My Knights and Maidens: Happy July

We have been BUSY. I am truly not sure what has kept us so busy, but it seems like days are just flying by. Right now the 4 older kids are watching a movie with Daddy, and Smaug is still munching on his dinner, so I have a minute to myself :)

Mr. E has had a few night accidents lately, which has resulted in some bed washings... this is what happens when Daddy re-makes the bed! And... he smiled (sort of) for the camera!!!

Daddy made TW this little table with leftover bookcase wood... so TW set up a Lego station (it has since moved about 4 times, but who's counting?).

All the kids enjoy having Daddy land his helicopter on them :)

Pretty Girl and Berry frequently fight over who gets to help make "lunch" (the term for any meal). Pretty Girl is helping here... in her new apron from Nana :)

The triplets and I all had dental cleanings... we are all cavity free!!! P.S. Have I mentioned I really like our dentists office?

Last Saturday we went to a church picnic. Smaug attacked TW's watermelon rind!

I lost the other 4 to this toy most of the afternoon!

On Sunday's we have pancakes for dinner. I pulled out my pancake molds- which I got from J for our first Christmas, used once and have had them packed away since. So, my pan is not flat, and I chop up the pancakes before serving them... guess I'll repack the molds :)

J discovered a bald tire on his motorcycle, so we took him to work. On the way to picking him up, this guy fell asleep in the van... he never falls asleep in the van. Don't worry, Mom, we were parked in the parking lot waiting on Daddy when I took the picture ;)

And, here are the pictures from the 4th of July activities. We planned on a parade, so everyone decorated a candy bag!

Here we are waiting for the parade to start!

Instead of a more traditional color guard (which showed up about midway with some... aged... vets, once of which looked like he was about to "fall out"), we had this. Pretty Girl was so excited... "horse, Mama! Mama, girl on horse"!!!

Later, we had a picnic. I'm trying to hold the balloons out of the shot, but it was the only shot with all the kids and I!

Smaug and I hung out...

.... while the kids played for a while.

Then we headed home and played outside some more!

Then Daddy grilled some steak, and Smaug attacked his garlic mashed potatoes :)

It started raining, but we still got some sparkler time in!

We found out that our neighbors brother had a bunch of fireworks to set off. While we waited for it to get dark and for the rain to slow down, TW played with more sparklers and ran between our house and the neighbors (they have 2 girls)!

J tells me that all boys do this at some point... I'll take his word for it.

Now, it turns out that these were huge fireworks... about 45 minutes worth (actually 25-30 minutes, there were some relight breaks in there)... they were huge and beautiful, and obviously set off in our field a mere 100 yards (maybe) from our driveway. Best part... TW sat in a chair and J and I got to swing together in our seat while all the others slept off their busy day :)

On Thursday we took our van in to get looked at... on Monday it gets all new ball bearings for the front wheels :)

I have started a new "diet"... an elimination diet. So, for the first 4 days I eat normal, but keep track of what I eat, marking down any symptoms I have (e.g. post nasal drip, headache, intestinal discomfort, etc.) On day 5 I start the diet. Since I am already mostly dairy free, I'm doing the dairy free elimination first to see if any of my complaints go away. As part of this I made a batch of dairy free (and soy free) English muffins :)