A lot of pictures and a little bit of snark

I don't know what is wrong with me this week, but I am struggling to think of anything to write here.  I suspect it has something to do with the fact that Craig and I seem to be incapable of going to bed before 1am, but Ryder keeps wanting to get up at 6am (and usually I have to feed Colton somewhere in the middle of that, too).  I feel like a zombie.

But other than that, life is pretty good.

Just look at some pictures and stop bothering me, okay?  I'll start using my brain again once I've had a good night's sleep.

Putting my children in Mariners paraphernalia always makes me happy.

All dressed up for Chick-fil-A's "Dress Like a Cow Day."  Also, here you can see why I prefer how I look with mascara!

Close up of Ryder, who makes for a very cute cow, I think!

 

This is what Colton looks like after eating lots.  We call it his Milk Coma.

More of the milk coma

This is the fabulous chocolate and peanut butter cookie dough cake Craig made for me for my birthday

And Ryder enjoying eating said cake...

...While Colton enjoys eating a fire truck.

My happy baby

My in-laws graciously took us to Medieval Times for our birthdays.  I love the placement of Ryder's crown here.

Colton has found his feet!  I love this stage!

A day at the park

Colton ready to go swimming.  (This was Bentley's doing, who told me to come see.  I'm glad I did!)

Lining up all my kids

Big blue eyes

Playing in the sprinkler at Grandma and Grandpa's house on the 4th of July

Watching the kids playing in the sprinkler (notice how patriotic we all are!)

Fun with sparklers

Just look at those chunky thighs!

More of Medieval Times (um, obviously)

I like the combination of crown, flag, blankie, and thumb that we have going on here

Kendra continues to have a penchant for older men

I am still trying to convince Craig that he's older than me.  (And these are awesome cookie-dough cupcakes, less you think I didn't go all out for his birthday like he did for mine!)

And Ryder tries out sleeping in a laundry basket.  Because, you know, why not?

 And in the words of Porky Pig (who I'm noticing I'm kind of resembling in some of these pictures), "That's all, folks!"

Dentist Tales

A couple years ago the dentist we'd been seeing since we moved here stopped taking our insurance.  So Craig found a new dentist and made appointments for he and Bentley.  And I forgot to do that.  And a year passed.  And then I got pregnant, so I figured there was no point in seeing a new dentist because they'd just want to take new x-rays, and x-rays and pregnancy don't mix very well.  So it was just recently that I finally went to this new dentist.  And learned that a bunch of fillings the old dentist did need to be replaced.  REPLACED!  They're only 6 years old!!!  What was wrong with that last dentist?!?!!?

A lot, actually. 

Because being a not particularly good dentist wasn't actually the only problem with Dr. Rao. 

For one thing, her receptionists were terrible.  They messed up appointments all the time.  (Craig showed up and they told him his appointment was the next day, but I still had the little appointment card to prove that I HAD written it down in my planner correctly!  Not that this did Craig any good at the time.)  They charged the wrong amounts for things.  One time when they charged Craig a dollar less than they were supposed to and he pointed this out to them, they just changed the bill rather than have to fix their mistake.  So they were essentially stealing from their employer!  They made me sit in the lobby for an hour once (until I finally complained), I think just because they forgot to tell Dr. Rao I was there.  And I witnessed one completely irate customer complaining about how he'd been charged wrong.  The dentist told him to his face that it wasn't a mistake and then as soon as he was gone, chewed out the receptionists for messing up.  (I started looking at my bills more closely after that...)

It was all so very wrong and poorly run.

But what bothered me about Dr. Rao even more than her poor dentistry skills and her awful receptionists was the fact that she seemed to be in love with my husband.  Really.

Consider the evidence:

I met with her, had 9 cavities filled.  (Don't judge me: I hadn't been to the dentist during college and had had a baby.  Big mistake to combine those two things.)

