Weekly: July 16-31 (Finish up!)

My feelings about July ending are very mixed - sometimes I just feel so relaxed and like I'm just luxuriating in my remaining time off, then other sometimes I feel so anxious and frazzled when I think about how little time I have left and all the things I need to do! I feel guilty for being "lazy", but then I feel like I'm not making the best use of  my stay-at-home-mom time if I've been too busy with projects, but then I feel like I'm not soaking up summer if I'm not chilling out. There is no happy medium it seems. This last month and maybe longer I've been very thoughtful - in that, I've been doing a lot of heavy thinking and contemplating about my life, our family life, God's plan for us and other things of that nature. It was already a steadily growing internal nagging, but now our Sunday School class is also conversing on that topic, and with sweet Aunt Dixie being so close to passing on to her forever home I suppose we've all been having deep thoughts regarding life and death. I don't have any answers or "ah-ha's!" - just wonderings so far. 

 Liam has been begging for a fish for months, I think since his birthday because we told him he could use birthday money for it - and it finally happened. He purchased a baby betta fish and named him Sergeant Hawkins. He is very happy with his decision. We'll see how he likes it when he has to clean out his tank.

 We finally found the kids a regular doctor for their annual wellness exams and got them in, it's been years and years since they had a doctor besides Quick Care. So even though we had to pay for it (no thanks for our health share) I was glad to get that process started and have some long overdue evaluations. Liam's was last week and he picked donuts for his treat - which of course we all partook in.

 A sure sign that summer is coming to a close - when the corn gets high. Liam is holding these pepper kind of funny, but he was picking them out of Papa's garden to bring home.

 Carolina just looked too cute painting the other day - she does love to do art.

 This is crazy to me - Liam is 9 and his feet are officially bigger than mine. We can share shoes although they are a little looser on me than him (also, these Nike slides are definitely the most comfortable thing I've ever put on my foot).

Whit's birthday was the Sunday we left Portland, so we didn't have a chance to celebrate - but his parents threw him a party last weekend with pancakes and a bouncy house. He had an excellent time - he's a pretty sweet little 3-year-old.
I've gone in to school three times now to carry stuff in, or organize, and put everything out that I had to put away for summer school classes, and I have a couple of meetings next week (note to self: plan vacation right up until we go back so as to avoid early obligations) - we don't officially go back until the 13th - so I've got just a couple of weeks left to enjoy, or relax, or work - or whatever I decide to do that day!
**ALSO, I've gone back and added the movies I've made to the last June post, SoCal Vacation post, and Disneyland. Some of them were posted but weren't working because I had the settings turned to private/unlisted.