Grateful

I am so thankful for lazy summer days. The kind of days where we start the morning off lying on the couch laughing and playing in each other's hair. A hurried breakfast of cereal is gulped down and teeth brushed (and yes, blue toothpaste is smeared all over the counter, mirror and sink) and then we breeze out of the house and over to the pool.

I love the calm feeling of an empty day. Where there is no school, no dance classes or meetings to go to. I relish the knowledge that ponytails on all three of us girls will be sufficient for a whole week and that it doesn't matter if Porter-Pot wears his striped shirt with his plaid shorts and cowboy boots. I'm loving our spur-of-the-moment trips to the park.

Jumping on the tramp under the stars, long, sticky bike rides, late lunches of leftovers and afternoons of reading Little House on the Prairie together (We're on the second to last book!). Balloon fights, Otter Pops, all the H2O and Jake and the Neverland Pirates one could ever want to watch. And, of course, lots of Kool Aide.

I'm even adjusting to the slippery tracks of water and grass that seem to always be running from the back door to the kids' rooms. And I don't even get upset when I see that two little girls have gotten into my craft supplies and messed them up and spilled a whole container of beads on the floor. Or when a certain little rascal steals all of my elastic to use as whips/ropes/ziplines.

I believe that these are the days that will shape my children into the people they will be. Not the endless music, sports, dance classes, nor the homework that seems to take over more and more of my kitchen table. They'll learn patience in trying to sneak up on the ever-elusive lizard that makes daily laps in our backyard. They learn arithmetic while trying to figure out just how many times they can get away with jumping back into the pool before mom threatens to take away swimming privileges for a week.

They're learning tenderness by comforting their baby brother while mom rushes to make him another bottle. Responsibility from seeing how quickly their brand-new crayons melt when left in the burning hot garage. They are even learning how to manage money while saving up for different activities on their job charts. Compassion from seeing just how bad it hurts someone else when they are left out from a game.

They are thinking, creating, bargaining, sharing, and yes, they are fighting too. But the fights are becoming fewer and farther between. And sometimes these squabbles make me laugh out loud (especially when they fight over who is going to put the utensils away from the dishwasher).

So, thank you, Heavenly Father, for summer days. For these times we have to just be together. To meet with friends and family that normally we only see on holidays because the days are just too full when school is smooshed in there. Thank you for sun burns, for honey bees, splinters and sticky floors. Thank you for kites, bikes, band aids and the little attachments that fit on the end of the hose to help blow-up those tiny water balloons.

I am not looking forward to the end of these days. Not at all. But I'm trying to focus on the here. The now.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a bunch of nearly-black bananas calling me to turn them into some yummy bread for breakfast tomorrow.

Oh, and I am very, very thankful for aerosol sunblock. I would like to kiss the person who came up with that.

Would you like some butter...

with all those rolls?




Come on, don't you wanna just kiss that lil' foot?



I am pretty sure that the closest thing to Heaven on earth is a freshly bathed little baby. There's something about that smell that just... ahhh! It defies description.



I really must apologize to all of you who haven't got to kiss these chubby cheeks or blow raspberries on that cushy belly.




'Cause, let me tell you, it really is a joy!

Soggy, Stinky Towels

We have pretty lived at the pool this summer.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for buying a house in a neighborhood with a private pool. Really, it has made our first summer back in the sweat-inducing heat much, much more comfortable.

The only problem is that I am washing a load of beach towels everyday. And sometimes twice a day. I am not kidding people. It's really starting to get to me.

So when I saw $4 beach towels at Targhetto, I snatched some- and then I thought of this lady's last post, and thought hmmm... wouldn't it be awesome-spice if I made them something that wouldn't get left in a smelly pile in the corner of the bathromm (or worse, the car)?

And thus the birth of the Towel-Dress Thingys and the Towel-Almost-Robe.

Please, don't try to reuse these names. They are being copyrighted as we speak.




Now, I was going to just buy the pattern from Dana, but her patterns only went up to size 5t, and Porter-Pot is in the final stage of that size, so I thought: hey, I'll just wing it.

The girlies were fairly simple. Just wrap and and add straps.




