Here’s a peek at what we were up to this past month!
July is one of our most packed months of the year. We have five family birthdays, including Jake’s and Tommy’s, and we celebrate a couple of close friends’ kids’ birthdays. In addition to the birthdays and 4th of July, we fit in a day trip to Chicago and a bunch of excursions in southeast Wisconsin.
We had a low-key 4th of July at home. My parents took Tommy to the local parade in the morning while Jake was working. Then Jake shot off a few bottle rockets and the kids did crackers with him in the driveway. The weather was beautiful, and the kids got to have a lot of time in the yard.
The day after the 4th, my parents and I took the kids to one of the zoos for a few hours.
We celebrated Tommy’s birthday buddy’s birthday before their actual birthdays.
On Tommy’s actual birthday, he opened his presents from us and my parents. We all went out to dinner and then had cake at home.
Our local adoption agency holds an annual picnic. We had beautiful weather and record attendance this year.
There was a sponsored adoption event at Bear Den Zoo and Petting Farm. A couple of my adoptive mom friends and I took our kids.
My littlest sister-in-law came back from Texas one more time this summer for Tommy’s birthday party. She wanted to see the kids an additional time that week. On about one day’s notice, I hosted her, my in-laws, and my nieces for a couple of hours the night of the Bear Den event and the day before we went to Chicago.
My brother’s wife works in Chicago every summer. We always make at least one day trip to see her and my parents. Tommy’s been asking about it for months. We had a lovely visit that included lunch at one of our favorite restaurants and a lot of time at a local park.
Tommy’s rented bounce house arrived over 24 hours before his party. The older three kids had the best time jumping in it on their own that day.
Tommy’s birthday party day is one of my favorite days of the whole year. It’s one of the only times that we get our parents and Tommy’s birth family together at once and also get to connect with so many friends. But I was still dragging my feet about it this year. I’m very burned out on hosting, and I didn’t know how it would go including his classmates for the first time. But it was great. Parents could drop off his classmates for the first two hours, and then our family, family friends, and neighbors came for the next few hours. The older kids got lots of time in the bounce house on their own, and then Tommy had more bandwidth to socialize with everyone who came later.
We made the trek to Bookworm Gardens with some friends. It’s a lot of driving for a day trip, but it’s always worth it.
Jake and the kids and I met up with my in-laws for an evening at the local county fair. The older three kids had so much fun climbing the tractors and riding a few of the rides.
We wrapped up the month with a morning at one of the local play spaces. We set up Annie on a lounge chair with a few toys, and she was content in that spot for the first half an hour that we were there. For the record, the device next to her is 100% a toy with simply a picture of a screen.
You can find all of my baby/toddler updates for all of the kids as well as general family updates and other family-related posts in the family section of the blog.
