Week in Review: #5 Turns 15, Summery Things, and 24 Years of NFP

 Happy Last Day of July!

Alexander Blaise turned 15 this past weekend, and he loves to remind me how big of a baby he was (almost 9 pounds) and how fast and hard my delivery of him was (3.5 hours, no drugs, big and long baby with a 3 foot umbilical cord, wrapped around his neck twice).  But he was worth it!!!

Somebody was thrilled to finally be a big sister at 3.5 years old!

Xander was the FUNNIEST little kid.  Almost all of my "That's What He Said" posts are about him.  He loved to eat and would tell me I was "the best cooka ever".  He loved to suck his thumb while holding anything with a tag.  Even a bag of garlic would do:

Xander loved music and would pick up a drumstick and say "And a one, and a two, and a one, two, three, four" before he started to play.  He would dance or clap and tell me he was "just feeling the beat" so we knew from a young age he would be musical...and he is!  He won many a piano competition growing up, and even though he stopped piano lessons when he went to high school, he can be found playing popular songs by ear on the keyboard.

After informing us that he was retiring from soccer at the age of four (I told you he's funny) we never found a sport he liked until he finally joined the swim team at age 12.  He swam on the team for a few years, and started running on his days off from swimming because he realized that he slept better when he exercised (he's also smart) and then switched to Cross Country and Track in high school.

And now he's 15 and about to be a (young) Sophomore in high school, so I guess he can't be called a "little" any more.  He got a new phone for his birthday and he's now able to be part of what was "The First Four" group chat and has now changed to "High Five" to include our 5th born.

Andrew took him out to breakfast after Mass, and the night before he went to see The Odyssey with Andrew and some cousins.

He spent the day at the beach with his friends, and then we had Weiner schnitzel, mashed potatoes, salad for dinner, and cake and ice cream for dessert:

The kids made him nice cards and bought him some gifts, as well as a promise to see the new Spiderman movie tonight!  A very good birthday indeed.  We love you Xander B... to the moon and back and back again!!

Let's see what else happened this week?  Photo memory commence!

A lunch out by the sea with my honeybee

Cousins in the ocean

A girl's day shopping with Maggie and then to lunch at Cava (my first time)

Declan went to a Revolution soccer game with a friend

Fireworks!  He didn't get home until 11:30 pm...much later than his 8pm bedtime.

Phil and I took Brendan out to dinner while everyone else had plans or was working

Playing not correctly at the playground, again.  Declan and Brendan both went to STEM Camp this week, and then Declan also had Soccer Camp in the afternoons, so they were engaged and tired, which is just the way I like my summer boys to be.

3D Printer Fidgets from STEM Camp

Brendan loved his new Minion shirt, which he's worn three days this week:

Terrible photo of a fun night hanging out with friends and heading to a Portuguese feast at a church nearby:

Sneak peek of Brendan doing a home workout to complete his summer chart for the day.

Maggie's been hanging out with friends all the time, each time saying that it will probably be the last time before college, and each time it is not :)

Andrew met up with friends from his high school soccer team and they played for 3 hours one night.  He also joined up with a running club in our town for an evening run.  Exercise is better with others!

I had my yearly physical this week, and sent Phil this photo when they weighed me and I was shocked with the number on the scale.  Must be broken ;)  Or muscle weighs a LOT more than fat...yeah, that must be it.

JP has had his first full week of school, and hopefully his fortune comes true:

That beautiful, but muddy water Pittsburgh view

We've had a rainy week, but there's no rainbows without rain:

I missed NFP Awareness Week last week, and I've already talked about NFP way too much over the years, but I do have a new method I'm using that I thought I would share.  When we were first married, we used the Sympto-Thermal Method, then moved to a modified Creighton Method, then to the Marquette Method (Clearblue monitor and test sticks) and after 15 years of that, I am now wearing an Oura Ring and using that data.  I did overlap use of both the ovulation monitor and the Oura ring until the Oura ring got enough months of data from me.  It has been so much easier to just make sure I'm wearing the ring and that's it!  I spent over $2000 on monitors (two) and test sticks (57 orders through Amazon) so the $400 ring is a good financial option.  I'm old enough now that I mostly kinda sorta know what I'm doing, but the ring gives me that reassurance I still need.

And that's a wrap on July!  I hope you all have a great August weekend!