And… he’s off. Pantsless Pierce has a new skill.

Life just got a little more interesting. Pierce went from standing at the bottom of the stairs to scaling them in seconds… and then trying to dismount just as fast. If I accomplish nothing else today, it’s still a success. I caught the baby AND I took photos for the blog.

Insta-tan.

Eden Rayne helped her daddy in the crawlspace today.

That bathwater was b-r-o-w-n.

Pretty sure the crawlspace is slightly more spacious now. She took quite a lot of dirt out with her.

Conversations with Ruby.

Ruby to Blaine:

“I say waps instead of waps".” (Wasp. A word she cannot say. Yes, she mispronounced it both times.)

Blaine – “I love  you Ruby. Do you know how much I love you?”

“No.”

Blaine – “I love you TONS.”

“Well, you should.”

Blaine - “Why should I love you?”

“Because God made me!”

Amazing.

Four friends and I all met at one of our homes (not mine… a larger one was highly necessary!) for lunch yesterday.

One child was missing from the crew. Kid count: 23. The oldest was 9.

Three nine year olds.

Three seven year olds.

One six year old.

Three five year olds.

Three four year olds.

Two three year olds.

Two two year olds.

Two one year olds.

A ten month old.

An eight month old.

A three month old.

A two month old.

My ears were ringing. The noise was deafening. The mess was pretty spectacular.

Afterwards, our hostess offered to keep my kids so I could go shopping by myself.

She’s one incredibly brave lady.

Charlotte came with me. I bought myself some new clothes. It was amazing.

Not quite as amazing as 23 kids in one house for 5 hours, but amazing nonetheless.

New sanitary guidelines. Highly recommended.

Blaine came to me the other day with news I’m still not certain I wanted to hear.

“Charlotte emptied her potty chair by herself.”

Ok. Not exactly what I’d like, but fine.

“She spilled a little.”

Perfect. I’ll mop.

“She wiped it up herself.”

With what?!

“She used the hand towel.”

And then she put it back.

Hand towels are overrated. I’m a fan of the drip dry. I thought it was because it’s faster. Turns out, it’s for sanitary reasons and I didn’t even know.

Projects

This was my 1am project earlier this week. I made a hooded Mei Tai for me to carry Pierce in several months ago. Since I never got a photo of mine, here’s another one I made this week. I had Eden model it for me before I give it to a friend.

She’s obviously a little small for it, but since she’s the only one fully dressed so far this morning…

Pierce usually rides on my back. He loves it. I love that nothing hurts after hours of wear.

I love it slightly less lately, when it’s been over 100 degrees every day. But Mr. P is happy enough in it, I’ll suffer through. :)

Oh for cute.

Our local library has rewards for it’s summer reading program. I posted this photo on the Facebook of a restaurant who participated and gave my children free cookies this afternoon. But really, it’s worth posting here too. She was really enjoying that cookie.

It rained last night. I was up ridiculously late when Charlotte came running down the stairs, first crying, then laughing. “The airplane scared me!” It was thunder. We sat outside on the porch, watching the rain. Amazing how rain seems entirely spectacular when it hasn’t rained for a month and a half.

Realization of the day: My girls can mop. My girls like to mop. As one of the chores I always do myself, when I told them to do it today (having more on my list than I could accomplish and deciding something was better than nothing) they were actually excited. The floors are cleaner than when they started, the girls are thrilled with their accomplishment, and I’m calling that an all around success!

Second realization for the day: Staying up until 1:30am sewing ruins any and all ambition for the day. 100 degree weather doesn’t help lack of ambition. At all.