Maycie

Maycie was talking in her sleep again last night.

She said "I love you mom."

Bret and I both started laughing.

Probably the best sleep talking night ever.

Sisters

Have I ever mentioned how much I completely admire the girls? I am constantly amazed by them. They are so much smarter, funnier, loving than I give them credit for. They have the best memories, which sometimes gets me in trouble, and the sweetest voices. I know I've mentioned, never on this blog though, loads of times about how blessed I am to see the relationship of sisters. Honestly. Not having a sister growing up I didn't know what it meant to have one. I never wanted one. Well, maybe once or twice but that was it. I love my brothers. They were the greatest friends a kid could ask for. We did everything together. We were rough, tough and punched each other when we wanted to say I love you. Brothers are great! But as I see my own girls grow and learn from each other and the bond between them strengthen, my heart wishes I had a sister.

When Haylee was in school this last year she would come home and teach Maycie the song she had learned that day. She taught Maycie how to raise her hand when she has a question. I think Haylee has taught Maycie more than I have. I love watching the way they work together. They will sit quietly coloring or laughing their heads off because one of them made a silly noise. Haylee has an extreme amount of patience for Maycie, and has since the day she was born. When Maycie was a baby, Haylee would be the first one to sing to her, give her a binky, or try to comfort her. Maycie downright adores Haylee. It happens at least once a day that Maycie will get hurt or upset and she turns to Haylee.

Haylee has always been the protector of Maycie. She isn't afraid to stand up to anybody, especially if Maycie needs help. I can't even remember all the times Haylee has confronted a group of older kids and demands to know who pushed her sister down. I love seeing this. I know that when Maycie gets olds she will always feel safe. When I was in elementary school I remember one afternoon quite often. School had just ended for the day and I was playing with my jump rope outside. I don't know why but I set it down for some reason. After playing on the playground for a while with my big brother Dallas we had to walk across the blacktop on our way home. That's when I saw a big 6th grader playing with my jump rope. He wasn't jumping with it like it was meant to be used, he was whipping the rope around and stretching it out and stomping on the handles. Watching this kid play with my jump rope like that made me mad, I wanted it back. I shyly told Dallas that was my jump rope. To my surprise Dallas walked right up to this kid and told him that it was my jump rope and he needed to give it back. This kid proceeded to shove Dallas and tell him to mind his own business. The words went back and forth a little bit then they started punching each other. I'm sure my eyes were the size of softballs. I was so scared for my brother. I remember screaming at Dallas to forget the jump rope, I didn't care about it anymore. I was so shocked that my big brother was in a fight because of me but what he said at the end of the fight is what has stuck with me. He was holding the jump rope in his hand and said "Don't ever mess with my little sisters stuff again!" That was the end of it. I grabbed his backpack and we started running for home. The entire walk home I was so proud of my brother. I knew that if I needed it, he would be there for me. I know he had a bloody nose and a stretched out shirt but I didn't care. At that moment he was my hero. I hope it doesn't take a fist fight for Maycie to understand how much Haylee loves her. But if it ever happens, I know she'll never forget it.

From the time Maycie could crawl, Haylee has walked slower so she could keep up. One day I took a picture of it happening as the two of them headed towards the park. I have seen this repeat over and over again, it melts my heart every time I watch them head off together. Sometimes I can't help but take a picture. I know I have enough of these to make a book but to me, each picture is a picture of pure love. I have a couple of my favorites to share. I hope your heart goes "awwwwe" when you look at them because that is how I feel every time.

 

 

My cousin Jen took this picture. The picture itself is beautiful but the quote she added to it makes it perfection. I get a little teary eyed each time I look at this one.

 

Golfing!

As part of preparations for his golf tournament last week, Bret spent a lot of time with his golf clubs. Thankfully some of that time was spent at home washing all his clubs.

 

 

The girls had so much fun "helping" him! They even got out their golf bags and started washing their own. That only lasted for about two minutes when it all turned into a huge bubble fest.

 

 

 

After everybody had sparkly clean clubs we decided to go get them dirty again!

 

I LOVE the way Maycie golfs! She hits the ball as it she were playing croquet. She stands almost straddling the ball then swings the club out in front of her between her legs. 

