July Fun

It's hard to top our trip to Arizona, but we managed to have a lot of fun after we returned throughout July. I can't believe August is next week and school starts in 2 weeks, ahhhhhhh!

The day after we came back was July 4, so of course, we had to participate in the neighborhood golf cart parade. We did about 10 minutes of decorating and got up there as quickly as we could - that 2 hour time difference is no joke!

Only picture I took of the parade, oops!

Some of our friends came over and we hit up the pool and then had a potluck dinner and sparkers to round out the night. It's so fun doing life with friends you've had for literally decades!

Keaton and Paige - the 2 littlest girls with the biggest personalities!

One of our Summer Bucket List goals was a night of golf and dinner at the club. It's been so awful with the heat that we turned that into hitting golf balls and dinner.

Three little golfers who got real hot and whiny

Trent is super into a card game called YuGiOh and a local {well local-ish} gaming store has tournaments! Brent's nephew, Branden, is also into YuGiOh, so he came with us. Trent had a blast!

The Gurley cousins!

Super successful at keeping her in her bed!

A very nice surprise from Brent!

Who wants a fun story about books? There was an author event in my little town with Katherine Center {whose books I very much enjoy}, but I couldn't go because I had plans with a friend for a wine night. Well, Drew was attending a creative writing workshop at the bookstore that was hosting the event. When I went to pick her up, the author was there signing books ahead of the event! I was able to buy the book, get her to personalize, and then we chatted together for 5 minutes. SO AWESOME!

Oh you know, just a picture with an amazing author!

That same night Drew started practice with her basketball team, yay!

So excited she's trying something new!

Previously mentioned Wine Night!

We also kept our neighbor's dog, Sarge, for 4 days when they went to the beach. The kids are gaga for Sarge, and he was so good! Getting us ready for our dog...hopefully next summer!

Enjoying his first pup cup!

Brent was out of town for a golf tournament when we had Sarge, so I had bed partners!

My niece was also baptized in July! See, I told y'all it was a busy month!

And we had lunch after the Baptism service.

Babs and Pops, the OGs

The Swope Six!

I ended up bringing my niece and nephews home with us to have a Cousin Sleepover {another Bucket List item}, and the kids had a blast.

Nothing better than reading a book while the kids swim!

I made a gourmet dinner of chicken strips, french fries/tater tots, apples and carrots!

My buddy while I worked on Monday. XO

Another day we met up with Sarge's family {ha!} and had lunch and went to a local frozen treat place. Paige had the 'Let's Go Party' milkshake - a cotton candy and bubble gum milkshake with whipped cream and sprinkles, and it came with hot pink sunglasses!

Another day, another dog walk. But this time with the puppy of the family Trent walks for.

Before and After of Paige's fun eyeshadow - 

doesn't she look like she partied too hard after waking up?

The girls love when other instructors let them get on stage!

Me taking notes during a YuGiOh lesson, ha

Gosh, I'm exhausted after reminiscing over our July! I'm usually ready for school to start, but I'm not there yet. We are having the best summer!

Oops

Y'all. Somehow Brent and I made a big parenting mistake. We managed to avoid this mistake with the first 2 kids, but here we are...failing with #3.

Paige is sleeping in our bed. Like every night. 

We went through the same thing with Drew - when she came out of her crib, she came into our room, she went into Trent's room, she wanted to sleep in random places - it was basically a disaster. We put her on a pallet on our floor, and eventually she stopped waking me up and would just get on her pallet, and then after a while stopped coming in. 

Paige is truly a dream child in so many ways. But NOT sleep - she has consistently been our worst sleeper. She had every sleep regression known to mankind. I really didn't think anyone could be worse than Drew, and she has proved me wrong!

When she came out of her crib, she was scared to fall asleep in her bed. I don't understand why, but she was. If I sit in her room while she falls asleep, it's not a problem. I sit in her room in the glider and read on my phone or work, and as soon as she's asleep I leave. I've never had to do this with either of my other kids, and Paige was content to go into her crib awake, so this has been a surprise. Almost a year later, we're still doing this, and I have no clue how to get out of her room. So that's been problem one.

THEN, to add to that, she comes in our room EVERY night in the middle of the night. We had her sleeping on a pallet or the couch in our room {just like Drew} and things were moving along. But now she cries if we try to put her on the couch, and we let her in the bed. And she won't go back. How did this happen?

Brent asked her the other day why she wouldn't sleep in her bed. Her response 'I sleep in the middle.' We are screwed.

Paige-isms

Man oh man...this little girl of mine is giving us a run for our money with this crib transition. So while I go slightly crazy from all the crying and lack of sleep, I have compiled a recent list of funny things she has said - she is SO funny!

And a few fun reminders that she used to be such a sweet sleeper...

One day when I picked her up from school and asked her how her day was, she responded 'I didn't do my homework.' This cracked me up for so many reasons. First, she's in preschool and second, she's at a Montessori school - neither of those result in homework, ha!