A week later, Craig meets with her, has his teeth cleaned.  Several days later, he gets a hand-written note in the mail expressing her delight at having met him and saying she looks forward to continuing to work with him.  I wonder, Where's my hand-written letter?

Six months later I get my teeth cleaned.  The next week, Craig goes in to get his teeth cleaned but before they do this, they pull him aside to take his picture.

Six months later the exact same thing happens again.  I think they ended up taking his picture three times!  They never once even mentioned taking my picture.

And then, finally, when we had our last appointments with this lady, knowing our insurance was no longer deemed acceptable by her, she took it upon herself to personally clean Craig's teeth!  Seriously.  Have you ever had your teeth cleaned by someone other than the dentist's hygienist?

Unbelievable.  You'd think if she was going to be so obvious about it, she could have either given us a discount or not done such a lousy job on my fillings!

And Summer Stressin'

My mother-in-law asked me if I felt like I'd adjusted to having four kids.  It was an interesting question, and I honestly wasn't sure what my answer was.  Because every few weeks, everything keeps changing.  I had a baby, and then after two weeks of trying to adjust, Craig suddenly had spring break.  And then he was back to work and crazy busy with his GMU classes.  And then those classes stopped.  And then school got out and suddenly had all four kids at home 24/7 plus a husband and we had a few weeks to play.  And then this last week, Craig began his summer internship and GMU classes.  So which kids I have home and the amount of Daddy help that I get (and I am very blessed because Craig is one of the most helpful fathers ever) keeps changing.  So how can I possibly ever adjust?

But to actually try to answer that question, most of the time I feel like I'm doing all right with four kids.  I don't think I'm a super amazing mother by any stretch of the imagination, but I manage to get the kids dressed and fed most days, so I count that as good enough, and try to only focus on a couple things to work on at a time (namely, stop yelling at the kids so much).  But it's clear to anyone who knows me that my stress level has a lot to do with how much Craig is around.  And happily, my stress level goes DOWN when he's here.  (What would I do if the opposite were true???)  But last week Craig was hardly around at all-- with more of the same for the next two weeks-- so I've been a bit stressed out. 

Okay, I've been a lot stressed out.

And this seems to be reflected in my dreams.  Here are four that I can remember from this week:

-I dreamed that I had left Ryder and Colton napping at the house all alone.  They'd been there for an hour and a half when I panicked and decided that I needed to race home.  And then I couldn't get home, no matter how hard I tried.  I kept getting lost or sidetracked, and I never made it there before I woke up.

-I dreamed that I needed to go to a laundromat and no matter how much I tried, I could never make it there.

-I dreamed I was visiting my parents and suddenly I noticed a couple sewing needles in their carpet.  As I knelt down to pick them up, I found more and more, and suddenly the entire floor was littered in needles and nails and all kinds of sharp objects that you don't want in your carpet.  I spent the rest of the dream trying frantically to pick them all up.

And finally, last night

-I dreamed that I had gone to church in my underwear.  Realizing my mistake and feeling suddenly very embarrassed, I handed off Ryder and Colton to two different women in my ward (friends, but not necessarily very close friends), and ran home to get dressed.  And then I couldn't find any clothes.  My own closet was filled with the kids' clothes.  I was quite sure that I had packed my clothes in some trunk, but I couldn't seem to find that trunk, and I woke up before I even managed to get dressed, let alone get back to church to collect my little ones.


Yeah.  I guess that's how I'm feeling these days.

But the kids are dressed and fed.  And the house is occasionally clean.  So that's something, right?

Just two more weeks of this insanity and then I get Craig back again!

Summer Lovin'

I am a lover of summer.  I suspect having a July birthday pre-programmed me to be this way, and then marrying a school teacher solidified it, but I LOVE summer.  Even when it's hot and sticky and kind of gross outside, I still love it.  I wanna marry it.  I'm all about the flipflops, shorts & t-shirts, time at the pool, grilling food (well, letting Craig grill food), pretending I don't even own a sweater or a coat, sleeping late, not having a schedule, eating ice cream whenever I turn around, and just getting to PLAY.  It all makes me happy.

