Brothers and Summer So Far

Henry and James are all about dressing alike lately. It's super funny to see how proud they are when they come downstairs together. And as a bonus, Henry is happy to tackle the task of getting James out of his Spiderman pajamas. Striped shirts and blue shorts, sneakers for shopping day.

I found this photo lying around of Henry so I recreated the moment with James. James does not like the fireman hat as much as Henry did.

James is only here for the promised sucker.

James is nearly a year younger than Henry in these photos but he's wearing these clothes now! Today he's wearing a shirt Henry wore to preschool. Yikes!

Our lesson on Sunday was about things the Holy Ghost does for us. I asked the kids to draw pictures for teaches us, testifies of truth and Christ, and warns us.

I love Henry's picture for "teaches us." This is a student saying "you should follow God."

The kids are in full swing of their summer break. I had them each make their own chore chart. They decided what they would work towards (Culver's shakes, Chick-fil-a kids meals, ice cream cones, etc) and I tell them how many stickers it will take. They can earn up to 2 stickers a day by doing their morning and evening jobs. We've gone to get their rewards once already so I think it's working great so far. They seem to be motivated and I like that they get to decide what to work for and make the charts.

Another thing saving my sanity are these colored bands I bought from Amazon. Now my kids can keep track of their cup all day long and my dishwasher isn't full of cups used once.

Sarah spent an alarming amount of time watching a music video to memorize pie (3.14) to like the 30th decimal place. 

Meanwhile, Erica surprised me by learning to ride a two-wheeler without anyone's help. She practiced on her friends bike. Now we need to get her a bike of her own.

Erica made this design at Nana and Papa's house and wanted her picture taken with it before we left.

Justin's Visine eye drops from his vision correction surgery turn out to be like $1,000 ounce. I thought it was the most expensive thing at Walmart until I found this eyeliner. The challenge is on to beat $2500 per ounce.

I've spent the past week thinning our peaches. There are so many this year!  I swear I kept 1/6 and they grow in bunches like grapes.That's what we get for not pruning. Can you see Sarah? She climbed in the tree to reach what I couldn't.

We need to eat up the ones in the freezer from last year.

Wednesday night Justin and I attended the Best of State awards dinner. His company received the best in Civil Engineering award. Here's Justin trying on the medal.

This is the owner and a couple of other employees. It was a fun night. I appreciated the efficiency in passing out dozens of awards. Dinner was good, the entertainment was good, I got to dress up and hang out with Justin so that's always a win for me.