I love summer. I love the long, late evenings. Waiting too long to start dinner. Kids playing outside past bedtime. Watching the sunset from the hill. It's just always over too fast, is all. But let's not think about that. Here's some stuff we did as summer began…
Seb on the hill
Twin hair. (Okay, it's not all stuff we DID. Just random pictures, I should have said.)
———
We had a Civil War Unit Celebration to wrap up our last school unit of the year. I got big hoop skirts for the girls to wear under their dress-up dresses! It was so fun!
They even dressed Clementine up, in this only-slightly-too-big…medieval-style…dress
Lovely ladies
Daisy did everyone's hair. This is Goldie's.
Daisy's
Having a bit of a cotillion on the basketball court :)
———
Let's catch up with Clementine, shall we?
Here's Clementine drawing with pencils she's not supposed to have on paper she's not supposed to have.
Here she's sitting on a chair with Junie's pig and Daisy's penguin (unlawfully obtained from their room)
Playing "Don't Eat Pete" (with no pants on…yes, she was toilet training. She took right to it, praise be!)
Helping Daddy fix a bike tire…
…and then following him around like a little duckling.
Who's pushing whom?
Standing up in her high chair
Wearing one of my baby dresses
Swinging
And lastly. Clementine went into the laundry room one day and was silent for a while. When I called her, she came trotting in casually holding my iPad…and a match. !?!?! We don't even keep matches where she can reach them. This one must have fallen out of the box?
———
Longest day of the year party! At the hammock park.
We had a great picnic spread
Clementine checking out some ants. While wearing underpants. (This was the second of about ten pairs she went through that day. When I said she took right to it, I meant…after a few days. Ha!)
———
We had fun at some parks. Clementine didn't let her lack of swimming gear stop her from getting right in the splash pad here!
Hide and Seek. ("One, two, free, four, seven, five, seven, six, eweven…twenty!")
She runs and runs and runs!
———
At the plant nursery
———
Pictures by Ziggy. A Police Caw.
And a policeman and his doggy.
———
Saratoga Springs Temple Open House. Very windy!
———
This is so bad. I don't know if you can tell how bad it is. But this is a little xylophone mallet that has been SHARPENED in the pencil sharpener! We don't even know which child is responsible for this, we just know that everything in this house that can be sharpened has been sharpened lately! In spite of us scolding everyone and making dire threats about using the pencil sharpener! If I had to put money on someone, I think it would be Ziggy…but Clementine is a plausible second.
———
Stake Primary Activity. Our ward was in charge of a "Jesus calming the storm" room. We had a little guided meditation and some sensory tubs. It turned out fun.
———
Teeny-tiny notebook and pencil Daisy made to match a big one. Why, you ask? She doesn't seem to need a reason. She just does it.
———
Long-haired Gus
Short-haired Gus
———
Big fire
Ziggy dressed as a robber for some reason (I guess he can't be a policeman all the time)
———
Gus and Clementine talking to Abe on a video call. They love that.
Gus telling Abe the important things— "We have oven mitts, Abey!"
———
So here's something pretty amazing. For Mother's Day, Malachi…wrote me a book! He really did. A whole, 300-page, honest-to-goodness book. This is not, actually, Malachi's first book. I think it's his fifth. He takes his writing pretty seriously and it's incredible to watch. Usually I help with editing and we have some fun times discussing his books together. BUT, this book was special in that he kept it entirely secret from me! And I don't know how he did it! He had been working on it for four months. He typed it out on his Kindle late at night or when I thought he was doing homework (which he did also stay caught up on, so that's impressive), and he had Daisy edit it for him, and Sam did the cover art, and Malachi figured out how to publish it using the Barnes and Noble Publishing Platform. The only thing he got from me was my book formatting software, which I thought he was just trying out for a different book.
When I woke up a few days after Mother's Day and saw the book sitting on my nightstand with a bow on it, and Malachi's name on the cover, I just sat there completely baffled for a few minutes. "But…how…when did he…is this really…how did he do this?" It's such a good book, too. I read it and loved it! Ky is so good at building interesting worlds and helping you care about his characters. And this book was fun because it was a mystery, and had some cool twists at the end! I don't know how he thinks of such things!
So. I'll let you know when it's available to the general public😄. He says he already has outlines for two sequels! I keep nagging him to hurry up and get them done so I can read them too!
———
Daisy took me out for a pastry the week after Mother's Day. So fun.
———
Another beautiful evening on the hill.
The light coming through the clouds was so wispy and pretty!
Looking up the definition of chain lightning
And then it started to rain and we had to sprint for the house
———
More pretty clouds. What a lovely rainy June we had! One of the prettiest and best I can ever remember!
———
Sam and I went down to Provo and walked around BYU Campus one evening. The HFAC, where I had all my music classes and Sam had all his animation classes, is being demolished now, making way for a new building. Sam has taught classes in there for the last seven years as well. It is so strange to see it just…gone. In ruins. Strange and kind of sad.
There's about the spot where Sam's office was!
———
Our roses were abundant and wonderful all through June. Daisy made a two batches of rose petal jelly. It's so delicate and rosy and delicious! And I love the pale pink color of it!
They made lovely indoor bouquets, too.
———
Another robber costume
Thoughtful
Watching the garbage truck
Leaf Blower Man
Vacuum twins
———
Daisy lying on the couch wanly sniffing a rose
———
Ky at the track banquet
———
The youth had a fun ward camp at Bear Lake. The boys and girls went together to a big house—girls sleeping inside, boys in tents out on the lawn. There was a scary incident with two boys taking paddle boards and then losing the paddle boards and getting stuck out on the lake. They couldn't get back to shore and they were exhausted and cold. When the leaders called 911 and finally got a rescue boat out to the boys, they had hypothermia and it was pretty scary for a while. The youth had a prayer together and there were blessings given…everything turned out okay. It made for a memorable camp! I'm so glad it didn't end in tragedy.
———
The day of the girls' spring ballet we had a huge thunderstorm pass over. It didn't amount to much; just a brief downpour and some hail, but it was amazing to watch—and ominous. It looked like it could become a tornado any moment!
Doesn't that flat bottom of the cloud look like it's spinning?
I'm grateful for these posts with so much in them. It's amazing how each picture or set carries its own set of good (and sometimes not good, as with the mallet-shiv) memories!
ReplyDelete