I'm not very good at documenting it, unfortunately (especially because a lot of our favorite activities involve water, and I am very protective of my phone!), but here are a few pictures I managed to get:

Bentley's Lemonade Stand

Apparently I've used the excuse "We can't afford that" a little too often, because Bentley decided he needed to earn some money to help us out.  Without dwelling on how embarrassing that is (and don't worry, we're actually not destitute-- I'm just too lazy to explain "wants" vs. "needs" to my children), I'm just going to brag about how cute this all was.  I made real lemonade (first time!) and Bentley enthusiastically went around knocking on our neighbors' doors so they would come and buy some.  And they did!  Every person came and paid double Bentley's asking price (which, admittedly, was only 25¢)!  He sold most of his lemonade in about 15 minutes, and then there was a crack of thunder and we closed up shop for the day.  He reopened the next day and sold the rest in even less time, and I think we ended up breaking even.  Success!

Ryder and Kendra drank up a good portion of the inventory.  Bentley was a very good salesmen and made those signs himself!

I have no idea why Ryder is only wearing one shoe.  But I think Kendra's shorts are adorable.

Mostly this made me happy because it's the kind of thing I would have LOVED to do when I was a kid.  I always joke that Bentley got all my worst traits, but watching him knock on our neighbors' doors (and watching the look of disbelief on Craig's face) was a nice reminder that I managed to contribute a few good qualities, too!

4th of July

We spent the 4th with Craig's parents in Culpeper and had a lovely day.  Despite being kept up three hours past their bedtime, the kids were fairly well-behaved (phew!) and they loved watching the fireworks.  I got to enjoy one of those absolutely beautiful moments where all felt right in the world: I was sitting in the grass, watching Bentley and Kendra try to catch fireflies while in the distance the city's firework display ran its course.  It was already a perfect moment, and then Ryder quietly came and sat next to me, sucking his thumb and holding his blankie, and watched it with me.   And that just solidified it all for me.  The world is sometimes a lovely and good place.

Here's my patriotic baby!

There was one other lovely, perfect moment, this time captured on film by Craig:

Just skip to 35 seconds, that's when it's cute

Pool and Splashdown Time:

We've been spending a lot of time in the water.  We do this every summer, but this time it's been made a lot more fun by the fact that Bentley can SWIM!  He still has a ways to go before you could think about letting him be in a pool unsupervised (hence the floaties on his arms in the picture below!), but he is so much more comfortable in the water than he ever has been before.  In the past, it would take us most of the summer just to work up to where he was really enjoying swimming.  This year, he's been loving it from the word go.  And that has made it a lot more fun for all of us!

He and Kendra have also been being a lot braver than ever before, which means they'll go down the slides at Splashdown and jump off the diving board and do all kinds of things that just make being at the pool so much more fun.  So we are loving life!

Seriously, what's not to love about summer?

More conversations with My Children

This morning, as we began the process of cutting back on our morning TV time:

Kendra: Can we watch a show now?
Me: You can watch a show after lunch.
Kendra (crying to Bentley): Mommy says we can't watch any TV at all today!!!!
Bentley (stomping angrily into our room): Daddy said we could watch TV in ten minutes!
Craig: I said "Maybe later!"

Our kids will make great politicians some day...
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Driving to church the other day:

Ryder: Me love Jesus!
Me: That's right-- we love Jesus, don't we?
Ryder: Me love Elmo!
Me:  ...And Elmo, too.  Of course.
Craig:  What are we teaching our children?

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Okay, so Colton didn't actually say anything here.  But this is what you get when you try to swaddle a naked Houdini baby.  If he could speak, I'm pretty sure he'd be saying something along the lines of "Friends, Romans, Countrymen!  Lend me your burp cloths!"