July's 10 on 10

10 pictures on the 10th day of the month (Monday).

{Document a snapshot of your life & find beauty among the ordinary things in your day! }

When I woke up, I found this Lego set put together and knew it had been a late night for Shaun and Aiden. He's definitely the fun parent.

Quiet morning at the river with the dog...its a good place to work out some tough decisions in my head.

Two of my favorite girls were running senior high church camp check in as I sent H off.

We said a fond farewell to Nana and Grandpa John. Our crew is a lot to take, but they do it so graciously and I'm grateful for the efforts they make to see us.

Doing the well-tread two-block walk to the old house.

Purposeful parenting in action....he's such a great dad.

 So. much. scraping.

Twinning. :)

MORE Legos from the Un-Birthday party and apparently its not acceptable for a set to sit undone for long.

I introduced J to Nicholas Sparks, in an effort to show her what romance/a good love story actually looks like. Turns out it has nothing to do with how many shades of a color there are...its more about a guy sticking around and loving hard after he has found out his girl is sick with cancer). She finished A Walk to Remember, so we watched the movie.

Project 365, Week 30

The kids went to Kids Camp with our church and H was at camp, so we had just the teens girls for the week. Easy!!

July 17

Looking through pictures online, I spotted my girl in pink shorts at Kids Camp.

With nine of our children off at camp, we seized the opportunity for a girls night out. What a treat to have an evening boat ride! It was perfection!!

July 18
Cooling off and exhausting the dog. :)

July 19
Such a sweet capture of my boy praying at the altar....so worth the price of admission.

Shaun and I snuck out for a dinner date. Its true love when, on a hot summer night, Shaun agrees to sit out on the patio instead of in the AC.

July 20
Somehow I always think of a picture after the fact. After my dear friend and I, who I don't get to see each other often, spend several hours catching up over coffee. We've been friends since the youth group days, so you can imagine how our conversations have evolved over the years. We acknowledged that we're getting old, since some of our talk was about our health issues and our decaying bodies. ;) But we both agree, being 40s is pretty sweet!

J loves it when I'm able to stay and watch her horseback riding lesson. Such a pretty scene when she's in the outdoor ring.

July 21
In the evening I picked up the (very tired) kids, after their week at camp. Aiden quickly dug into his Legos and then books.

We all went to watch Shaun play softball.

July 22
Post-church swim.

July 23
I dropped H off at camp. He's spending two weeks doing Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard with a small excursion team. But I'm the worst mom ever for making him go...oi! ;)

Amanda was hanging out with Shaun at the old house, being very helpful. :)

We are big fans of Tim Hawkins, so when I saw he would just over an hour away, I jumped on it. Rave reviews by all seven of us!

Project 365, Week 29

So thankful for summer and having the kids home. Whether we are working or playing, I'm glad we can be together.

July 10

We said goodbye to Nana and Grandpa John until November.

July 11
Amanda and I had an early morning as we took an elderly lady to the hospital for a procedure. While we were there we grabbed some breakfast from their brand-new cafeteria. I wish this picture represented the nice time we had, but Amanda struggles with not enough sleep, and apparently she got up too early this day. Hmm..

July 12
I put the minions to work on the cars.

July 13
Happy birthday to my Aiden guy. We are so blessed by his life! He had his best bud/cousin sleep over and they were up and ready to go early. He requested a scavenger hunt and Avery did a fabulous job creating one that brought us to several different places around town.

By the last clue it was pouring rain, so they thought it would be a great time to do water balloons. :)

July 14
Watching and learning.

July 15
On J's bucket list was a foam/bubble run so when I saw that one was close, I signed us all up. Pretty impressive that teens would get up to leave the house at 6:30 on a Saturday to run/walk. Sienna and Amy joined us with a couple kids and it ended up being a great time.

Later, I went back to the hospital 40 minutes from our house to pick up the elderly lady who was ready to be discharged (who I hardly know). While I was pulling up to the hospital, the social worker called me, saying H's bio family visit ended early and how should he get him to me. He ended up dropping H off to me at the hospital. Sometimes it hits me more than others...gosh, my life is weird!

July 16
I cleaned up my Acadia and posted pictures because we plan to sell it and get a smaller car that the licensed teens and I can share since we now have "The Beast" as our family car.