Joie @joie6000 - Tumblr Blog

Give her the opportunity and she’s blasting Stacy’s Mom no matter what.

It was only fitting he wash down all of those office snacks with Lou Malnati’s and a Levain cookie lunch.

Gardetto’s, fig bar, hot chocolate, smoothie, and a bowl full of gummy bears all before 8:30 AM.

I casually mentioned at dinner that it’s “take your kid to work day” soon and this kid was alllllll in. I’ve sold the snacks there so hard that he couldn’t miss a chance to see what Chicago office life is all about.

Cutest thing was when we walked through the very large atrium he said, “are these all of your friends?” Dude, I don’t know any of these people.

Abby and Ava love Catholic camp. The name isn’t even Catholic camp but I legit don’t know much about it except it’s free because the church pays for it and Abby chose not to get confirmed Catholic so I don’t really know why the church pays for Abby to go but anyways….they talk about it all year long.

And throughout the past few years these girls have accumulated multiple pairs of matching Walmart pajamas. 7 matching pairs to be exact. One for each day of camp.

They FaceTime for hours (even though Ava lives like 3 blocks from our house) before camp planning out their pajamas and the order to wear them.

And they’ve decided already that next year they will go back to camp and would like to sprinkle in some new options. I know I’m enabling this especially because I’ve told Abby many times I think I had maybe like 3 pairs of pajamas total growing up and I just wore men’s boxers and a crappy tshirt but again the camp is free and my line in the sand isn’t 15 dollar pajamas.

Every day during Catholic camp they have mass. Abby texted me this after one of them.

When she got home from her trip we talked a lot about this. “It feels like some of these people are just hypocrites.”

Ding ding ding!

Texts from the proudest PawPaw about his first granddaughter.

Just selecting which chickens would go to which house.

I said, “I feel bad these chickens only get a coop and not a huge area to run and explore.”

Abby: Do you feel worse for the chickens or the people who don’t make enough money to feed their families? These eggs are important to them.

For being born a Texan, she’s definitely an Austinite.

One thing that is completely awesome about Abby is that she does not shy away from the hard stuff. This week was Catholic camp and she headed down to Memphis with some friends to work in rural Tennessee.

This church camp specially does not put you with your friends for the day activities as they encourage you to meet kids from all over. This year she got assigned chicken coop building as well as working at a food bank. For 4 straight days, she built chicken coops for low income families in the middle of nowhere. They had to build them in a graveyard because the houses they were delivering to were not particularly safe….one had dogs chained up to trees surrounded by broken down cars, the other was making moonshine in jars.

It was 95 degrees and 75% humidity every single day and she didn’t complain once. “Mumzy! My day was so fun!” “We worked under a wasp-infested tarp but I didn’t get stung! And there was an almost naked guy walking around the graveyard with a machete but he left us alone!”

Some of these texts were VERY worrisome but it’s hard to break Abby’s spirit. She loves a service project and has very little fear about anything.

Proud mom over here!!

My almost 15 year-old.

Abby has also started her “very best summer” life and is at Catholic camp right now. She got assigned to building chicken coops for poor families. I wouldn’t say we are the most skilled of craftsmen in this family so apologies to the recipients of said chicken coops.

But she’s loving life so that’s good. I’m guaranteeing she’s going to swelter in the Tennessee humidity but kids are resilient and she already told me that whatever she forgot to pack she will just DoorDash so this free camp might end up costing a fortune.

Weightlifting: 9:30 AM

Golf: 11 AM

Tennis: 3 PM

School Basketball: 4:30 PM

Travel basketball: 7 PM

Came home at 9 and looked at stars and planets until 10 PM.

Ben is loving this summer. And I’m about ready to hire either of his cousins to be his chauffeur.

Me: did you think about taking off your sports bras before trying on a nice dress?

Abby: that’s way too much work!

And this photo was the best of the bunch because these two goobers always gotta be weird.

The last day of school. The last time as a 7th grader. The last time he walks through those doors.

Ben was accepted at the gifted high school, which starts in 8th grade. Hundreds of kids apply and they take 60.

This wasn’t an easy decision to leave his friends and his sports teams and his comfort zone but he wants harder classes. He already has a list of colleges he would like to attend (Texas, North Carolina, Michigan) and knows a good high school might get him there.

So donuts for the whole grade were in order as well as a heartfelt thank-you for all the people there that made this boy who he is today.

Me: girl! Let’s go on a long walk! We don’t even need to talk. You can listen to your own music and I’ll listen to mine.

Her: fine, but walking is kind of cringe. Can’t we just run the 4 miles?

Me: I’ve already run enough this week. Walking it is!

Around mile 3 she says, “it’s time for us to race in the 100 because I swear I can beat you.” Frankly, I’m thinking “not a chance” as I think I’m much speedier as she’s been running distance this year.

Well, she beat me. She’s like, “I knew it! I knew I could beat you!” I gave her a high five and said, “just to let you know, I had pee running down my leg after the first step.” She got completely grossed out and I said, “wait til you have babies and you lose all that function down there and breaking out in a full sprint opens the flood gates.”

It’s been 13 years and STILL the effects of childbirth love to rear their head when I least expect it.

And lastly….these were all texts from boys on the team. Boys get a bad rap - they may drive me crazy with their “bet” or doing the exact opposite I want them to do but they have huge hearts!

I walked up to this group of 8th graders at State and just started crying. “You guys are so good to Ben. You’ve been the best to coach. I’m so grateful for all of you!” These kids that absolutely dwarf me gave me the biggest group hug.

Gonna miss it. So I’ll probably be back to coaching soon because you never know how some kids might need a coach who will not only tell them “you guys are making me absolutely lose my mind today” but also will listen to every problem they bring me.

Another one I loved getting …

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