A Month of Days

 July is a month of special days.  Fourth of July lasts for several days in our house.  Then, there's Cow Appreciation Day, which is a big deal!  Lastly, there's Pioneer Day, celebrated by the members of our church.  It was a good month.  I've already documented the 4th of July festivities so we'll start with Cow Appreciation Day.  The kids absolutely LOVE this day.  They were so excited to get to go inside of Chick-fil-A and play on the playground.  Luckily, we saw some of our friends there and it made the whole experience more sweet.  We threw our "costumes" together at the very last second in the car.  Next year I will try and make some cute costumes.  Jenna just dressed as herself but the rest of us dressed up like cows.  It was a fun afternoon.

 Pioneer Day turned into Pioneer Week.  I really, really wanted our kids to feel the spirit of the pioneers who sacrificed so much for what they believed.  I looked up tons of stories about the hardships they had to go through and shared them with the kids each night.  We had a family home evening on pioneer life.  Bedtime stories that week were all about the miracles the pioneers experienced.  We even ate a meal that reminded us of pioneer life.  On the actual day, we had the kids dress like the pioneers did and went on a one mile walk.  We wanted them to see what one mile felt like and then explained to them the pioneers walked for more than 1100 miles in cold, hunger, and exhaustion.  I think the kids got a real sense of who the pioneers were, and that was our goal.  It's so important to remember who has gone before us and why we have what we have today.

 My little pioneer buddy.

 I also wanted to document this daily occurrence in our house.  Every night I put Jenna to bed as I rock her to sleep in her room with a bottle.  While I'm doing that, Josh is reading books to the big kids on the couch.  And every night, without fail, Daniel falls asleep mid-story from a long day of playing.  We think it's sweet.  After I put Jenna to bed, I come in and scoop up Daniel in my arms.  I take him to his bed, tuck his covers around his tiny body, brush his hair with my hand, and give him a kiss goodnight.  I love that little boy.