4th of July

It has always seemed to me like the 4th of July marked the half-way point of Summer. This year, that is a very depressing thought to me. I feel like I am finally getting to spend some time with my kids and see how their personalities are growing and changing as they do. For instance, when we were in the car the other day, and Shawn got angry with Dawsyn for being mouthy, he started on this tirade, which was not only very uncharacteristic for my normally easy-going, ignore as much as you can, choose your battles, kind of husband, but left those of us in the car with our mouths hanging open and our eyes bulging. He ended his admonishment of her with, "I don't know who you think you are!" There was a moment of silence when everyone in the car was afraid to breathe. Everyone, that is, except Dax. Who very loudly, very plainly said, "Uh, Dad?--It's Dawsyn", then rolled his eyes, clearly thinking he was the only sane person in the car. At this point, I looked to Shawn to see his reaction, thinking how most fathers, mine and his included, would have only had their anger exasperated by the comment. I was reminded of why I love my husband as I saw him turn his head away from the rest of us to try to hide the fact that he was shaking with laughter at Daxton's comment. He didn't hide it very well, because pretty soon, the entire van was laughing. Leave it to a 3 year old to put everything in perspective.
My cousin, Robert and his wife, Jamie and their 3 boys came to spend a few days. They drove in from Oklahoma where Robert is in the Navy--I know--not sure what the Navy is doing in Oklahoma, but knowing our government, I have NO DOUBT that it is VERY good use of our tax money! My cousin, Lacey, Robert's sister, came as well. It was a wonderful visit and we had a great time. There were 8 kids under the age of 8 running around the house and I was once again reminded of the Saint that my Grandma Carol was. She had 8 kids under the age of 9 every day and never had much help. It was great though--lots of laughter, a ton of fighting, and at the end of the day, all we needed was a few giant greek letters to hang over the front door and we would give any frat house on campus a run for it's money. Oh--we didn't have the alcohol or other unmentionables, but we did have 8 kids passed out in various place around the kitchen and living room. One night, as the adults stayed up talking, we decided to just let the kids wear themselves out. Around midnight, there was a child asleep on the stairs into our sunken living room, one asleep at the kitchen table, one half asleep in the library playing a game on the computer, and 5 asleep on various couches and blankets around the living room--and people say we aren't wild and crazy!
We ended this week with a yard sale at our church. We "rented" two tables and set up stuff to get rid of. I didn't really care about making money, I just wanted to get rid of stuff. The week before the sale, I gave each of the kids a trash bag and said I wanted it full of stuff they didn't want or need anymore. I only gave them two rules: It had to be theirs, and they had to be SURE they didn't want it! After two hours, I was presented with two garbage bags. The boys decided to share a bag because there wasn't that much they wanted to get rid of. This bag was full of lego pieces, broken parts, McDonald's toys, paper, pencils, etc. While there was nothing yard-sale worthy, it did make a nice addition to the trash pile by the road! The next bag was totally awesome--it was from Dawsyn. It was a large trash bag containing exactly one Barbie doll, which consequently belonged to Delaney. Nice! Not only did she break the rule, I'm not quite sure what she did with her two hours except find toys she had forgotten about that she couldn't part with because as she said, "they were very special to her!" So, we lugged all the stuff Mommy had gone through, spent two days sitting in the church basement, and made $60. The bad part of community yard sales is we always come home with more junk that we don't need, because other people feel the need to "give" my kids stuff! YAY! Oh well, maybe I'll just price it for next year to get ahead of the game!