More from July

Mom & Dad went on a (another) cruise during the last week of July. They flew out to Los Angeles and traveled down the Mexican Riviera, visiting beautiful places such as Mazatlan, Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vaillarta.

While the parents relaxed and had a blast.. their offspring remained at home managing the fort, trying to not be too jealous of "the rents"! Although, we didn't complain too much since we always love it when the parents are gone! When Mom's gone, Sera's rule apply:

Naps for the youngest two are chucked out the window
(They are hardly take them anyways, and that means they'll sleep longer at night time)
Dinner time is whatever you can find
(The first few nights before we had gone to the grocery store, pb&j sandwiches became pretty common!)
We "forget" to take our vitamins
(Who wants to take those anyways?)
Bed time is pushed farther back
(Again, they'll sleep longer at night, and wake up later!)
A nightly movie is in store for the oldest five
(Something fun to do)
Mountain Dew, Asher? Sure!
(Remind me to NEVER do that again!)

Between work, cleaning, feeding children, transporting them to all of their various activities, cleaning some more, grocery shopping, organizing, laundry and all of the other "Mom" duties.. I didn't have much time with my camera except the few photos below!

Our fashion diva

Always sporting a smile on his face.

Our two sets of twins..
Ivy & Elly and Esther & Emma

A Few Other Photos I Happened to Take:

My Projects:

1. Re-organizing the Refrigerator & Freezer
(Yes.. we do drink that much milk..)

2. No more toys in the Family Room!

3. The pile of toys gathered between our playroom and family room..
all went to a friend's garage sale!
The pile actually doubled in size by the time I finished cleaning out the girl's whole playroom, but I forgot to take a picture of the new clean, organized playroom!

And the worst part of the "Mom" duty:

The scene of the crime.

More evidence.

The criminal, who was sentenced to a night of jail time.

The story: Emma had taken a nap on Mom & Dad's bed and ended up having an accident due to oversleeping, and probably a little bit of stress. I stripped the bed, and in the process of washing and drying the sheets we all went to evening church service that night. Normally, Elly is kept in my parent's bedroom so she doesn't have full run of the house. Well, when we came home that night I went to put new sheets on the bed since they were going to be home later that night. I was horrified to see every child's nightmare- a huge stain the dog had deposited that looked like a size of Mt Everest and as if that wasn't horrible enough, it had been done on the costly Tempur-pedic mattress!!!!! To say I was a little furious with the suspect, would be an understatement. Let's just say the criminal spent the rest of her night in doggy jail.
And fortunately, after an hours worth of scrubbing with Oxi-Clean and some Febreeze, the stain was gone. PHEW!

All in all, fun was had by all. The parents enjoyed a relaxing vacation, especially since Dad is an unfortunate work-aholic and has been pretty stressed latly. The kids enjoyed a week of "No Mom" and all seven of us being together. I leave for college on August 16th, so this is one of the last times I'll be able to spend with ALL of them before school starts.