Summer brings a switch to our homeschool park day routine. I switch to a morning time frame and swap off with splash pad days throughout June- August. It is a smaller crowd for sure but we still have a great time! Look at those smiles! <3 Also notice Alexandria with her buddy Everett perfectly balancing on the seesaws.
One night I woke up to a strange noise coming from the kitchen. I took me a minute since I was still in half asleep, but I realized it was coming from the refrigerator. Our fridge was not new and my dad said it would probably cost almost as much to repair it as buying a new one. So we went with the buying a new one option. As you can tell I was pretty excited about a new refrigerator! In our married life I had never had a new one! I loved the extra space and the bottom freezer. (spoiler alert less than 3 years later this fridge stopped working and had to get the compressor replaced. It was covered by LG since it was still under warranty, but the repair guy I called said to do him favor and never buy a LG fridge again. Noted. Although, other than that repair issue, I still love the fridge.) I took advantage of the extra time we have in summer to organize the school closet. I should have taken a before picture because it was a big improvement! Also, I wish it still looked like that now. It's on my organizing list for summer 2024. ;) I have a note that I went through baby clothes, but I can't find any pictures of that. It was probably when I got rid of a ton of my baby clothes just months before becoming pregnant with Piper. Haha!
We were invited to a birthday party for a friend of Jane's. The invite said a blow up water slide so I thought I could handle that with the 4 kids. At this point Xan was not a full fledged swimmer and Flynn was still learning to hold his breath. I thought a slide would be no problem. What I didn't plan for was that the slide would be in an unfenced area and that the backyard which was also part of the party area had an above ground pool. The kids had a blast, but I was sooo worn out by the end. Xan wanted to swim but didn't want floaties because she was so proud of her budding swimming skills. I stood on the ladder to make sure she jumped out and came right back. Flynn was constantly trying to walk down the neighborhood sidewalk and I was constantly carrying him back to the party area. Since then I ask for clarification for parties held at houses I haven't been before. I must know if there is a possibility of swimming and if kids can be contained in a house or fenced yard so I know if I can handle it with the amount of kids I have to keep up with. It was a good learning experience for me.
It’s always a good time when we get together with my long time friend Mindy and her boys. Our kids have always gotten along easily and we always love getting the chance to catch up on life and encourage each other. I love that picture of the kids fascinated by a bug on the trampoline.
Just looking at these pictures makes me miss the Bull Sallas splash pad! It’s been closed for the past two summers for the installation of a recirculation pump. It’s our favorite splash pad by far. The kids look forward to going back once the summer begins! Flynn was not a fan of the unpredictable water, so he decided to stay dry.
My note here is that we got to see our good friends the Combs twice in one week! Once at our house and then at their’s. All the kids get along well but Paige and Jane definitely look forward to getting together the most. My kiddos love the chance to interact with the farm animals!
I tried blueberry picking in years past with all the kids but it was a bit too much for me to handle. This year I asked my mom if she could watch the boys while I took the girls since the girls were the ones that loved eating blueberries! It was a lovely trip. The girls did so well with the heat and waiting in the line to pay!
We don’t do much for Father’s or Mother’s Day. It’s not a holiday we like much because it’s hard to figure out celebrating when there are so many people to celebrate. Anyway, we did have a Kearley (my mom’s side of the family) swim afternoon on Father's Day 2021. It was nice. I remember Xan making big progress in learning to swim that day! She almost went all the way across the short side of the pool on her own. Woohoo!! The only thing my little family does for Father’s Day is questionnaires. I usually print one out but I guess I couldn’t find one I liked enough, so I made my own! I love their answers. <3
During a summer splash pad day one of friends asked if they could take Jane to a movie with them afterwards. I hesitated for a moment because before this point I had only allowed Jane to go on playdates to friend's houses without me, not anywhere in public. I did end up saying yes and Jane had a blast!
Summer is for Pool days and watermelon at Marmee and Pappaw’s house!! We all love swim season and I love to watch my littles grow in their swimming skills! It’s definitely more work than sitting inside playing with toys during the cooler months, but putting the hours in swimming with them is so worth it and fun! My kids being comfortable and confident in the water from an early age is very important to me.
This was my summer of drawing! I haven't had this much time for drawing since the summer of 2021. We were on break from school and everyone was sleeping really well. It was also still so new to me and I wanted to do it every spare minute I could find. I decided to draw all three main characters from one of my favorite Mangas, The Promised Neverland. They are all in white with the numbers on their necks. It's a very thrilling and cliffhanger filled series. I love it!! I got some new colored pencils and so I decided to draw, Kakashi, one of my favorite characters from Naruto with the pencils to compare him with one of my first drawings of Shikamaru since I colored him completely with markers. I figured out that my favorite way to color is to start with base of marker and follow with detail and shading in colored pencils. Sam had bought a bookshelf just to house our growing manga collection and at this point half of it was still empty so I filled it with my drawings. I shared my drawing hobby on Facebook for the first time around this time and got the sweetest response from everyone! I would love to get back into it more again, but I am really trying to catch up on this blog!
