

We also got swimming passes and my kids are in heaven! (sorry, no pics)

We went to the Chicago Rib Fest and rode on nasty carnival rides and ate some pretty darn delicious food.

I find Ike like this quite often....

Little booger won't keep his clothes on (or stay off the counters) Im sure my neighbors love seeing his nakedness running around the back yard.

Last but not least, yesterday was Fathers Day. AnDee made her Daddy breakfast in bed that consisted of scrambled eggs and a half dead dandelion. They all carried it up to him together. AnDee carried the eggs and "flowers", Pep carried Dad's favorite hot sauce and Ikey carried the fork... and a baby spoon... which he forced Andrew to use.

We are so blessed to have such an amazing Dad. He is so much fun and such a great example to the kids. Im so grateful I have him here to support me and tame my crazy every day. I would fail at life and especially parenting if he wasn't here to keep me going.

We are also SO blessed to have this guy in our lives...

I can't even post a pic of him without tearing up. I miss him terribly. He is such a rock and honestly, truly is just an amazing human being. God gave me the best.

Surgery

(One day Ike is going to grow up and read this post and he is going to hate me for it but this is our family journal so he can just deal with it.)
Ike had an undescended testicle that we have been keeping an eye on since birth. We were really hopeful that it would move down on his own but it obviously didn't. Last week we took him in to have it surgically moved down. Turns out the testicle was extremely unhealthy so they removed to to avoid potential cancer later in life.
The process was nerve racking. It was an outpatient procedure and really not that big of a deal in terms of surgery but as a parent it is so hard to send your baby off to be cut open.
When they came in to talk to us about how things would go down they asked if I thought he would be ok separating from us. I didn't even hesitate to tell them no. He was going to flip. He was already scared and clingy. So they suggested we give him a little bit of what they called "I don't care medicine" to help him relax and not get so worked up. "I don't care medicine" makes babies do really funny things. I have never seen a toddler act like he was completely wasted but thats exactly how it was. He was SO out of it. His head was flopping around, he was all smiles and I couldn't stop laughing. At one point his head flopped over and he found Andrews finger right in front of his mouth so naturally he bit it. But this was no small bite. He latched on and wouldn't let go. Andrew had to pry his jaw open which revealed deep teeth marks surrounding some very purple skin. Ike saw what he had done and apologized by licking it better. My stomach hurt from laughing so hard.
While it was hilarious to watch, it was slightly heartbreaking at the same time. It was like his eyes just went right through us. Like he wasn't actually there. No baby should ever get drunk. Its not ok.
The surgery went fairly quickly and much sooner than I expected, I was called back to talk to the doctor. This made me panic for a minute, thinking something had gone wrong. The doctor came in to tell me that the surgery was so quick because they had to remove the testicle, rather than moving it down. He went on to tell me what we should expect for the future in this situation.... but all I could hear was my baby crying down the hall!!  I tried so hard to focus on what he was telling me but Isaac had woke up in recovery and had panicked when he couldn't find a single familiar face and saw that there was a needle in his foot (IV) The Doctor chatted and chatted while Ike screamed and I sat on the edge of my seat ready to bolt.
All is well though. When I got to him he calmed right down and once his vitals proved to be stable they let us go home. He was pretty sore and SO tired that first day but by the next day he was practically back to normal.
It wasn't the funnest process but Im glad its finally over and we don't have to worry about it anymore.

Infections, Haircuts and Other Stuffs?

Im really horrible at blogging lately. Id like to make a commitment to be better at it from now on but I am not ready to commit to that and so I won't. And for the few of you that follow this blog... you get to continue seeing my giant posts with random pictures and stories thrown in. Its awful I know, but Im not in a place mentally to commit more to this blog than I already am. Sorry?
 We have had lots of adventures in the last couple of months. AnDee got a wicked cool eye infection...