She loves to put makeup on. She stole some of my eye shadows and keeps it in the playroom. She wanted to put makeup on me the other day and gave me an old baby monitor {which she calls her phone} and told me I could watch play-doh {what she calls her movies on YouTube} while she did my makeup.

I asked Paige one morning 'Do you want pancakes for breakfast?' to which she replied 'I want candy and ice cream!' Don't we all, baby girl, don't we all!

She has turned into Drew when it comes to creative names for songs. She kept talking about the song about high school. I figured out she was referring to 2 songs - The One That Got Away by Katy Perry that starts with the lyrics 'The summer after high school when we first met' and The Long Way Around by The Dixie Chicks that starts with 'My friends from high school, married their high school boyfriends'. Drew actually helped me figure both of those out!

At dance, Paige was waving around a magic wand and saying 'Boppity boppity woo!'

She chops the 's' off a lot of words that start with an s and another consonant. Like smell is mell, stink is tink, skunk is kunk - too cute!

She was pooping the other day and was talking about her 'poop-gina'!

She was playing with this little pretend house where she can crawl through the door and one side looks like the inside of a house and the other is outside. She usually pretends it's her ice cream shop and she'll call out 'Ice cream for sale!' But she loves to ring the door bell and calls it the ding bell!

Drew has several fingerlings, one of them being a panda named Drew! Paige was holding it and said 'Panda, you smell!'

She told me the other day when we were snuggling in my bed after she woke up 'My eyes hurt. You are blowing your air on them.' So sorry for breathing!

In the car she was playing with this purple sloth that we got at the San Diego Zoo and she was pretending it was a crocodile. It alternated from kissing her baby to eating her baby???

On one of our nightmare evenings of putting her back in bed 100 times, she kept telling me about different parts that were hurting while she wailed. 'My knee huuuuuuurts!' 'My baby finger hurts!' 'My tooooooe hurts!' I told her her body parts hurt because she kept getting out of bed and her body was tired and needed sleep. She promptly followed that up with 'My body parts hurt! My body parts hurt!!!' 

OH PAIGE! 

Back on the Rollercoaster

I mentioned last month that we were preparing to move all the kids around in the coming months. Well, we took a first step Sunday night...albeit an unintentional one. {grin}

How cute is this face? And YES we went swimming on Sunday!

And we went on a golf cart ride.

I showed you those pictures because Paige is the sweetest, most content, happiest, joyful little girl and pretty much always has been...except for 1 category: SLEEP CHANGES. {Remember some of her terrible infant sleep regressions? Yeah, they haunt my dreams still!}

She has started getting a little harder to get into her crib over the last few weeks. Wants an extra hug, fusses a little, cries after I leave to where I have to come back. But she had stopped climbing out of her bed and was mostly okay, so we kept on with her in her bed knowing we had the big room transition coming up.

Well, Saturday this escalated - she SCREAMED and CRIED when it was time to get into her crib - so hard and much that it was like she was scared of her bed. It took me quite a while to get her in her bed Saturday night and Sunday for her nap, but I got her down! Unfortunately, it quickly escalated at bedtime Sunday night to her being basically hysterical. And of course Brent had been gone Saturday - Sunday getting his deer stand and some of our family land ready for deer season. 

I took her mattress out of her crib and put it on the floor but she was still crying. I tried to stay in her room until she fell asleep, she turned her mattress into a trampoline. I finally took the front off her crib and converted it. This was after 9:00 PM which is the perfect time for an unplanned bed conversion, ugh.

My least favorite parenting phase - the converted bed phase!

[well, not counting the newborn phase ha]

I decided to employ an old Super Nanny strategy I remember from WAY back in the day - just walk her back into her room over-and-over without stalling or talking much. That probably happened at least 20 times and I would put her back in bed, tell her I loved her and I'd see her in the morning. Sometimes she was pulling on my clothes before I was even out of her room! But I prevailed and by around 10:00 PM she finally laid down and went to sleep.

Success!

[It never gets old seeing her suck her thumb, ha.]

She woke us up at 6:30 AM because she fell out of the bed, but I mega count this as a success! I woke up probably 5 times and looked at the monitor thinking I heard her waking up, it never happened!

Last night I put a toy bat under the sheet and mattress protector to create a little barrier and hopefully keep her from falling out - I told y'all I wasn't prepared for this transition! BUT I only had to walk her back into her bed TWO TIMES! The second time she kept begging me for a hug, and I got her back in her bed, gave her a hug, and she laid down, inserted her thumb, and didn't make a peep again.

Might I finally have a kid who transitions out of the crib easily?!?! It'd be about time!

Our Bedtime Routine

A few months ago, I wrote about our morning routine, and I wanted to also talk about our bedtime routine. I love having these posts to go back and remember life at certain phases - not sure if anyone enjoys these posts, but that's why I like to write them. {grin}

We're in an interesting phase with the ages of our kids - like we are with most phases since our kids are so spread apart - but we have 1 kid who is capable of doing everything independently and another who can't do anything!

