Talking about summer after it's over

Summer is over; how did that happen? But I'm not done talking about it. Isn't it strange how something so normal can all of a sudden seem terribly dear and poignant just by virtue of being looked back upon? These pictures already seem to depict a Happier Time. (Not that we are unhappy now. But these memories have the benefit of nostalgia, suddenly.) 

Anyway, besides our lovely trip to Oregon, here are a few other things of note from the summer:

• One of our maple trees had some kind of scale moth…*shudder.* I hate how they look on the branches, like some kind of weird fungus. Sam read that ladybugs will eat them, so we bought some ladybugs and released them onto the tree, hoping for the best. I don't know if any of the ladybugs stayed around for long, or if they helped get rid of the moths, but we sure enjoyed watching them and letting them land on us!

Gus was very excited about it all.

Ziggy was too!

• Daisy has been waiting ALL YEAR to get to go to the temple for the first time, and we were finally able to get an appointment in July! She was so happy. It was lovely because Abe and Malachi and Sam and I all got to go with her (Sebastian had something else going on that day) and it was our first time back at the temple in over a year too. I couldn't take my eyes off of Daisy while we were there—she was shining with happiness and goodness. I love her so much.

We went out for breakfast afterwards, of course!

And here is a bonus picture I just found from FOUR YEARS AGO, the first time Sebastian went to the temple! I was pregnant with Ziggy. Look how young Seb is!

• Our neighbors' yard has the most beautiful daisy border in July. It makes me want to pull out all our flowers and plant only daisies!

• And speaking of daisies—this one turned 12! She was hoping the baby would come on her birthday and be her best birthday present. No such luck, but she had a good birthday anyway—a new daisy dress, cheeseburger pie for dinner, and volcano cakes for dessert. Yum. Junie and Daisy and Teddy picked her a birthday bouquet and made her lots of cute pictures and cards. It was a happy day!

• This was a fun sight we saw one evening—three couples swing dancing on the hill. We sat outside and watched them for awhile, which I hope didn't embarrass them, but don't choose the top of the hill for your practice session if you don't want an audience!

• Another day. Twins on the hill. I think they're solving their Rubik's Cubes in this picture.

• This is…I don't know. Ziggy "being" something or other.

• And THIS is the table after Ziggy helpfully set it for dinner. Next time we need to fit 22 place settings at the table we will know who to call. And, having mastered the art of table setting, Zig has decided that he's ready to move onward and upward. He comes to me every night while I'm making dinner and says, "What can I do to help, Mommy?—I don't want to just set the table. I want to do something important!"

• Goldie found a recipe in The Friend magazine (or somewhere?) for yogurt-covered strawberries in the shape of fish. She was DYING to make them, and when I finally brought home some strawberries from Costco, she was overjoyed. She made these little fishies all by herself and they turned out so cute!

• Gussie wearing a big shoe.

• Gus hugging Caw while he sleeps (surrounded by TOO MANY animals).

• A few weeks before the baby was due, we decided to change around a bunch of rooms in our house. Move the girls downstairs into Sam's office, move the little boys into the girls' old room, and move Sam's office up to the little boys' old room. (It all sounds kind of depressingly futile when I put it that way! Round and round.)

We had thought, when we first moved here, that we'd move Sam's office upstairs someday…but he's been spending more-than-anticipated amounts of time in there, what with BYU classes being online all year, etc., and it seemed like it would be nice for him to be upstairs in the daylight instead of downstairs like a mole person. (Though luckily the basement room was very nice too. It has a nice big window.) But really that office room (which used to be the little boys' room) is the best room in the house; we've always thought so. So much light and a great view of the hill and the mountains. We both love being in there. So, that room became Sam's office and my sewing/craft/present-wrapping/other random stuff room, and we even put a soft chair in there so I could nurse the baby.

Isn't it nice? I love the magnet board with all my yarn on it. Sam's idea, of course.

The former office has the biggest closet in the house! Way bigger than our master closet. So it seemed like the perfect room to move three girls into. But the closet also didn't have anything in it except rods, so we got some shelving at Lowe's and built a bunch of new storage into it. The girls all helped build shelves and drawers and install them. It turned out so nice! There is room for ALL of their clothes and shoes and things, without any other dressers or chests in the bedroom! And I even was able to fit the boxes of old baby girl clothes to size 7 (all the stuff the girls have grown out of, basically) in there too.

