The joys of mothering Braxtyn...

Oh my. Where to begin, my deepest desire to have a sweet little girl. To dress her up and do her hair and wash the marker of the wall, and wash the candle wax out of her hair and the bag balm and the gum, and ok, so I wasn't counting on all that went along with my little girl. She is precious and she is full of IT. IT can only be that Daniel and I wonder how such a big personality resides in such a compact little body. She just screams of confidence and determination, her walk, her talk and her stance all spell out who is in control. I admire her, I adore her, I can't wait to see her as a woman with a purpose. A little girl with a purpose, well it makes some days pretty challenging but the day always ends in laughter. I just spent some precious one on one time with her on the couch giggling about her birthday coming up this week. She will be 4 on the 21st, she is quite aware that this is a big deal and the entire family must prepare. We have now planned her birthday day activities with our immediate family. The meal, the colors, the outfits, the cake flavor... we take birthdays very seriously at our house. And then we planned the Under The Sea swim party at uncle Josh and Aunt Brittany's house the following weekend. It has a mermaid theme with lots of family and swimming. I ask her what she really wanted for her birthday and she got this silly laughter and told me long pink hair, a long nose, big teeth and big feet. She couldn't stop laughing and well, neither could I. When we got serious about it, I realized she has no idea, just a bunch of girl stuff.
Last week my favorite conversation went like this:

Braxtyn: Mom, I changed my name.
Me: What is your name today Braxtyn?
Braxtyn: Chamber, she is a very smart girl who loves peanut butter and jelly and doesn't like mustard.
Me: Where did you come up with the name Chamber?
Braxtyn: I don't know, I just like it.

This week my favorite mistaken conversation went like this.
Doni: Tori is making me crazy, getting into stuff.
Brooke: Well I can finally say that at 4 years old, Braxtyn is finally past it. I don't panic every time I can't find her.
Doni: Oh great, only two more years of this!
Later that very night, at family night, we are all watching the kids dance in the living room and I don't see Braxtyn...Aunt Becky spies her dripping wet covered in sticky makeup. Oh no...the girls had been doing approved makeovers with Karsyn's makeup...well Braxtyn had decided to wash up.
Famous last words...eaten.. as I enter Aunt Becky's powder room to find the floor covered in water, the sink blocked up with toilet paper, her good towel covered in red lipstick and the toilet seat stained with glitter. And as Doni walks into see the mess, we look at each other and crack up in resignation.

The joys of motherhood....

As you might guess, I love being Noah, Graham, Braxtyn and Cozette's mother... there are some days that make me question my sanity and well, other days that make me question their sanity!

Sweet Face

We will start with Cozette: Sweet little face, loves walks around the house, goldfish, takes long naps, and enjoys the water. All sounds like the perfect little baby....yes, well its her love for water that has found me in a panic. All mother's worry their children will find the toilet and put their hands in it and be gross, well we have gone beyond that...

Trouble Face
Funny Face!

My garden's growing green $$$

Yes, you may call me a farmer. ... I am happy to report the garden is still going strong and in fact the following pics are of the food we picked out just two days ago!

And now, the reason I crowned myself with the "farmer" status....well I was able to make a profit in vegetables...yes, that's right my squash and cucumbers brought us $35 bucks on Friday. OK, I realize this is not a salary or anything, but I only spent about $10 planting this year so it actually paid for itself. So now let me show the pretty pictures of our "green" greens!

My little buckaroo's

Graham and Braxtyn spend a lot of time playing together while Noah is doing his school work. On this particular day, they decided to dress up like cowboys and do some roping. Braxtyn is wearing one of Graham's old shirts. In the following video Graham was roping the can but I encouraged him to rope Braxtyn. She was no too happy with us!

Summer

Summer, it is too hot to do very much but even peering through the heat waves we have found some fun!
The kids are swimming everyday is our little backyard pool, its pretty big with a small filter, just enough water to keep them cool. The library reading program has helped us stay on track with Noah's reading and our last month of first grade! Yeah we are almost done and will have August off! I'm gearing up for schooling all three of them next year....Ahh!
Thursdays we have been frequenting the $2 movies, Cozy is not so good at it but we manage:), our neighbor, Daniel has been hanging out with us and being a big help, as he is 12 and loves to entertain my boys. They all love baseball so this is a great past time at night in the arena.
This week we have our sweet Jacqueline with us. She is also 12yr this year and has been so fun to have over. My kids are fighting over which room she sleeps in. So they are taking turns having her camp out in their rooms. Cozy thinks she is a babysitter that I might leave her with so she has yet to let me leave the room and just play with her. LOL!
Today, we went bowling. Noah has be dying to bowl and we had free bowling coupons for the kids, so we headed out. I ended up taking our neighbor Daniel, Jackie and all of my kiddos. We had a great time, 12 year olds are awesome! I can't believe how quickly we got loaded and unloaded from the car and how easily we managed to bowl for almost two hours and everyone was entertained! I barely beat them at bowling but had to hold my own or the boys would have never let me live it down. I can't say I'm a pro, maybe you could even say I'm terrible... 78points with the bumpers up....ok ya, I'm painfully bad, BUT I won and that's what mattered today!
Tomorrow its back to the movies and Friday we will go the library. Lots of laundry, major groceries to feed everyone, but all in all we are staying cool.

Last weekend we escaped to the woods for a camping trip. I can't say it was relaxing, but the kids had such a great time. The memories were worth every exhausted part of me. We got to spend part of the time with the Main's and the other part with the Simpsons. I know we will do it again even if it means we don't sleep and we work all day:) The cold nights are so worth it. ..
I finished Cozette's baby book and I'm very proud to say that my fourth child will have a memory book to call her own! That has a lot to do with a certain SIL of mine:)

Our garden is still thriving, we have squash and zucchinis coming out of our ears, speaking of ears the corn did not do so well this year. The cucumbers, melons and tomatoes are looking beautiful and my okra is coming back from the bunny attack. I'm going to try to plant some pumpkins this week, we'll see the Bermuda grass is trying to take over. I should just give in next year and make that the backyard it will at least have grass in it.

The summer days have been long and full this year, we are not through it all yet and I expect there to be much more to come in the next couple of months. But as I'm learning to take each day and just let it happen, God is working things out in me... so I don't have to try so hard. Enjoying life is so much easier when I release my semblance of what I though I controlled. Ha! We'll see if I remember these sentiments tomorrow:)