Here I Am!

Whew. I've been gone from the blogging world for what seems like forever. I am DYING because we only have a few more weeks before school starts, and you all know I hate hate hate it when that day rolls around!

So what has been going on over here? Well...

I finished reading two books this week. The first is called Life's So Good. (I know I should underline the title, but can't figure out how.) It is the story of George Dawson learning to read at the age of 98. I saw the book on the shelf at the library and checked it out because I too believe that life is good. I had no idea how captivated I'd be by this man's story. I also had no idea that it was an Oprah Book Club book until tonight and I was sad to learn tonight that Mr. Dawson died at the age of 103 in 2001. If you have time, you should read this book. It is a great story about a real person and I LOVED it.

The second book I finished was suggested to me by #1. He LOVES to read. A few weeks ago, I had a dream that a big wave came (tsunami style) and took me and some of my friends away. In my dream I was screaming for my kids, my JC and my mom. I was in the wave with HB, Jena (friend) and Nor (friend) and I couldn't swim to my family. I woke up feeling so so so sad about it. #1 happened to be in the bedroom right as I was opening my eyes. I told him the dream the best I could remember it. That afternoon, he brought me a book from our bookshelf called Escaping the Giant Wave by Peg Kehret. This is a fiction book that is written for kids in the age group of 8-12years old. I LOVED it! It took me a couple of nights to read it, but it was very very exciting. I'd highly recommend it to any of you guys that have kids. I know I am going to encourage E and J to read it, if they haven't already. And I think it is pretty darn cool that I actually like the books that #1 recommends. :)

My parents came into town last weekend to tend to the kids so that JC and I could go on our annual camping trip. I was thrilled to come home and find that my mom had bought the kids Del Monte Fruit Chillers. I fell in love with them last summer when I was pregnant for SBW and my mom brought a WHOLE CASE to our house. They aren't something that gets priority on our grocery list, so you know I was doing a jig to find them. I am sad to say that I ate the last one tonight. Is it bad that the kids might have had one a piece? I mean, why should it be a problem, I saved them the Oreo's and popciscles that she brought.

And speaking of being pregnant last summer. Our SBW is going to be ONE in less than a month. ONE. One. one. ONE!!!! I just can't even believe it. He is taking some steps. It is so exciting. Oh how I love that sweet baby. And oh how I love watching his brothers and sisters care for him. #2 changed her first diaper last week. She is the only kid in the family that has changed one and she begged me to let her do it. I promised myself that the big kids would never feel like they had to do all of the work with the sweet baby. They love being with him and he loves them so much. Now that we've got the love all good, maybe I'll start making them all change the diapers. ha ha ha!

We don't have a lot planned for the rest of the summer. The kids earned free tickets to Fiesta Texas for reading during the school year. We'll take them there and it should be a truckload of fun. I am super excited to go to my school reunion at the end of July. That should be a hoot. We will probably spend a few days here and there with my parents, my brother's family, my cousin Codi and our fuzzins in Dallas (friends that are like cousins) before school starts. I hope the kids sleep late lots of days. I hope we swim a ton. I hope we read some. I hope we make it to the beach at least once. And watch movies. And look at pictures. And laugh all of the time. And lay low inside the house at least a handful of day. And do puzzles. We need to do more puzzles.

Oh how I LOVE the summer. I am holding on to every.single.minute for the next month.