All that shelf-building had to happen before we moved anything (especially because there were a million random boxes in that closet of things we hadn't wanted to get out until the office/bedroom situation had resolved) and then there was SO much stuff piled around waiting to be put where it was supposed to go! I was worried we had been a little overambitious in starting this project so soon before my due date, but with the girls enthusiastically pitching in, and the big boys helping take apart beds and carry big furniture (only when pressed into service, but willingly enough when those times came), it actually went pretty fast.

Everything looked so nice when we were done. (There is also a trundle bed underneath those bunks where Goldie sleeps.) The girls were pretty excited to get the office's old couch in their room! 

AND of course the little boys were excited about any change. They got a bigger closet too, and Gus got easy access to the light switch from his crib, so now he can turn the light off and on, off and on, off and on, all night long. Delightful! (Slim the Giraffe is not actually supposed to be in this room, as the little boys have a tendency to sit on him and get his poor neck all bent out of shape. Poor Slim.)

• Abe made this little circle for Gus to stand in, and once he'd given his word that he'd stay inside, he couldn't get out; no, never; he'd die first!

• Malachi got to go boating with his young men's group, and according to him, he was the only one that managed to stand up on the surfboard for any length of time! What an exceptional young man.

• Our back deck. I love it on summer nights with the lights on. Sadly, the outdoor rugs have faded to a sort of dusty purple now, but they still feel nice under our feet!

• A glorious rainstorm! We finally had a few of those. They were sorely-needed and extra welcome this year, but I always love a good hard summer rain. We had one huge thunderstorm while half of our family were driving home from Mapleton (the freeway had sections where the water was a foot deep, and we even saw a car almost floating in one spot! It was a bit scary) and the other half were attending a ward dessert potluck by the hill. The potluck-ers said the rain and hail was so hard that everyone took shelter under an ineffective canvas awning, and when it let up slightly they sprinted for home—but too late to save the plate of brownies they'd brought. When I got home and tried to pick up a brownie from the plate, it deflated, mushlike, into a sodden square wafer, and it was the saddest sight I'd ever seen in my life.

• Sunsets and girls in nightgowns. Lots of those around these parts.

• Seb has been doing extra jobs and saving all his money for something like two years now so he could buy a new bike. It helped a lot when he finally got a job at the frozen custard place Abe works at (and they even hired him several months before he turned 16, which was lucky). He finally earned enough to buy this bike a couple weeks before his birthday! He loves it, and had fun showing us all the cool features, like a seat that you can move up and down with a lever, like an office chair. (I probably just described the least important feature of the bike, but I can't remember all the other technical things and that one seemed cool to ME!) Anyway. It's been fun to see how happy he is with it. I love the colors, too.

He took his bike up on the hill during a lightning storm (don't worry, the lightning was that faraway eerie silent kind) and got some cool pictures!

• Seb finally having the thing he'd been wanting so long seemed to me to make his actual birthday a bit anticlimactic, but he seemed happy enough with his birthday dinner (Eggs Benedict with avocado and tomato) and cake (apple cake with caramel sauce). He also got a new bike helmet and these useful toe socks. Exciting!

We had quite a birthday disappointment at the Driver's License office when Seb went in, all set to get his license, and they told him there was NO RECORD of his driving class, road test, written test, etc. We were so confused, and of course the lady wasn't NICE about it—just brusque and uncaring and skeptical, like she could tell he just by looking at him that he was the sort of person who WOULD come in and try to get a license without doing any of the requirements for it. When we finally got in touch with his driving school and got it figured out (his name was spelled wrong on his learner's permit! And the records of his tests were under the correct spelling!)—we couldn't get another appointment at the DMV until the next week. So that was sad. But Seb (to my surprise) took it all in stride, shrugged it off philosophically, and even comforted ME when I was pretty sad and frustrated about it for his sake. So, that boy may make a fine man yet! I am so glad he's sixteen. Not just to have another driver (although, another driver!! An angel chorus should sing those words!!) but because he has seemed so old for so long. It is ABOUT TIME he turned an age that somewhat matches what he seems like!

Scary face. Teenage boys and fire are always an alarming combination!

• I already talked about doing baptisms with Daisy, and Sam and I have also gotten to go to the temple four separate times now that it has opened again, for initiatory, endowments, and sealings. It is so wonderful to be there again! We have missed it terribly. Going back feels like going home.

• And here are some more beautiful sunsets. I don't recall, at this remove, what it was that had Ziggy's shirt all wet, but it's probably something he wasn't supposed to have gotten into. :)

I love a rainbow sky like this!