Recap

Blogging has been pretty hit and miss these last several months.
I don't know why, really.  Or maybe I do--I just can't really put it into words.

The weather has been a little cray-cray here lately, jumping from beastly hot to downright chilly.  On Friday night the younger kids and I sought temperature asylum at my parents' house.  (They have air conditioning.)  My parents were out of town for my dad's class reunion; it was a little like having a party when your parents are gone....all the guests (except me) were underage but we kept it really mild.  As in, we got there about 9 pm, I swished them through the tub, put the little girls all to bed, let Bipper and Elijah watch half of a movie while I cooled off in the tub with a book to read, and then put them to bed by 10:30.
Our 2nd washing machine quit working which makes it so easy to fall VERY behind on the laundry so I brought along several loads to wash while we were there.  I stayed up until about 1:00 am doing laundry, slept until my bladder woke me at 3, switched another load and couldn't go back to sleep until 4.  My dad's alarm clock went off at 5; I frantically tried to shut it off before it woke any little people.  Elizabeth had a bad dream at 5:30 so I laid down next to her and then Abram woke up at 7.
So while I wouldn't exactly call my evening away from home "restful", it was certainly MUCH cooler and I got a lot of laundry washed, dried, AND folded.
Our house just has NO circulation and heats up so much on hot, humid days that don't cool off at night that about once or twice per summer I end up taking kids over to my parents.  It's feels like it's either that or end up in the news:  "Minnesota Mom Completely LOSES IT in Furnace-Like Living Conditions".
We never are able to take a vacation or time away so maybe this sorta counts.

Today was actually pretty chilly, which was actually pretty helpful as this week begins our County Fair.  Linnea spent all day washing and clipping her own animals and also those that her younger siblings will be showing.  It's much more tolerable on a cool day than a beastly hot one!

I'm bummed that my camera stopped working a couple weeks ago.  It's a dslr that Dennis let me get about 4 years ago after a particularly good bean crop after having gone for a year with no camera.  The auto-focus quit working and I canNOT figure out why, nor how to fix it.  Very sad me.

New Baby is growing and is now causing some discomfort from time to time.  I feel pretty good to have made it to 29 weeks with my 11th child without much discomfort at all!  I generally feel good, I just need to put my feet up for about 15 mins a few times a day.  Yesterday, I had some pretty bad hip pain that made my work very difficult to accomplish but today is better.

Abram has taken a step now and then, but other than that he has no real interest in walking.  He will definitely be the latest to walk of all the children so far, but today I caught a glimpse of why that might be.  They were outside playing on the cement in front of the garage.  Ivy was driving her toy car (after she and Elizabeth settled their very loud dispute from when Elizabeth took the [toy] key and ran off with it, leaving the [toy] car inoperable) and Abram was standing alongside it.  As Ivy "drove" away, Abram stayed standing on the cement.  The kids were all "LOOK!!  Abram is standing!  He's not holding on to anything!!!  LOOK!!!"  (I was looking, for the record.)
At this point, Elizabeth ran over, cooing "Ooooooh, Abwam!" and tried to "help" him stand, so of course he immediately

sat down.

Delayed walking may be a bit of a defense mechanism for 14 month old boys with 2 1/2 year old sisters.

And that's about all I can string together for a post tonight.