July = our busiest month ever! So much fun stuff is awesome, but I feel like all I've done is pack and do laundry and re-pack. I'm 100% not complaining because this month might be one of my favorite months ever, just stating the obvious.
I'm gonna update our lives since Father's Day and what's been going on. Lots of fun stuff!
Big news is Cayden cut his hair! Yes it was his choice. I pretty much let my kids do whatever they want with their hair if they can take care of it. He wanted a hair cut because he said people kept calling him a girl. Boo! Of course he looks super cute, but it's a big change!
The next day Aaron and I left for Cali for the band to play at an Acts 29 pastors conference. I was not the least bit upset about having to tag along on this trip. It was a great time for Aaron and I, and we even celebrated our anniversary there. I was blown away by the leadership for this network and proud that our church is apart of something that desires to make known the name of Jesus and plant more churches that love God and want to share his good news!
Then one of my kids, Deacon, lots another tooth and if this kid wasn't cute enough already, look how cute he is with a tooth missing in his baseball hat!
Then our cousins came into town for a night and we had so much fun! Ryan is Aaron's cousin, and we just love their cute family! The kids had so much fun playing!
Then our family was blessed to be able to go to FAMILY CAMP at PINE COVE for a week and we had so much fun. It was great to be able to see my kids have so much fun and for us as a family to be away for the whole week together with nothing to distract us but each other! One of my favorite things was watching Deacon rock the BREATHTAKER.
Our friends the Gayhart's joined us for a few days and we had so much fun. Amy and I have been friends since the 9th grade, so that makes us friends for a LONG time and our kids have become such great friends as well. Amy's son, Jack, even swore up and down one time that he was cousins with the Ivey's. Might not be blood related, but we're definitely family!
Then Aaron and I headed out for a vacation with no work, no kids, no NOTHING. It was glorious and we had so much fun. We did a bunch of laying on the beach, watching sunsets, reading good books and riding around in our jeep. Dreamy, I know. I'm back in the real world & although I was so happy to see my babies, I was not happy to see all their laundry after they were at camp for a whole week!
*before you ask, no I'm not naked!*
While we were on our vacation, our boys were at THE WILD camp at CAROLINA CREEK CHRISTIAN CAMP and had so much fun!!! My mom dropped them off, and she said they never even looked back. I am still hearing new stuff each day about camp. I'm so glad Amos & Deacon were in the same cabin together.
God has been drawing Cayden towards him so much over the past few months and I know that God continued to do that in his life that week.
I am still doing laundry, and have even made the executive decision to throw some things away, because there's just no way they can ever be made clean again after a week of camp!
For their awards, Cayden and Deacon both received the “gentleness” award and Amos received the “respectfulness” award. I'm so proud of these boys for being brave while they were there, and for their sweet gentle and respectful hearts. God is for sure at work in all my boys lives!
Aaron promised Amos he would make him “Haiti Rice & Beans” all weekend and it just never worked out. We both knew that him leaving town with out upholding this promise would be devastating to Amos and so my sweet husband and awesome dad made rice & beans for Amos last night after all the kids were in bed. I think he crawled into bed around midnight, and then left this morning to go out of town. Amos was so excited that Aaron had done that just for him, that he ate them for breakfast, knowing we were having them for dinner tonight as well! What a great dad!
That leads me to today where I'm once again packing us all up. I'm leaving for London on Thursday, and that means my kids will be staying with friends until Aaron gets back. (I have some UH-MAZING friends) I know it's crazy how much we've been gone, but it's fun and I hope my kids have had the summer of their lives like we have.
My kids start school next week (year round school) and I'll miss that. Aaron will be on dad duty, and although he won't do everything like I do, he'll do it just like he does it and it will be awesome!
I'm gonna bet you don't hear from me until August, because I just can't write and do laundry and pack all of us at the same time. I have missed blogging my thoughts, but August will bring more normalcy (whatever that is) to our lives and I hope to get back on the blogging of thoughts more often. I have a few more articles in HomeLife and one in ParentLife over the next few months, so that's where my writing time is concentrated on!
My “year of motherhood” challenge this month is going awesome. Praying for my kids this month has been absolutely perfect, because that is exactly what I want to do for them when we are away from them. I want to cover them in prayer. I've loved the prayer calendar and it's challenged me to expand my prayers for them. So good and I'll update over at Inspired to Action later this month!
While I'm gone, I'm setting up some guest bloggers, and I'm telling you I have some stinking good writers as friends. They are awesome and have such great thoughts to share! I love them all!
Oh and did anyone notice my blog looks different? What the heck? A friend went in and did some updates and now it's all jacked and #1 I don't have time to mess with it, and #2 even if I did I wouldn't have the first clue on what to do. Oh need help!
If you made it to the end of this post, you are either my mom or dad, you are stinking bored at work, or the kids are napping and you are surfing the internet instead of folding laundry! Thanks for reading and have a great few weeks! See in you August!
