Surviving Recruiting Season

July is probably my most dreaded month of the year. Daniel is gone more than half the month with recruiting. My kids are all home so it is harder than the basketball season when we get breaks from one another while they are at school. Of course during the season I will probably claim it is worse, but for now I am whining about July. 

Here's what we did during Daniel's first long trip of the month.

Lemonade stand. This was on our summer bucket list and Sadie made the sign back in June to prepare. They ended up making $13.80! I guess that's the advantage when you live on a somewhat busy corner.

Hair cuts. Cookie Cutters is one of my girls' favorite places. They beg to get their hair cut. Sadie decided she wanted to cut off her long hair. I didn't think she would actually do it, but she followed through.

 It is not fun to bring Millie. She doesn't get her hair cut, but she does run around wreaking havoc.

 Elise was the perfect patient, as usual. She happily watched a show while she got a few inches trimmed off. It is weird to have the switch of hair lengths. Sadie has always had much longer hair, but now it's Lou.

Visit from the Cottles. We met up for dinner at the Alpine Splash pad and then played at our house for a bit after. 

Lots of dress-ups. I took these pictures to document Millie's increased interest in the costumes.

Book club. Elise made a friend and they were very cute.

Several trips to the pond and various local splash pads. Camille loves to throw sand and it is annoying.

Early morning pictures sent to Daniel. 

BBQ with some neighborhood friends. Millie has guts when it comes to trampolines (she is in the red skirt). She did not want to get off that thing all night. A bunch of 8-10 year old boys jumped and she still wouldn't back off. She got tossed around a lot, but loved it and terrified me.

Pizza picnic at the park. Sadie stared at a dad and his 2 sons while they played soft toss. The dad invited Sadie to play and gave her lots of batting pointers. It was adorable. As we were leaving he ran up and offered Sadie a small mitt. He said his daughter doesn't use it anymore. Sadie was beaming. Such a nice guy. Millie was out of clean clothes so she walked around with a onesie and leggings. Little ragamuffin.

Macey's grocery shopping. We get the 30 cent kids ice cream at any time of the day. Whether it's 10 AM or 7 PM. Although the one time they ate it at 10 AM it was slightly runny since it hadn't had time to harden. 

Millie tantrums. These 2 pictures were taken about 3 minutes apart, with the tantrum coming first. I think she was crying about wanting to hear Child of God so I told her to play it herself and she did.

Dance parties. You can't just have a dance party in any old get-up. Gotta commit. Tights and leotards.

More Camille sadness. She is definitely a bit dramatic but she cheers up quickly. Her tantrum abilities are nowhere near what Sadie's were at this age.

 More book club. At this point I have no memory of which books she did, but I love that the girl takes so many picture of the kids. I also love that Elise is so authentically herself. Check out her pose in the third picture below.

Donut run. Camille changed her mind 3 times about what kind of donut she wanted and I wouldn't give in. She finally picked off each sprinkle individually and was then satisfied.