JULY!

This is Carma saying "Seriously Mom? You expect people to care about July three months later?"

so glad I can embarrass her even at such a young age :)

Okay, a lot of July was already covered - the weekend of the 4th, Courtney's visit, etc, so now here's everything else from the month, starting with girls' night:

Emily and Nicole were noticeably absent, but Paulina's sister-in-law Shantel came and kept us entertained/horrified/enthralled by the story of her recent motorcycle crash and recovery. Girl is tough.

And these pictures just kill me... hahahaha.

Carma got to meet and snuggle with two of her second cousins, Kara and Rachel :).

Our big Relief Society activity in July was a clothing share and swap and it was fantastic/exhausting/hilarious/labor-intensive/gratifying/humbling/fun and so on. We invite the community (via craigslist and fliers distributed to as many homes as possible in our neighborhoods) and have drop-off times on Friday morning and evening, and then the actual swap was on Saturday morning and afternoon:

Sooooooooo many clothes. And people. And hours of walking around and greeting people and refolding clothes, haha. It really was a great experience - I love seeing people come in and be so amazed that it's all free and be so thankful.

And here's some of the clean-up crew:

Love all the helpers, especially sweet Canon! He was a superstar all day!!

And to reinforce the bit about how tiring it all ways, here is a super attractive picture of my nap the next day after church:

Carma stayed asleep longer than I did...

Grandma Pam came over one day looking extra nice, so I corralled the boys for a group shot. It went suuuper well:

 We're calling this one a win.

 Oh, here's a picture of me with my handsome, clean-shaven-for-the-first-time-since-early-May husband:

And the story: remember how Chuck had a beard? Well, one Saturday night I made a Walmart run and while I was gone Chuck shaved. And it took me another 14 hours to notice, haha. I didn't notice when I got home... or the next morning when he made me breakfast... or when he said good-bye on his way out the door to his before-church meeting... or when I showed up at church. But boy did I do an awesome double-take halfway through sacrament meeting!!  

 Random after church picture of my boys:

 

 Oh, one day we had to get an oil change... like, we really had to; Chuck was leaving with the van for Scout camp late Sunday night and I had forgotten about it until the day before. I would not really highly recommend taking four kids to Walmart on a Saturday afternoon for an oil change buuuuut thanks to at least an hour in the lego aisle and an exciting game of hide and seek tag [that I was SO sure would end in a serious injury] amongst all the tires, we all made it out alive.

 This picture just makes me laugh; Jack is highly attentive and decided to line some things up for Carma while she slept:

 Oh yeah, have I mentioned Carma's hemangiomas? [proud parenting moment: it only took me two tries to spell that right] She has that small one on her back and then a bigger one on her tummy.

 Ahh, another sleeping child picture... they might be my favorite thing, haha:

 Clyde spent July reading Percy Jackson books like a crazy man and hoping that Chuck and I would sit him down at some point to break the news that ours was in fact a Greek God-mortal marriage and that he would soon be installed as a resident at Camp Half-blood.

 Sometimes I glance in the back of the van (such as this moment getting ready to leave speech one morning) and I can't believe there are four small(ish) beings that I'm responsible for. ..

 And depending on the day/hour/minute, that thought is either so, so happy or so, so terrifying... well that's a lie, it's usually both :).

 Sometimes I lie down on the couch with a sleeping baby and arch my eyebrow and take artistically-fuzzy selfies:

 Can I just say how much better I look artistically-fuzzy?? Not that I think I look bad normally (I have probably a higher self-esteem than is actually warranted), but I feel like my skin looks particularly amazing when pixelated...

 Chuck was the gone the last week of July at Scout Camp but thanks to his cell phone and wi-fi, we were able to text a lot, which I obviously think is totally cheating (they're in the great outdoors! the internet should be non-accessible!) but I went along with, sending him all these pictures while he was gone:

 Including pictures of the kids reading the letters he mailed them!

Okay, and finally, here's a video from mid-July of Jackers spelling all of our names because he's a nut:

 And that's I think it for July. Hold on tight, I'll probably get 'round to August sometime soon! ...maybe...