My Girls and the Fourth

Here's the thing. Being a mom is hard and kids are hard. And I write a lot about the struggles of being a mom.

But my girls are great. They are wonderful. I have so many good, fun times with them and they make me laugh and make me think and make me love them so much I swoop them up in my arms and cover them with kisses. And they always yell "Mom, put me down!" (Actually, Eleanor yells "Mom, put me go!")

I don't want my girls to read this blog one day and think that I wasn't happy. Yes, it's hard, but my girls make me very happy. They are beautiful. They are funny. They are smart. I love love love love Lia Jo and Eleanor Christine. I love it when Lia makes up stories. I love it when Eleanor tries to talk and starts yelling because we don't understand her. I shouldn't laugh but it's cute. Lia loves giving me hugs and kisses and Eleanor's grin is the most adorable thing on the planet. And sometimes she grabs my face and stares into my eyes and jabbers very seriously and I have to keep a straight face. Lia is so observant and amazes me with some of the things she says. And guess what--they're learning new stuff every day. They are getting really good at taking turns and saying sorry. They are the best!

Girls, if you're reading this, I LOVE YOU FOREVER! Even when I yell and get frustrated. This is new to me too. I'm learning as I go. You are the best two kids anyone could have!

The girls got some cute princess dress-ups from their Grandma Shawny and they love them!

Not smiling, but she also loved being a princess.

I woke up to them giggling and found them like this in their room.  Love them.

Also, I realized I never blogged Independence Day. Dustin took some of his vacation days, so we had a week and a half to vacation. For the Fourth of July we went to Circleville. It was fun because, here's the thing about small town parades. You get TONS of candy. We were sitting several feet away from people on both sides, so the people on the floats would toss us handfuls of candy and the girls had zero competition for it. They thought it was heaven. People were throwing them candy for free! They got probably three times as much candy on the 4th as they did on Halloween.  They had a lot of fun. They loved the fireworks that night too. We had a lot of late nights, which always makes cranky kids, but we had fun.

We also went camping one night while we were there, with the "other Penmans." It was super fun to go camping again; I haven't been camping in over a year! Lia, Eleanor, and Carson got soooo dirty and had a blast running around in the wild. We brought a little potty seat and put it on a bucket so Lia wouldn't have to go potty in the woods, and she thought it was hilarious and crazy. "Mommy! We don't pee in a bucket! That's so silly!" Love that girl. We didn't get a lot of sleep that night but that's camping, right? I kept checking to make sure the girls were warm enough. And get this--didn't get a single picture of the entire camping trip! My bad.

We got back on Tuesday afternoon (our house was 95 degrees!). We still had the rest of the week to spend as a family, so we did some fun stuff around Salt Lake. We went to the zoo, the pool, a movie, and a Jazz summer league practice game with the girls. It was really great to just spend time with the family, and it was especially nice to have Dustin around.

Lots of candy!

Eleanor was tired at the parade. She kept leaning her head to the side and saying, "I tired." and pretending to sleep.