Summer officially started a week ago. I’ve been terrible at keeping up with this once again. Got a lot going on ya know.

So let’s back up a bit and try to hit the big stuff.

Last weekend Paul and Shahena were in town. I think it was in large part because Patrick and Melissa were in town to celebrate his birthday. Tristen and I met them at some parties at Paul and Shahena’s apartment when they still lived here. I’m Facebook and Instagram friends with them and honestly didn’t know them well, but we all spent some time talking and enjoyed hanging out with them. Tristen pointed out that it was kind of cool hanging out with people you know mostly from social media because you kind of know them a little already.

There were actually a lot of us out that night. Sam and Berk came out too, along with a bunch of other friends of Paul, Shahena, Patrick, and Melissa. We didn’t know any of them, but we talked with some of them.

The night started out at Bluewater for appetizers and we ended up downtown, hitting up Growlers and Tavern Law.

I lost my credit card at Growlers, but it turned out that Becky, one of the people we just met, had the same kind of card as mine and accidentally picked it up. Of course, we didn’t find that out until after I’d already canceled my card.

As you may or may not know, I have Milly a lot more in the summer; from Sunday through Thursday. She had camp all week her first week of school, so I only saw her that Sunday and the Monday I dropped her off to leave for camp.

She had a great time at camp. Callie, her friend since they were maybe two, was there with her, so she had a great time. The thing she talked about most was the day they got to do OMC, Organized Mass Chaos. There was a lot of smashing people’s face with shaving cream and wrapping people up in toilet paper, that sort of thing. Of course she loved all that.

This week she had a half-day camp with the Thalian Association. The theme is fairy tale, so they spent the week developing characters and working on a musical skit.

Since Amanda wouldn’t really be able to work out getting her to that camp in the morning, Milly’s staying here tonight. Amanda did pick her up tonight though. They hung out with Amanda’s boyfriend, who has a daughter Milly’s age, then went to Carolina Beach to watch the fireworks.

On Tuesday I took Milly and Sebastian to see Toy Story 4. This was only the second movie Bash had seen in the theater, the first being Book of Life. He did great. I had to hush him a couple times, but he didn’t get squirmy or bored or anything. He was a lot better than a lot of the kids who were there in the theater with us.

The movie was very good. Toy Story 3 is still my favorite, and I think was a perfectly good ending for the series, but 4 was a nice sendoff as well. There was one point where Milly said, “That was heartwarming.” I’m glad she couldn’t see that there was something wrong with one of my eyes. Basically I’m saying that when it comes to Toy Story movies, I’m more sensitive than a 10-year-old girl.

Then again, I’m talking about the same person who was unmoved by the deaths of Dumbledore, Dobby, or Snape.

Milly’s been working on making a little animated movie. She’d been very into it and won’t show it to me until it’s done.

Tristen had a job interview on Wednesday. Just exploring some options. It would be a big change for us because she’d work later, but she’d have Fridays off.

Time is something that’s starting to stress us. Specifically, how little time is left in her maternity leave and how much time I’m going to be spending with three babies. Fawkes and Phoenix are starting to nap less. Their afternoon naps are nearly nonexistent. Add to that the fact that Griffin is on a slightly different schedule, which, in a way is just as well since I wouldn’t be able to give him a bottle while feeding his older brothers.

I need to look at our finances and see if it would make more sense to try to get a sitter for at least part of the day, or to get someone to assist with my work. One of those will probably work a lot better than me trying to watch all the babies and work at the same time.

Sans Milly, who, as I said, was with her mom, the rest of us joined the entirety of Tristen’s family (sans Johnny) at Wrightsville Beach this evening for a picnic and music. I played with my drone a bit, which I really wanted to do just because I haven’t had a chance to do it since we were in Rougemont.

Laura had bought a sort of wagon train with three sections and pulled Fawkes, Phoenix, and their cousin Gabriel around the park. The boys enjoyed climbing on things and even danced some.

There’s a lot of baby stuff going on.

Griffin is getting so big. Fawkes and Phoenix were really small when they were born, and even though Griffin was early, he was full term. I think that’s part of why he feels so big; I’m more recently used to smaller babies.

He’s smiling some, though I don’t think I’ve gotten any good pictures of it yet.

He’s a spoiled baby. He can’t stand not being held, and he particularly seems to hate the swing we try to put him in to nap. He prefers being on his stomach on a boppy.

Fakes and Phoenix are both starting to talk a lot more. They’ve really got “hi” and “bye” down. Phoenix is more apt to wave, usually doing two hands for bye, and he’ll blow kisses (really just putting his hand to his mouth, but that’s the way they do it for now). He does that a lot when you say “I love you” to him.

I think they’re trying to say “Milly.” They make some kind of “M” sound when she’s around sometimes.

Yesterday when I was feeding them some bananas they were saying, “Buh, buh, buh.” A few days ago I had been saying, “B-b-b-banana,” to them. You know, just trying to get them to learn what things are and all.

Neither boy is consistently walking. Fawkes can definitely do it, but he chooses not to bother with it much. Phoenix just today took more than a step or two. He’s got good balance when he stands, and sometimes he’ll even pick up his walker while standing, which is pretty impressive to me.

They’re signing very well. They’ve definitely got “eat” down. They can do “please” and “more” and they try to do “help” but they’re not coordinated enough to put their thumb up and it mostly ends up looking like a clap.

One of their favorite things to do of late is to honk my nose. Phoenix does it most, but Fawkes does it too. Fawkes, though, also likes to grab other parts of the face, particularly trying to gouge my eyes. or grab my eyebrows.

Oh, they also know “tummy.” They’ll pull up their shirts and point to their belly buttons, and they’ll try to do the same to me and Tristen, which they think is pretty funny.

I’m sure there’s more going on, but it’s hard to remember it all.