Oh my goodness. It's taking me so long to report on life, I'm going to have to stop living life if I want to ever catch up. Just like how Sam said "If we could just put a $20,000 pause on spending money then I think we could get ahead again."
Anyway, is August my favorite month or something? We have three birthdays in August. And two children with a variation on it in their names (Theodore August and Augustus Finch). Clearly, something is going on. Although if you asked me to pick a favorite month, I think it would be May—or June—or September—or October. Still, good things happen in August and here some are!
Daisy's birthday, for one! She is 14! We celebrated a day early because we were going to be out of town with Seb, but we arranged for some of her friends to come over and surprise her with cake and games on the birthday itself too, so I think it was a happy day. For our celebration, she chose flourless chocolate cake…good choice!
I'm just looking at Ky and Junie in this picture and wondering…why?
The daisies next door are usually good at just the right time of year for our Daisy!
Goldie makes the sweetest presents! This was a little basket of paper picnic food she made for Daisy. It included some cute little dollhouse food too.
Junie got Daisy a big penguin!
At lunchtime we got some shakes to share and went to a playground.
Fun!
New Birthday dress
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When we got back from our trip, we had the fun of Clementine's birthday to look forward to! How can this sweet baby have turned into a spunky little girl of TWO?
Holding hands away from candles
Clementine got a hair brush of her very own, so she would stop stealing Sam's. (Did it work, you ask? Does it ever?)
And some hair clips and boing-y hair ties to put on her wrists, so she would stop stealing Junie's.
VERY pleased with herself.
Daisy did some braids in Clementine's hair! Tiny braids!
And here she is with the little chair Grandma made for her.
Thus ends the birthday update. Next: Ziggy costume update.
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Ziggy in a bear costume (stuffed) (he saw a picture like it in an old scrapbook and was inspired)
Zig being a "motorcycle man" (in a…Care Bear costume?)
It amazes me how many variations on a police costume he can come up with out of his own wardrobe. These all seem totally plausible to me, but how does he know an officer might wear a nice blue polo or a light blue button-down?
Zig's drawing of a policeman and all his equipment ("He's so prepared," Zig said admiringly)
His bunny drawing, for me. I love the Daddy bunny wearing a bunny tie, and the spatula in the Mommy bunny's paw. Also the stiffly sitting bunny on the left.
Cave explorers, I think. They have ropes and flashlights and walkie-talkies.
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We went to a splash pad for Family Home Evening one night. It's good to get there about 40 minutes before it turns off for the night so nobody can complain when it's time to leave.
I love watching them play!
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Some cute Clementine stuff: The girls love getting Clementine ready for church. Here we see her with more tiny braids—or something like them.
Her ponytail is actually getting somewhat recognizable as such!
Snuggling with Ky
A tower she built all by herself. Look how proud she is!
Matching Junie
In a nest
Now that she is two, Clementine has a new bed! She moved out of the little boys' room and down to the girls' room. You can see how she likes it…ha! Actually she really does like it, but she doesn't like going to bed. She thinks it's so unfair she has to go in there all alone while the rest of the girls are still up and about!
Here she is playing with her little friend Walter ("Walter, a baby," she calls him.)
Walking home
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Our stake got to participate in one of the Traveling Old Testament Tabernacle presentations. I think it was fun for them. The little scripts they had written out for them left something to be desired (they had to ask the most leading, awkward questions! All the people listening were so uncomfortable with them, and only answered out of pity) but it is cool to see how it was all laid out in the Camp of Israel.
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Kids doing a little "drawing lesson" with Daisy after coming in from playing in the sprinklers
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Family Home Evening on the hill. Sam made up a bocce-type game and a bunch of neighborhood kids wanted to join in
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Seahorse bacon?
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Let's talk about Gus the Good. He is so cute! Here he and Sam are in their matching clementine shirts.
Blowing a dandelion
I love these "Caws" he made out of magnatiles!
Snuggling
Gus and his two "Squishy Caws"
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Seb is running cross-country for SLCC, and they gave him so much team stuff! It was so exciting for him to get jackets, shirts, shoes, backpack, etc. He loved it. But the best part was when we ran into the father of a friend of his, who is also on the SLCC cross-country team. The father said, referring to the haul of stuff above: "They geared those kids up! GEARED 'em up!"
We quote this daily.
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August is also the start of high school cross-country meets, and Malachi and Daisy are both on the Herriman team this year. Fun! …or is it? Yes, definitely fun for me to watch!
At one meet we were delighted to see that another team apparently had a Team Bunny.
Two team bunnies! I wish the Herriman team had team bunnies! They would never, though. Their coach would not tolerate such a thing. It might distract them from the only thing that matters: winning!😡
That course is a good one. We often see a wild ("wild") bunny there too, and this time we were lucky again! Here he is, cute little guy.
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Remember when I took my girls out for Afternoon Tea last year? Apparently it is a tradition now. And I'm glad. I love these little ladies of mine. Some other ladies saw us going in to this place, and they gasped with delight to see us all dressed up together. "Oh, where are you going? It looks so fun! You look so pretty!"
It was fun, but I am sorry to say that we spent part of our time there talking about how we could make the food better ourselves. It wasn't bad! We liked it and ate it! But…we just thought we could have done it better.
So fun to use real teacups and teapots, though! We had hot chocolate, cider, and lemonade.
I tried to take a picture of just this teacup.
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Malachi planned a wonderful party he called the "Prove You're a Man Party." It was a Pride and Prejudice watching marathon! He invited people to come "dressed appropriately"! He made finger sandwiches and pink punch! It was amazing. A bunch of boys came…and one girl. I hope she had fun! :)
They all went and stood moodily on the hill in between episodes. One of them wore a long frock coat and carried a cane!
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There is a new family from Venezuela that moved into our neighborhood, and my girls have become good friends with the daughter, Daniela. She is adorable! We all love her! As you can see.
She and her family were baptized in August. We are loving getting to know them better!
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A happy get-together with a Young Women's presidency I served in. Friends for life!
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