 

I love watching Bret golf. This has always been the one thing that he loves to do. He's completely focused and in his element. That's why it doesn't bother me that he goes so much.  It makes me fall in love with him all over again when I watch him do something he loves. When we were dating and first married we would go to the driving range quite often. We would take Haylee in her little infant carseat and she would watch us practice. When she was no longer happy just sitting in her seat we slowly quit going. Then Bret moved to Vernal and we quit going all together. Last summer we decided it was time to start golfing again. We bought Haylee a set of clubs from our friends for $15! Can't beat that. I love that we've been able to make this an activity for the whole family. I enjoy this time we spend together. The girls love it too. They kind of get mad at Bret when he goes golfing because they want to go with him.

 

I want to get the girls in golf lessons someday! How cute would that be?!

 

Maycie only wanted to hit the pink ball. After a while she got tired of retrieving it and started playing her own game...

 

Seriously, how adorable is Haylee??

Home Improvements!

When you live in a trailer you don't get to do the more exciting home improvement things like painting or tearing out walls. What you get is more like changing the window treatments every day. And by window treatments I mean blankets hanging up to keep the heat out.

Wow, I just realized how trailer trash that sounds.

 

And you thought I was kidding, didn't you?

Someday all the décor will match.

 

This is how you install curtains in a trailer. Lovely isn't it.

 

 

Now that you're all laughing... Look at that light that comes in!

 

 

 Moving on now, the other day we added on to our house! All it took was 10 seconds and we have a new room! We Bret figured out that all it takes to put our awning down is the simple push of a button. Literally.

 

Awesome isn't it!

 

 

We walk by this thing a zillion times a day. Its right in our hallway.

 

 

 I push buttons on it at least once a day but I've never noticed, or connected the "awning retract/extend" button with the actual awning that is outside.

 

Bret put the awning down for the first time and it was amazing! It made things instantly cooler and now we can enjoy dinner outside more.

 

 

 

Its been great! The girls love playing under it. When its out they say they are playing in a tent. We've tried to be super sneaky so they don't learn how to operate it. Hopefully they don't catch us. I love how convenient it is. We can't leave it out all the time because of the wind so it definitely makes things easier not having to do it manually. I mean it might take us a whole 10 minutes if we had to do it by hand! Life would be rough. All joking aside, its just another little thing that makes me realize how lucky we are. We are so blessed to be having this experience. I realize so many families don't even have half of what we have. I really am one lucky girl.

Oh the carwash

Isn't the carwash such a joyful place?? Yeah, I feel the same way. Luckily this carwash was just built in the parking of the laundry mat so I don't have to hang out with my feet in the mud getting sprayed by dirty bug water that comes off the truck. It works out perfectly!

 

Haylee has always loved helping Bret wash his trucks.

 

 

Maycie on the other hand wants to stay far, far away!

 

 

I don't know how many times Bret had to rewash the front bumper after the girls found the bubble supply. It was kinda funny.

Why did I think this would work??

Yesterday was a busy day. We spent the morning in town with Bret doing laundry, washing his truck and shopping. He is in a golf tournament that started today and goes through Saturday so we wanted to spend some time together. When we got home he was invited to go on a "practice round"... they said it was necessary and had to happen before the tournament started. Sounds like a bunch of lame excuses to me. ;) Us girls decided to do something fun. Any guesses on where the little ones wanted to go? That's right, the sprinkler park. We spent a few hours there  and by the time we got home and ate dinner I was exhausted. I turned Netflix on and we laid on the couch watching Tinker Bell. It took everything I had in me to stay awake. Bret finally got home about 10:30, Maycie fell asleep right after he came home so I decided to just let Haylee finish a movie while I went and talked to Bret. Well, I'm pretty sure it took a whole 2 minutes for me to fall asleep (completely on accident). At 1:58am Haylee woke me up with the most excited voice, "Mom! MOM! Wake up! You have to come see this new show I'm watching! Its awesome!" Yes, she was indeed up all night watching kid shows. I thought for sure she would just fall asleep shortly after I left the room. I don't know why I thought that... she doesn't ever fall asleep with the tv on but it seemed like a good idea at the time. This was her this morning, ALL morning:

 

Do they need more parenting or less??

I've realized over the last week that maybe my kids need to get out more. Maybe they need more exposure to the world. Maybe they need more variety. Maybe I need to back off a little bit. Maybe they need to venture off on their own more. I don't know. Who really knows when its the right time to let your kids make their own mistakes? I'll tell you what I know, if my kids keep doing things like this when they are left to make their own decision, something awesome is bound to happen...