Porters... eh. I did not add a tie to the robe since I knew Porter would just end up using it as a zipline from the girls' top bunk down to their dresser (true story, by the way. Except he used three different belts tied together).

And since all I did was cut and sew, then cut and sew... and then cut a bit more and sewed a lot more, it ended up resembling Japenese warrior's attire. But, hey, he loves it.





And I didn't have any velcro, so that's why my kids are clutching their new towel-thingies shut in every picture. Don't judge me and my lazy sewing, I figured that they probably wouldn't use the velcro to keep them closed anyways.

Little Miss Adi wanted to demonstrate how well her Towel Dress-Thingy works on our tree swing.




And when we are done swimming, the kiddos can wear these home, so at least they wont grow mold in the car anymore.




That's the plan, anyway.

Two things about this picture

Number 1: Orrin is already training Wyatt how to properly play a level 80 Shaman. And Wyatt is clearly learning.



Number Two: My infant son now has more hair than my husband.

Well, at least on the top of his head...

To Thatcher, we go...

Last week we made the two-and-a-half hour drive over to Thatcher to visit the Merrill Fam.

As always, we had a rockin' good time.

The Merrill Dudes took out some kites to fly and us girls and kiddos invaded their high-flying fun and even got to fly for a bit.









Now, I have to tell you that Emma here is the bomb-diggity (oh yes, I'm bringing the phrase back). The minute we walk through the door she takes all of the kiddos and pretty much takes care of them until we leave.

I so love her.



No, this picture wasn't staged at all ;)




We also went to a little pond thingy that was in someone's backyard. So much fun and no crowds!

And here's Emma again, working her magic.








Hey Brandon... doesn't this remind you of Swamp People a little bit? Hee hee!




Awww, Hannah and Kade. And look, she still likes him even though he threw her into the water...










Awww, look at the boys, all playing nicely together!


And here's Mr. Heber Clark and Mr. Wyatt Clark:




After this we went to a park complete with a huge wooden swingset, a merry-go-round, a trampoline and lots of green grass for the kids to roll around in.

We had a bbq and were entertained by the men all racing each other, and then spending 20 minutes trying to catch their breath.




This was, unfortunately , the best pic I got of the epic race. OP is the large gray blur on the far left.

And I was laughing too hard to actually see who won.

Rematch, boys?

They're gone

That's right.

Adi's tonsils and adenoids are gone.

I even had to sign a paper before they'd operate saying I wouldn't bring them home with me.

Seriously.



Awesome picture taken with my awesome phone camera right after they woke her up from the anesthesia .

Apparently she was a champ and didn't even cry when they woke her up and she started drinking apple juice right away.

I don't know why, but that makes me proud. :)

She's spent the last week laying on the couch, watching a lot of Netflix and being waited on hand and foot.



It's a hard recovery for her.

She has also been doing a lot of this:



Writing out messages to the fam.

And please ignore the mountain of laundry in the background of the picture. Rest assured those have been folded and put away and there is currently a new mountain of laundry that has taken up residence in my home.

Adi is doing terrific. Wanna know how I can tell? She is really enjoying bossing her mom around and is really milking her two-week resting period so she can watch what shows she wants and by doing absolutely no chores.

But it's all good. She'll get all caught up in a week!

5 whole months

First of all, look at those eyes.



Wowzers, right?

This little man turned five months a couple of weeks ago (it's been awhile since I've been able to get myself on the computer).

He's sitting up like a champ now, eating his rice cereal three times a day, and he spends most of the day just grinning at anyone that will look his way. Seriously, the kid smiles a lot. And he smiles big.

Wyatt loves his siblings. If they're not looking at him he'll stare at them and make a little whimpering sound until they look at him and then he does a grin so big that it looks like his face is going to break.

This little boy likes his routine. He pretty much refuses to sleep anywhere but his own bed, which makes the three hours of church awesomely fun (especially since church is right over his naptime), But when we're at home his afternoon naps lasts for about 3- 5 hours. He usually sleeps through the night too.

He's the perfect baby.

And I'm like 99.9% sure that he is going to be the most spoiled rotten kid in the world. Yep, he has not only his Mama packing him around and waiting on him hand and foot, but also his brother and sisters.

But with a smile like his, how could we not?