'what's up' occasionally. (and Juniper at three months!)

I feel like all I ever do anymore is make excuses for why I haven't been more regular around the blog.  And I feel like my main excuse is that everything has been so busy.  But in my defense, everything has been so busy.  I don't know why I'm surprised that having seven kids makes life seem so full - it makes sense that it would - but it took so long for me to feel quite this busy.  I guess I thought I was just impervious.  But, lo.  I'm not.  And posting on here has just become weirdly hard.

But anyway.  Wah wah wah.  Enough bellyaching.  Here's what we've been up to for the last two weeks:

Two Fridays ago, some friends came over for the first annual Nacho Nacho Noche, or the night where we eat nachos and watch Nacho Libre.  They brought all the fixings for the nachos (home-smoked pork and everything, amazing) and we supplied the movie snacks.  I literally gained two pounds from all the nachos and popcorn.  I wish I could say that's hyperbolic, but it's not.  Two pounds gained in one night.  Worth it though.

Juniper turned three months old.  I cannot get enough of this sweet girl.  She is so happy and content, and just a genuine joy to be around.  Her smile lights up her whole face!  You'll have to take my word on it, though - she was refusing to smile for her pictures, even though I had plenty of assistants trying to get one out of her.

She sleeps like a champion (two, three, and even four hour naps are standard fare, in addition to sleeping through the night) and is so happy when she's awake.  She's usually up for about an hour, and then she starts to yawn or fuss.  Then I lay her down and she goes right to sleep on her own.  She sucks her right thumb and puts her left hand under her head and just conks out.

Also?  Clearly she's balding in all the right places.  I am really praying it starts growing back in soon!

The kids have kept busy over these last two weeks.  The first week we were wrapping up the school year.  It feels SO good to have another full year under our belts!  Even though they were juggling their full school load, they also found plenty of time to play.  They built a Winchester Mystery House in our backyard.

They also got to roast marshmallows over a fire Todd lit in our fire pit.

Penelope got the chance to go to the movies with an older lady from church this week.  I think it was so special for her that this woman thought of her and wanted to treat her to a girl's day, just by herself.  I am so in awe of how well our church family loves our kids.

This week marked our first week of summer break, which we celebrated by starting swimming lessons!  (STRUCTURE, STRUCTURE, ALWAYS STRUCTURE - that's my motto as the kids get older and more numerous.  There's always the potential for chaos if there's too much unstructured time, and chaos almost always results in bickering and disobedience and general malaise.  So the end of the school year was strategically timed with the beginning of swimming lessons.)

The biggest five are all in lessons, and I have the two little girls in the stroller while we watch.  Juniper is not a huge fan of the wait, but Callista is a rockstar.  She just sits and tries to "I Spy" the big kids, pointing them out and naming them all: "Ashish? Gacco? Fiyish?" Juniper moves from stroller to lap to pool chair to nursing position, and back to the beginning.

Callista's been living her best life.  Spending quality girl time with her little sis...

...reading books while sitting on a ginormous box...

…climbing up to the counters and eating everything she can get her hands on...

...climbing into cabinets.  You know the drill.

Why is my china cabinet in my living room? you may ask.  Because I had to move it out of the dining room to make room for my new bookshelves.  While we've been on break, I've been on a mission to get some pressing projects finished.  I've needed more bookshelf space for a while, and with the upcoming school year looming, I was needing it sooner rather than later.  So Todd picked up a couple of Ikea bookcases while he was in Kansas City recently, and I've been working on assembling them and adding some fabric to the back to make them look less "Ikea."  It's coming along, but it's been a project.  Things always look worse before they look better.

I'm ready for this particular project to be finished.


In weird random news, I bought clothes for the kids.  I hadn't purchased clothes for the big kids in two years.  Penelope (age 9) was still wearing 6/6x, and Atticus (age 10) was still in 8's.  Which is fine because they're skinny minis, and these are the sizes that still fit them, but they're leggy and tall, so everything was becoming way too short.  A friend sent a really generous order from Old Navy, and then I saw that everything was 50% off there, so I jumped on the deal and ordered almost everything we still needed in the upcoming sizes.  I have a few items to still get once the weather turns (long sleeve tees and church shirts mostly) but everything else is covered!  That feels so good.  (Here's how I buy everything we'll need in one fell swoop.)

And that has been just a glimpse into the last few weeks around here!