July Update

July.  It kinda came and went unnoticeably.  I've been keeping busy with lots of kids.  They come and go on different days.  I did decide this month that I'm going to stick to one set of kids at a time now.  The max I ever had was 6 at one time.  I think I'm good with that being the last time for it.  That should start to wind down some now that school is going to start soon and my friend's mother is recovered enough from her surgery to watch their little boy again. 
Anthony is keeping busy with his deacon duties, gaming, and making his game at work.  It's coming along nicely.  He has the major mechanics in place and he's including animations now.  I've been able to play it on the ipad and ipod that he is using from work and it is a good game.  It's fun to play and it will be free to download when it eventually comes out.  Currently there's no title for the game but one of the major themes of it is from this ad.

We had a church get together on the fourth of July at a member's home.  Later in the evening we shot off some minor fireworks at home in the backyard. 

The 3 heat waves have been interesting.  We've been hitting 100 very regularly.  With little rain all the plants have been dying off slowly.  The grass has been turning brown.  Even the crab grass and weeds have been stunted by the heat.  Now that's really saying something. 

My cucumber plants produced very well for a short time before sucumbing to cucumber beetles.  The squash and zucchini plants haven't been able to produce in the heat.  They look sunburned and wilted. The tomato plants have been green until just the middle of July or so.  I've been picking them consistently now.  The plants themselves are suffering under the heat but still making it.  Pepper plants and dill look great.  I'm finding little green and jalapeno peppers now.  The herbs are doing fantastic.  I have all of them in pots in the shaded area near the back of the house.  Things look pretty messy and brown, but that's how it goes.  We're still thankful for the produce we have.  It's probably a blessing in disguise because I don't know if I could have handled as much as I planted anyways.  :)

 I've been line drying just about all our clothes.  Nothing like a heat wave for drying clothes. 

Logan is doing very well.  He is gaining new words everyday it seems.  Yesterday I taught him the song, "If All the Raindrops were Lemon Drops and Gum Drops."  He can sing the end part.... "ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah." 

He's walking full speed now.  You can see the effect it's had on his belly because all his pants got a little droopy around the middle.  He's now into climbing onto the chair in our living room and next it will be the couch. 

He's getting pretty good with puzzles.  He's been able to put the circle and pentagon into place on the puzzle Grampy gave him.  He was able to figure out the Tumblir that Uncle Rob, Aunt Cathy, and Emma gave him too.  He's also loving the ABC dog that Uncle Chris, Aunt Melody, William, and Kenzie got for him.

He's fascinated with music boxes.  He can pull the tail on one of his stuffed animals and turn on music that way. 

He likes to push "duttons" to make things happen.  Anything mechanical or anything that can do something is really neat right now.  The vacuum tops the cake though.  You can't even open the closet or mention its name without having a little boy get all excited. 

We're currently working on using a fork and a spoon.  With Mommy's help with putting food on the utensil he can do it pretty well.

Here he is caught on video being naughty and trying to pull on the dog's fur.

August is bringing a trip to Branson for us and we're very excited about it.  Then Grandpa, Grandma, and Jay visit!  :)  Looking forward to it all.