It was only cool because it didn't hurt her and it didn't spread to anyone else. It just looked really creepy.
She also found her way to the top of the tree in our back yard. (This is now an every day assurance for both Buggy and Pep but the tree has leaves now so I can just pretend it isn't happening)

The boys got hair cuts

 Which Pep HATED because he is uber self conscious about his hair and in his mind, if you have any hair on any part of your head that isn't laying completely flat to your head, it looks weird. In reality.... when his hair is how he wants it, he looks like a Poindexter but I love him anyway and even go out in public with him sometimes.

Even Bernadette got a hair cut.

(she looked like an idiot. We shaved it all off a few days later)

We have done lots and lots of fun home school things and have even met quite a few other kids who home school. Some of them are even mormon which is kinda nice.

  We went with a local homeschool group to the prairie reserve and did a scavenger hunt. Super fun and so pretty.

The kids love to "workout" with me in the mornings. Ike and Pep are very manly and spend most of their time working the heavy bag.
I realize that the following pic is very poor quality but do you see Pep in the background? Cracks me up. I couldn't bare to delete it.

I caught Ike watching Billy Madison on the iPad (Im ashamed to admit that he gets his taste in movies from me)

And we took all 3 of them to the theater for the first time to see Avengers. It was big hit and Ike even sat quietly (as long as he had his bank) through the whole thing!

We have had SO much rain this spring/early summer. Its funny because when it rains in Utah it generally means that the temperature has dropped and its a little chilly. My kids still haven't got used to this and so every time it storms they tell me they can't go out cause its too cold. Thats not how it is in Illinois. It can be raining buckets full and still be 95 degrees. It makes for a lot of humidity but it sure is fun to play in.

Boo for Birthdays

Seriously, I don't like birthdays... well... to be more accurate, I don't like when my kids have birthdays. As a mom, all it represents is them getting just a little closer to being independent and grown up. I cry on most of my kids' birthdays (don't worry, I do it in secret)
There is one reason and one reason only that we celebrate birthdays in our home and that is because it makes my kids extremely happy. They get one day a year that is devoted completely to them and one day only. I failed with Peps birthday this year (I will be doing my best next year to redeem myself) but we didn't do too bad with AnDee's.
We let her decide what she wanted to do for her birthday and all she asked for was to go shopping at the mall and get a new dress. Im not a shopper. The whole process overwhelms me and I rarely end up buy anything because there are too many options and its all to complicated for me.
Buggy Girl however.... she is most definitely a shopper. We went in to a dress shop and looked through rack after rack picking out suitable dresses. She was very conscious of being modest and finding a dress that was conducive to both play and church. After hours (ok... it was probably more like 20 minutes, but to me and my non-shopper attitude it seemed much longer) we headed off to the dressing room with  half a dozen beautiful dresses she had so responsibly picked out. After trying them on and discussing the pros and cons of each we headed to the register where she got to use her own birthday money to pay for the dress.
I have to admit that while I am not a shopper, I was SO impressed with my little lady. She was wise about how much money she spent. She made sure she found something that her Heavenly Father would approve of and she even took my thoughts and feelings in to consideration while picking things out. She tried to pick colors and styles she knew I liked. What she ended up with was from the clearance rack (maybe she does have a little of me in her after all?) and its just the cutest most elegant dress and she has literally worn it every day since.
As a bonus her dad even let her head to the shoe store and pick out some high heels (or as Buggy would say when her dyslexia kicks in "heel highs") Then we finished up the trip with matching hair bows and headbands. She was in heaven.
That afternoon she helped me make her own birthday cake. I try to make the cake my contribution to the birthday. They request whatever they want and I try to deliver. AnDee (again) made things super easy on me. All she wanted was a round chocolate cake with raspberries on top.

Pictures are limited. I have zero pics of the dress she picked out, Ill have to post one another time.
Here are the few I did get.

Im so proud of this little lady and the amazing person she is becoming. She is so considerate and kind. She is compassionate and selfless. I hope I can be just like her when I grow up.
Happy Birthday Miss AnDee Lew!