During the school year, my goal is to have Paige in bed between 7:00 and 7:30, Drew in bed between 7:30 and 8:00, and Trent reading in his room around 8:30. The summer is a lot more relaxed, but I would say on average it's about an hour later in the summer.

After dinner we start our bedtime routine with some assortment of children showering/bathing - they may not all be bathing but usually Paige does because she loves to take bubble baths! We aim for getting clean every other night on average. Trent showers by himself and the girls usually bathe or shower together in our bathroom. This is where I struggle - I want to also do some family clean-up time after dinner but haven't figured out how to fit that in there too...but it sure would help in my constant quest to keep the house picked up.

At this point, we've got everybody clean {or we skipped getting clean}, and Brent and I are dividing and conquering to get the girls in pjs, teeth brushed, etc. while Trent is usually trying to eat his second dinner. I also try to clean up the kitchen somewhere along the way, so I usually ask Brent to do the pjs/teeth while I clean up.

Now if I'm home, Paige loses her mind if I don't put her to bed. If I'm gone, she's happy as a clam to let Brent or anyone else put her to bed. But if I'm home - which I am 97% of the time - this one's on me. So Paige and I read a couple of books, we sing a couple of songs and in bed she goes. We have some quirks here - she sits in the rocking chair while I sit on the foot stool to read, she has to turn on the fan/off the light, we have to get 1 particular blanket to cover up with while we sing. Once she gets in her bed, she has to be covered up with 4 blankets. Yes, 4. Her bed is FULL of babies and toys, I sometimes wonder how she is comfortable!

Sometimes Brent puts Drew to bed, and that consists of some sort of silliness - he flies her around like an airplane doing all sorts of stunts quite often. {one of my personal favorites is when he turns the sink on and puts her feet in the water because it's raining on the plane}. If I put her to bed, we snuggle and read. Right now she's very into the Magic Treehouse books. We take turns reading, and she's doing so good! We snuggle after reading for a minute, and then I leave.

Trent will either read to himself, listen to an audiobook we've downloaded from the library, or he and I will read Harry Potter together. We're currently in book 6! For the kid that used to give us SO much grief at bedtime, we will just say 'Go to bed.' and he goes. It's amazing!

We've worked really hard to have the kids sleeping independently, staying in their beds, and not needing a lot of help falling asleep. It's TOUGH at times, but it's so worth it! I dread transitioning Paige out of her crib, because that's always a tough transition, but I know we'll survive.

And that's our bedtime routine!

Dell Match Play 2019

For the second year in a row, I got to go to the Dell Match Play! We have had such a fun time going, and I'm so glad Dell signed another contract to keep the tournament in Austin - more years of going in our future!

This was also an exciting weekend because Paige SPENT THE NIGHT AT MY PARENTS'! She is the best baby ever...except when it comes to sleep anywhere but her bed, and the grandparents have been scared to have her stay over. So Brent cashed in his 2019 Christmas present from my parents and asked them to do it. My mom said yesterday she was glad Brent pressed them to do it and get over their fear!

Not a great picture of me but love this view!

Tiger Woods played this year!

Rory McIlroy

And that was the extent of the golf watching that I did, ha. Lots of eating, drinking, and chatting with my girlfriends the rest of the day.

Friends {Both of these ladies are in book club with me}

Jennifer~Susie {also my neighbor}~Me

Everyone we came with

After the tournament, we went to our hotel, got cleaned up and went to dinner. And then half of us walked to a bar nearby and sat at a table next to Tim Riggins...well, technically Taylor Kitsch. If anyone is a fan of Friday Night Lights, you'll know who I'm talking about. I have only seen like 3 episodes - which is funny given then filmed it in Austin and used my high school and hometown as the 'town' and based their uniforms on my HS teams...but I've not finished the show. BUT Susie LOVES the show, so she was freaking out that we sat beside him for hours ha. Never spoke to him or anything but took shady stalker pictures. {grin}

The next morning, Susie needed to work, so we all went to Starbucks to have breakfast. The boys left after awhile to go to a bar - they couldn't hang in Starbucks for too long. I read a book while Susie worked, so it was heavenly ha.

Had to document Brent's first trip inside a Starbucks!

We stayed in Austin most of Friday and then headed to our side of town in the afternoon and ate dinner and watched basketball and then went to another friend/neighbor's house...and things got a little silly.

Taking shots...and not milk shots...but I don't remember what they were.

We stayed up way later than we should have, so sleeping in on Saturday wasn't quite as fabulous as I hoped originally. BUT when we got the kids, we found out Paige had done really great and was so proud of herself for sleeping at Babs and Pops like the big kids do! She didn't fall asleep until after 11:00 and was up at 7:00 but slept through the night once asleep! Yay!

Not enough sleep makes for car sleeping!

And that was our great adventure with this year's Dell Match Play. Can't wait to go again!!