The Kings: July times

Trying to settle in to life as a family of five...and staying busy, busy as always! Of course, right now I'm loving every minute of maternity leave because it means no matter how busy we are, I don't *also* have to go to work, and stay up for a 12 hour shift, then come home and take care of everyone! Yay for summer vacation!

We spent our 4th of July with my parents at the always awesome Perot Museum of Nature and Science to enjoy the current dinosaur exhibit (see my other post for pictures). The rest of the month has been pretty run-of-the-mill, with lots of playtime at home, daily routines, and the normal toddler mood swings from super duper sweet to tantrums over seemingly nothing. Ah, life with young kids ;)

I've also started trying to get back into pre-baby shape and have taken advantage of our cooler-than-normal weather by going on runs in our neighborhood. I can log about 2 miles each time, and I'd like to run a 5k sometime...maybe a Turkey trot? Maybe something sooner? It's so tricky with a little one, and eventually I will have to go back to work. We'll just have to see what comes about with schedules and such.

Anyway, here's some of the stuff we've been up to around here lately....

Pictures of our pillow fort! I have to admit that one of the reasons we purchased a large sectional couch -- with an ottoman and not a coffee table -- was for this very reason. If you know me, you know I'm a planner, and yes, I actually planned for when our kids would be old enough to build pillow forts. My planning was not for naught ;)

Here are a few pictures of our often-not-pictured "first child." She's still around, and still shedding like crazy. However, she's actually *wonderful* with the kiddos and takes all sorts of "affection" from them without batting an eye. She just turned 7 in May, and sometimes I forget just how sweet she is.

"Take a picture of me, mommy!"

Evan says "Peek-a-boo!" He actually was quite insistent that I don't do any of the vacuuming without him ;)

Reading time with Papa John before bed

Yes, we bought Halloween costumes...from Costco....in July. So what?

Sam stole the grape sleeve and told me she was a princess.....

Look at this little girl go!

Look who's trying out undies! Hoping to have her potty trained soon so we can be changing far-fewer diapers in the near future :)

Reading time with daddy

Typically, Grandma Sharon brings the Proctor kids over for swimming on Wednesdays. But not so much on an atypical rainy Wednesday this month, so we figured out some indoor activities instead. A house of of 10 kids was....interesting ;)

A few of Noah's well-loved cars.....loved to pieces.

"Noah, where are you?"

"I'm in here sending an email to dad at work!"

Noah continues to keep us on our toes; his logic is quite amusing. The other day we had this little exchange:

Me: Noah, time to clean up, it's nap time.
Noah: no, mommy! I can't take a nap!
Me: oh yeah? Why's that?
Noah: my bed isn't safe.
Me: uhm. What? Why isn't it safe?
Noah: I don't know. But the couch is much safer. I'll just stay down here.

Me: uhm....nope.

Here are some pics from a recent trip to Costco. The kids were *not* thrilled about having to stay buckled in the car with me while daddy pumped the gas. Fortunately, Matt did an excellent job of distracting them

Another day: This girl was unhappy and decided to throw a fit. She was so angry that she cried and cried and cried, then walked over to me as I was nursing Evan and stood there so I could comfort her with my hand on her chest. A few seconds later she got very quiet and I said her name... no response. I snapped some pictures -- how tired do you have to be to literally fall asleep standing up?! She didn't even flinch when I moved her to the couch!