Christmas in July

We have made a tradition of celebrating Christmas in July the last few years. Technically, I think it should be Christmas in June, but we did it in July like everyone else. I went a little overboard this year. I'm not even sure why. It may have been spending so much time in the hospital, it may have been the fact that I am lamenting how fast my daughters are growing up, or just that I was excited... probably a mixture of all three. 

I made a book on Snapfish of some pictures Abi made in school last December. She made twelve days of Christmas themed pictures with You-gi-oh! characters. We always open a new book on Christmas Eve, so I wrapped this book up for Christmas in July Eve. They were very surprised. 

The next morning I put out a special breakfast. 

We brought down Maddy's little tree, I put a big bow on it, and then I put out presents for both girls. I filled the stockings too. These were bought this year to be different from our regular Christmas stockings. My mom spent the night and we watched The Man Who Invented Christmas, so she was still here in the morning. I gave her a stocking and gift too. And she gave all three of us gifts as well. 

Maddy got mostly art supplies, Abi got mostly toys (yes, that's true), and My mom and I got books. It was really fun. 

 

Random summer memories

Maddy found a vole in a window well in our back yard, so she and Doug coaxed it into this bucket and then released it into the field across the street. 

There were quite a few celebrations during the summer: 

my sister-in-law Karen's birthday,

the Fourth of July,

(we went to Doug's parent's house in the morning for breakfast with his family, and then we spent the rest of the day at home. We had a bbq and watched National Treasure at night.)

my niece Courtney's baby shower,

and the girls' spent their annual week at my parent's house while I did school planning. Doug and I went out most evenings, so that was fun. 

 A few weeks before that, my dad ended up in the ICU and spent a week in the hospital and a week in a care center. I was gone almost all day every day while he was in the hospital, so that I could be with him and help my mom. It was a hard time, so having a lot of fun things to do afterward were nice. Thankfully, he is doing much better now. He had pneumonia really bad, and it will take a while for a full recovery, but he seems to be progressing pretty quickly now. 

Summer moments

We had a lot of great moments while staying at my parents' house for the summer. 

Maddie and I went on a lot of walks. Sometimes Abi came with us, but most of the time it was Maddie and I going on a quest to find deer and cats. 

A house up the street had kittens, so we had to visit every day.

cute little leaping fawn...

We also got to enjoy their amazing yard.

My mom made me a cake to celebrate my birthday a few months late...

And we went to Barnes and Noble as per our usual tradition. But this year we watched movies at home instead of the theater.

Abi didn't want to go to any stores, so Maddie and I donned our masks and went back-to-school shopping together, just the two of us. But we took lunch home for everyone.

One of the biggest things:

Maddie has been too afraid of taking the training wheels off her bike. When we have tried to convince her to do it, she would say she never wanted to ride a bike again. When we moved I got rid of her bike since it was getting small for her anyway, and Abi's bike (that she had outgrown) became Maddie's. Even though she said she wouldn't ride it, I brought it to my parents' house with us and parked it on the back patio. Eventually she started getting on just to try... on the grass. All summer she tried and tried to ride it. She finally did it! And it was amazing. 

Maddie made a doll.

I wanted to read the Bark of the Bog Owl to my girls, and so I ended up reading it to my parents too. My dad was the one begging for more chapters. 

For part of the time Doug took over my mom's office to work, but then he ended up having to go into work for a couple months, so he wasn't able to work from home again until the end of August. 

He spent most of the Saturdays working on restoring my parents' picnic table and benches. 

Maddie was proud of her biking injuries.

As usual, I took part in The Reading Rush read-a-thon. I look forward to it all year. 

A frosting thing Maddie made one day out of paper...

We didn't go out in our yard much in Provo- we had an insane amount of insects there and it just wasn't comfortable, so it was really fun to spend time reading outside. 

Abi had her first summer job. She spent the summer transcribing journals and family history records for Doug's mom.