 

 

Maybe I should use sunscreen more?? (bahahaha yeah right) They have no idea how to use it!

 

Balancing watermelon act. Think she can make it to the circus?

(I'm soooo happy this didn't break open with her standing on it!)

 

 

Sleep talking...

Maycie talks in her sleep ALL the time. It cracks me up. She says some pretty funny things that I tell myself I'll remember but after I wake up again in the morning, the words are gone. Except for last night! Middle of the night, she started laughing, I mean full on laughing then she said "Haylee your jammie pants don't go over there" she giggled for another second then said "you're silly." Some nights I can get her to say more things by asking her what she is talking about. I wish I could have gotten more words out of her. I would like to know what Haylee is doing in her dreams!

4th of July Celebrations

Our 4th of July was a little crazy this year. Its hard to make plans when you're married to a roughneck. We didn't think Bret would be here so I didn't really plan much of anything other than to have hamburgers for dinner. Maycie is terrified of fireworks so I didn't plan on even watching any. Turns out, Bret was able to make it home in the afternoon. The only plan I changed was getting sparklers for Haylee. I knew I wouldn't have been able to do them on my own but now that Bret was here I figured we could celebrate a little. When it got close to dinner time we were invited to a last minute company barbeque. The guys had set up tables out in the middle of the driveway and were going to cook hamburgers and hot dogs. (I was happy we didn't have to cook!) Bret's rig is the only one working so those two crews were not here but everybody else was. It was fun getting together and meeting lots of new people. With the night crews sleeping during the day and the day crews out working we might see one or two guys here and there. Its easy to forget how many really live here! I always like the girls to be dressed festively, especially for the July holidays. When I found out we would be out in public I started digging through the two bins of clothes that I have stored in my car.  I found two dresses that I made for Haylee when she was younger. One fit Maycie and the other fit Haylee. It was a little tight around the top but she said she wanted to wear it. Everything worked out perfectly. We had dinner provided for us and we had a nice long evening with Bret.

 

Here we have Haylee playing football with the guys. She tried so hard to catch the ball or run to get it but never actually did. That didn't bother her though!

 

 

She LOVED the watermelon! I don't know how many slices she ate, she was in heaven!

 

 

Maycie sat on my lap, very cautiously, eating cheese puffs.

 

 

I asked the girls to go over by this chair so I could take their picture... Maycie would NOT get off my lap. Now when she looks at this picture she says I shouldn't  have taken the picture without her.

 

Just on a side note, this was the most stressful firework show of my life. People were just lighting them off all around us. There were kids running around with those lighter sticks, the ones with red hot tips. People putting those loud bombs by groups of people to scare them. Well, I'm pretty sure Maycie was the only one who was scared. She was in tears and crying to go in. She is so noise sensitive this was torture for her. We tried to keep her entertained and away from the group but it didn't last long. We tried to distract her with sparklers but she wasn't thrilled about it.

 

 

 

She glared at me with this face when I asked her if she wanted more:

 

 

Not happy. (Yes, that is a bruise on her forehead. She fell off the swings and landed flat on her face)

Haylee on the other hand was excited to play with sparklers. We had a bunch of different sizes, different colors and different spark levels. Seriously, some almost shot flames!

 

 

 

One family picture!

 

 

After hours of being a nut case due to the lack of supervision, safety and not being able to keep Haylee to stay a safe distance away from exploding things; I finally took her aside to have a little talk, I think I scared her to death. I told her she has to stay far away from the fireworks and she was not allowed to touch any until the next day. Some kids were grabbing them as soon as they quit sparking. I told Haylee she couldn't touch them because they could explode in her hands. Seriously, I scared her... but it worked! She even made sure to protect her friends.

 

 

I took this picture shortly after 10:30pm. See how light it is!? 

 

At this point Maycie was scared, tired and in tears. I took her in to watch a movie but she called Grandma Julie and Grandpa first. She talked to them for a few minutes then it was my turn. By the time I was off the phone Maycie was sound asleep in my lap. I laid her down, covered her up and went back outside.

 

 

We had a fun night together. I'm glad our original plans of doing nothing changed!

Hope you all had a great 4th of July!