summer.....Savannah & Jonah

We moved furniture and other things into the building. Now I actually have somewhere to put some of the extra, stored attic stuff and enjoy it. The kids' uncle made them the cutest wooden toys over the years...a canoe, baby doll cradles for each of the girls, a tiny bow and arrow set....there's a little loft in the building where the kids can play with their cherished toys. I took my paint supplies out there so maybe now I can get back into doing that at some point.\
Brandon has poison oak all over his arms from weed-eating the other day. One of the things I don't love about summertime...and the bugs. I was sitting outside the other night with a light and then the bugs found the light, they wouldn't leave me alone, so I didn't get much reading done. I'm not much on camping out unless it's in the cooler part of the fall, with a fire....now that's not so bad. Anyway, Brandon's headed off again tomorrow for another job. He and another boy have been working trying to get some stuff done. They've been busy and have definitely earned their paycheck.

Four of the kids are gone visiting today. They were so excited! It's a different dynamic in the house when some of the kids are gone. Having kids close together, sometimes I see there's more conflict the closer their age. They want to play with the same thing at teh same time, and do a lot of following around of each other, pestering a little bit, pushing buttons.....that kind of thing. So a different environment helps with that, I think. Friday night 5 of the kids went to a cook out, which was nice. One thing when you have a lot of kids is the feeling that you don't want to ask for things, which I usually don't, and not because I don't want to (it's been hinted to me in past yrs that I shouldn't ask...too much punishing drama if we did, so we didn't if we could handle things ourselves)....so it's nice when someone gives the invitation and actually enjoys the kids coming around and wants them to come again and again. It's much appreciated. I just wish years ago instead of someone making us feel like we shouldn't ask for help, I would've went to the person who I should've talked to instead of listening to that. I can look back now and see how it probably wouldn't have mattered even if we'd had just 2 or so, it would've likely been the same. Us having more kids just made it easier to make waves, and this created some big ones (what's interesting is the bizarre ways used to make a point--ruined furniture; nice clothes with a weird item thrown in for insult; beat up a mailbox--something special I painted; marring a fence; hating our cute little white dog--now that's really transferring agression when you hate someone's dog--lol; sending someone to check up on things, etc.--the passive-aggressive things people come up with when they're mad about something--that's a lot of trouble to make a point--wouldn't it be so much easier to talk about it and less destructive too? Talking about things makes better sense.

I can't believe it's August already....the summer is flying by. Memorial Day, I had just had surgery and it seemed like summer would last forever, but it's been 2 1/2 mos already and winding down. Savannah's crawling and pulling up now, standing with her little bald head (she's finally getting a little more than peach fuzz:) She's the most pleasant baby. Jonah and her chased each other in his little tractor and her walker. They have a lot of fun together and Jonah's very proud of his baby sister. It's nice to see. I've seen a huge change in Jonah over the summer.....lots of good changes. I need to show some pictures of Savannah. I put her little pink bathing suit on the other day and she was so cute. I'll do that when I get a chance.
What else...it's been almost 4 yrs since I started here...very different person from then until now. Just goes to show never be too sure of anything.

Now i need to vacuum the back room and Savannah's room before the other half of the kids get home. I'm procrastinating again....I can either vacuum or read a book, I'd rather read but I guess I need to vacuum first. Bye.