One park day a storm sent us home early, but as soon as the lightning stopped Jane decided to build a dam for the stream flowing down our driveway and Flynn joined in. It was so cute, my oldest and youngest playing so sweetly. <3 Then they decided their bodies were the best dam they could come up with. ;)
All 4 kids went on a sleepover to Marmee and Pappaw's house!! It was wonderful to get some time to myself. I appreciate my parents so much! During their sleepover I got a few things done around the house, but I also took some time to rest and I finished reading the Tokyo Ghoul manga. My first manga series completed! It's sooooo good. Kaneki is the best. To be clear the picture above of Tokyo Ghoul is a stock picture. I do not own all of the books and I did not draw those pictures. I did end up drawing Kaneki later this summer though. (will be featured later) I love this quote from the Mangaka (Manga Author/Illustrator) "To be convinced that someone is wrong without truly knowing them. I don't know how that can be right." -Sui Ishida
We had a very chill 4th of July at our house. We made the new playset into a waterslide, Sam grilled and we did some sparklers. My kind of 4th of July.
Scott and Anna and their girls came for a visit for almost a week in July and we got to celebrate Bryn's 2nd birthday together! Lots of swimming, food, games and cousin time was had. I always love when they come into town. <3
Atlas was almost 5 1/2 and still wouldn't buckle himself in his own car seat. I had been following an Instagram called family teams lately that encouraged training your family for the daily things that feel stressful. So I got Atlas's car seat out of the car and put it in the living room so I could train him in a low stress environment with no feeling of needing to get somewhere on time. He got it down that day!! I noticed how much I was yelling for them to get in the car and buckled and they were all fighting to get in their seat first and say, "I was first!!" So I decided we needed getting in the car training! I timed them to see if they could all get buckled in 2 minutes. That meant some of the older ones had to help the younger ones. Instead of racing to be first themselves they were racing the clock together. I told them if they could do it then we could get in the car for real and go get milkshakes from Sonic. It only took a few times and they did it!! 3 years later this training has stuck. We don't always get in the car in 2 minutes but it is still not a pain point in our day.
This is a little crazy. It's July 2024 when I'm writing this paragraph, almost exactly 3 years later, and Piper has Hand Foot and Mouth right now!! We haven't had a bout of HFMD since this time with Flynn! Poor little Flynnie! Not only did he have Hand Foot Mouth, he also had a secondary skin infection that was making it all worse. He got some meds and got well quickly thankfully.
I went to a baby shower of a fellow park momma in July. I had drawn a baby shower card for the last 2 showers I had been to so I decided to keep it up! I tried to go with the floral theme on the invitation. I looked up a few flower drawings online and put a few things I liked together. I was pretty happy with how it came out. It was a sweet shower! Also, note the drawing finger full of marker colors, I feel like a real artist! ;)
Sam's parents had rented a beach house with his brother and their family and we had planned to meet them down there for a beach day. But that week Sam had been experiencing extreme leg pain and the soonest appointment he could get was on the same day we had planned to meet his family at the beach, 7/21/21. I said I would still try to go with the kids since I would have grandparent help at the beach and Sam could still take himself to the doctor without too much trouble at this point. While I was driving down to the beach house Sam called me and said the doctor was sending him to the ER to check for blood clots. I asked if I should turn around and come home but he said no, I wouldn't be able to do anything anyway. Little did we know this was the beginning of a 2 year long process of figuring out how to fix the health issues he was going through and I'll always know exactly the day it started. The beach was great. The kids had a blast and we all enjoyed some good family time. Before I headed home Sam was able to tell me that it wasn't blood clots and he was being sent home, but they didn't find the reason behind his pain. At that point all he had was a follow up with the doctor that sent him to the ER. We didn't know it yet, but we had just entered a long season of hardship and lots of waiting and pain for Sam with no answers.
Even through Sam's health issues, life went on! The kids had been asking to get a treat from the Ice Cream Truck and I finally said yes. They loved it, obviously. Jane, Flynn and I got a cookie ice cream sandwich and Atlas and Xan got a sonic pop! (Also note my dad's yard of the month award in the background, he was so proud of receiving that award. He's really great at taking care of his yard and mine!!)
We love trips to our friends farm! This time they had baby chicks we got to hold! Everyone loved them. We also got to water the pigs. Jane and Paige just have fun being together.
Just a couple weeks after Scott and Anna came to visit, Scott came back with his daughters so Anna could have a girls weekend with some of her closest friends. It was fun to have some extra cousin time and time with my brother. Anna's girls weekend inspired me to see if I could do a similar weekend myself with two of my closest friends too! (spoiler alert, I did make it happen fall of 2021 and it was the best. Thank you Anna for the inspiration!)
