Grab-bag

Did you ever get a "grab bag" somewhere? I can't think where, exactly…maybe at school carnivals, or discount stores, or something? A bag full of toys or treats all wrapped up and hidden? A grab bag is always presented as such fun…a bag full of surprises…you never know what you'll get! But we all know they're really just the dregs someone was trying to get rid of, and no one would have bought them individually, so the last resort is to try to make up for lack of quality with hidden quantity, as if those things are somehow equal.

Well! I can't imagine what that would have to do with this post…but anyway, here are a bunch of pictures that didn't seem worth individual posts but that can't bear to be left out altogether!

I took a picture of Goldie like this way back in 2016. Daisy remembered it and wanted to do Clementine's hair in the same kind of bun. They are both so cute! 

I miss this little Goldie!

But I'm so glad we have this Clementine!

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We've been systematically cleaning the house in preparation for our…I don't know what to call it. Trip? Move? It's more than one but less than the other. Sam has a Sabbatical Leave from BYU for Fall, so we are heading off to live in Quebec for five months or so! There is SO much to say about it—the long process of thinking and weighing and pondering and deciding and then actually preparing—that I'm just not going to say any of it. But I'm sure it will come out in bits and pieces eventually. :)

Anyway, this is Ziggy and Clementine posing proudly after cleaning the laundry room. Not after them cleaning the laundry room, of course! If only! No, this is a picture of them after their most earnest and concerted efforts to undo the cleaning of the laundry room, and interfere with it in every possible way, and by some miracle (by which I mean mostly ME) it getting cleaned anyway. At least they are a cute little policeman and police dog.

Here is Clementine sleeping in Daisy's bed.

And in my bed, where she ends up many nights. (And I don't even mind it! She's so snuggly, I love it!…until I wake up with a broken neck and back and with a body temperature of 1000 degrees.)

And very clearly NOT sleeping in Goldie's bed. Here she has procured a flashlight and is "reading" a chapter book with no pictures, which just goes to show you the lengths to which a child will go to avoid sleeping at the correct time and place!

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Junie found Clementine sitting on the counter one day pretending to put on her contacts.

A very convincing performance!

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Here is Clementine running back and forth through my room…over and over and over. Who does she think she is?

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My little boys have been fascinated by the copper mine lately, wanting to talk about it and the big dump trucks all the time, so we took a little field trip up there. It has been several years and I guess the little boys have never been there! We missed the informative video they used to show at the visitor's center (and after that, on the bus) but it was still fun to see the mine!

I am always glad that along with the HUGE mining dump trucks, there are regular pickup trucks driving along so you can get some idea of the scale. The size of the big trucks just isn't easily conceivable even after you've seen the big truck tire!

I like this picture for showing scale. Do you see the TINY TINY yellow thing parked next to all the dump trucks? That is a SCHOOL BUS. It looks like a toy car or something!

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Daisy decided that since she won't be in ballet and needing a bun for the next six months or so, it was a great time for a short haircut! But we had to document her long hair first.

Mine was also getting long enough to start driving me crazy, so we both got haircuts together!

Here she is, darling girl. She looks SO grown-up to me in this picture. As she should, being a young lady of nearly 15!!

And here we both are!

Daisy donated her hair this time, which was kind of fun to research and do. We've always talked about it but never done it before! She had about 11 inches to give.

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Boys making some kind of house…?

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We use our pizza oven for naan a lot, and have kind of settled into our roles. I make the dough and roll it out (sometimes with Daisy's help), then Teddy or Sam cooks it in the pizza oven,

and Goldie brushes it with butter when it comes out. Yum!

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Matching bunny shirts

Joined by Clementine

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My wedding ring is chipped and loose (the store claimed it's "not worth fixing"—thank you, shop lady, for dismissing the symbol of our twenty+ years of marriage with those words 😡) so I haven't been wearing it for a year or so. Sam finally decided he would get me a new ring and it was fun seeing that diamonds aren't the be-all and end-all of wedding rings now! I know they weren't ever really, but when we got engaged we never really thought we could consider anything else! But there are lots of stones I actually like lots better than diamonds, and which are much cheaper. The one he ended up choosing was alexandrite, which I'd never heard of, but is so pretty! It looks green sometimes and blue sometimes and even a little purple sometimes. I love it. The stones on the side are moonstone and something else I'd never heard of. Anyway, it is beautiful and I like wearing a ring like an actual married lady again! :)

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We went to a Utah Symphony outdoor concert. It started at 8 pm, which is past bedtime for these little ones, but I couldn't bear to leave them home because I knew how much they'd like it. And they did! The symphony played themes from Star Wars and Carmen and the Dvorak New World Symphony and other good, recognizable music. The best kind of concert for kids.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset with the music.

Here's Gus's excited, knowing face when he recognized a piece from "Carmen." So sweet!

After the concert Daisy and Junie found a tiny, tiny praying mantis!

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With some friends at the park

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Ky documenting a pretty sunset, me documenting Ky

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Another park

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Seb still has the same enthusiasm for flying he did as a child, and a pilot on one of the flights he went on recently noticed that and let him sit in the cockpit. So cute!

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Two snugglers…

…joined by another!

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Obligatory rose pictures

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This was one of the prettiest sunsets we've had yet this year! It was all across the sky!

Ziggy's skin was so pink and pretty

Something about this picture just makes my heart squeeze a little…Sam holding Clemmie's hand to keep her safe as they go across the street toward home, and the glorious sky waiting in front of them. I tried to write why it touches me, but it sounds dumb when I write it. But maybe you can imagine it for yourself.

I love our house and I love our hill. I'm really going to miss them for the next few months! That makes my heart squeeze a little too (though I know the time will pass in the blink of an eye!). In my defense, we won't come back to this same exact life. You never can. And that makes me nostalgic.*

*with pre-nostalgia, the most pointless kind of nostalgia

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Seb's pictures of another glorious sky

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The county gave out Recreation Passes this year to all kids ages 5-17. You can get into any county rec. center or swimming pool for free with them. I don't know why! But I'm happy about it! We went swimming for Family Home Evening to try and use the passes at least once before we leave.

Everyone had so much fun, but Gus was just SO shivering cold the whole time. (Too bad, since he was the ONLY one of our babies to ever have enough fat on his bones to NOT be cold while swimming! I guess it was short-lived.) He couldn't even talk because his teeth were chattering so much! He clung to me like a koala or a baby monkey and wouldn't let go. He kept saying he was fine and having fun and didn't want to get out, but finally I did get out with him to try and get him warm. I think he must have had a fever.

But I would have been perfectly happy just snuggling with him forever!

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Teddy got his braces off! Hooray! (But not forever. Blasted "Phase 1" and "Phase 2.")

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Here is Gus, lovingly pushing his dump truck in the stroller

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Zig and his favorite friend "Hen" (as he calls him…really it's Henry). They are such good little friends who both love policemen and take their "training" (they never "play" together, only "train") very seriously! Zig told me the other day that he liked Henry because Henry was "so obedient," (which worries me a little, haha!) but it's cute to see them liking each other so much.