Stuff that happened in July

Everyone in a  while, the kids pay attention to the dogs...

And every once in a while tweenagers play with legos together, and love it, when you instate a summer no-screen day

Every once in a while I make something that just screams SUMMER! Like these pesto, mozzarella, tomato basil & balsamic breads. That my friends, was lunch. And soooo amazingly delicious.

I often confuse the seasons though, so the following meal was this autumn inspired mustard chicken & veggie sheet pan dinner. Delicious, but I was clearly confused by which season I was in.

We never let the kids sleep with us, and they aren't the type to crawl into bed with us ever in the middle of the night either. So as a fun "deployment thing" I decided that the kids could take one weekend night each and crash with me. They LOVE it and really look forward to their one night each week. It's so sweet coming to bed and seeing them curled up on Brian's side, or waking and having them there with me. This must have been the night before an early morning Saturday swim meet, because Macy is in her swim suit, ready to go!

My kids love our church. And they love taking their friends to church with us. This was a Sunday morning after they each had a friend sleepover, they wanted them to stay until after church! Hope it's always this way.

We lost a crab. After doing some research, I was hopefully that this guy was just molting, we left him alone for weeks and weeks. He continued to deteriorate and was obviously a goner. He was Macy's, but Tate had primarily cared for both their crabs over the last year. Neither one of them shed a tear. Goodbye Coco.

Macy's friend's parents have a shaved ice truck and it was on her summer bucket list to stop there- so we did!

Month two of deployment. We are getting used to lots of FaceTime calls with Brian...

Need an good book with a suspenseful plot? This is it-

I somehow missed The NeverEnding Story when I was kid, so I thought the kids and I should watch it together. HORRIBLE. We all thought it was dumb.

Now that I'm working, and with swim team practice/meets 6 days a week, the kids needed to step up and make their own breakfasts... So I made this list of easy stuff for them, color coated as to whether or not it would go in the toaster oven or microwave!

Having that list for them has been a huge success. The only rules- they have to mix and match to include dairy and fruit each day and they can not have the same thing two days in a row. Baby steps towards independence...