As I mentioned before Ken Kaneki from the Tokyo Ghoul manga is a favorite of mine. This is my first drawing to use a manga panel as reference instead of an anime stock image. I loved all the extra details everywhere that I hadn’t noticed until I started to draw it. Every time I would get to the end of a drawing I was in disbelief I was able to draw it. Truly a dream come true. I posted this on a Tokyo Ghoul fan page and got more likes than I have on any social media post I’ve ever shared. So that was fun! I remember around this time We were all enjoying watching the Tokyo Olympics!!
It had been a couple weeks and Sam was still home and in pain. We went to a lot of Dr. appointments to try to figure out what was going on! We kept getting referred on because no one could identify the problem. I do believe around this time Sam did get prescribed some powerful pain meds that made it more bearable while we waited for a better solution. I have a note here that all the kids got sick with a weird fever. After seeming well a day or two later, congestion would come on. While we were home during the weird sickies, the whole family started playing Pokemon Sword. Sam wanted something to play on the switch since the recliner in the living room was most comfortable for his leg. We also continued to watch a lot of Olympics together during this time. Lastly around this time I started reading Vinland Saga! It's an about vikings and specifically a viking that decides to not live a violent lifestyle anymore. It became my favorite currently running Manga series. 3 years later I'm still anxiously awaiting the next volume in the series.
As the academic summer comes to a close we enjoyed our last Heart splash pad day and Summer morning park day the last two weeks of August. On the last Splash pad day Flynn finally decided it was fun! ;) For our last morning park day we usually celebrate with donuts. The kids approve of this tradition!
At the end of August I organized my school supplies and got ready to start! Jane went to her very first Super Friday class and loved it!! She took It's Greek to me, All about Rhythm and tap dance. While she was gone I started school with Atlas and Xan. (mostly Atlas though) Xan scribbled in a workbook. It was Atlas's first day of Kindergarten! He wasn't super excited about it but he was able to stay focused well considering that I would let him go play video games as soon as he was done.
I try to make an effort to see my friend Melody during the summer since during the school year our schedules can get pretty busy and the drive between us becomes hard to fit in. This visit was special because we got to meet her little baby Oakley! Even Atlas wanted to hold her. It was so sweet.
I had put off Xan’s dental work for a few months partially because they said it would be fine to wait and I just didn’t feel ready. At age 3, Xan was my youngest to get dental work done by 2 years! She was so good at expressing herself and following directions it all went very well. She was just very drowsy that day and I remember her accidentally biting her tongue and making it bleed on the way home. That freaked me out but it was small and stopped bleeding quickly. Jane was next. We opted to do her dental work at the one she was more used to going to. The weird thing was that dentist which I trust more found one less cavity than the pedi dentist. She did great as usual. The dentist is fun to her! I don’t think she’s had a filling since.
We started back on science co-op meet ups in September. (We now call this group Discovery Crew) I led the first one and kept it simple. I did the magic pencil in water experiment and a floating grocery bag ring. I love leading these kids in learning!
For the first time since Sam’s back/leg problems started back in July I got sick in September. I had been dreading the possibility because at that point Sam still could barely move. It was so hard to be sick with Sam unable to move much at all! But we made it through. I have a note that much to my dismay I had to miss the first normal park day of the school year. I’m not sure if I had to miss because of being sick or because I had to take Sam to a doctor’s appointment. I can’t remember well enough, but I’m leaning towards Dr appointment because my next note is that Sam finally got some treatment!!! It was an injection that helped a lot with the pain, so he could work again. It did not fix everything. He still had considerable swelling, discomfort and discoloration in his leg and foot, but thank the Lord that the pain was finally manageable. This picture is from the kids waiting to be picked up to spend the night because the appointment for Sam was so early in the morning the next day.
Atlas was doing great in his Kindergarten year in school! Catching on quickly and even answering some of Jane’s math problems when he wasn’t asked. ;) Math seems to come easily to him. He also got a hair cut. I think that is the longest his hair has ever been.
Woah! We almost didn’t go on this Daugherty beach trip! Hurricane Nicolas came powering through Galveston and left the beach house we had reserved damaged and without power. Then we weren’t sure any beach houses had power. Eventually the company we booked the first house through had an opening that would fit all of us and had power! It wasn’t the perfect beach house fit for us but it definitely worked in a pinch!! So glad we still got to go. Even Sam could make it since his recent treatment was working well enough for him. At this time we were still doing beach trips around my brother and my birthdays so I had to draw him our favorite Gundam growing up, Death Scythe, for his birthday card. One of my favorite cards to date. I hope to write more about this beach trip in a separate post.
First park day with 15+ families post covidThese picture make me so happy! It was our first park day with more than 15 families since Covid started affecting our numbers. It was so much fun! This was also the year we made some super sweet and close park friends that we still have today. <3
As soon as the First cool front comes in my kids break out the sweaters and hoodies! I feel like it just barely dipped into the 70s one morning. Haha! By mid to end of September we are all desperate for some relief from the heat! It was definitely the perfect day to have dinner outside.
To end our summer weather season we had a science co-op class where we made self portraits from nature. I loved the creativity the kids had in making their portraits. Good bye summer 2021 thanks for the memories and lessons!!
Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Romans 8:18
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
