summer happenings

Ugh.  No.time.to.write.depressing.  Where has the summer gone?  I mean, really!!!!  Four weeks until school starts and I still haven't made a dent in my summer goals.  But I think the kids are happy so that is good.  Baby doesn't sleep and I hear him right now, so I'll go super fast.

I love having the kids around.  They are the joys of my life.  Just a couple of cute stories.  This evening Ibby was helping put away groceries and prepare dinner and said, "You know what I love about this world?  I love that you don't just appear here, but have to come through someone else."  You are right, that is so cool!  What if we did just appear out of thin air?  Life would certainly be different.  Deep thoughts.  And the baby is so cute!  For some reason I've been whistling a lot (Castle on a Cloud to be exact, the bane of Charles' existence from home school choir in fifth grade) and Archie finds it completely fascinating.  Almost every time he will purse his lips in an absolutely adorable way and start humming a little tune -- he totally thinks he is whistling!  Oh my heck it is something else!

Some pictures from last month, none from our trip eastward for the beloved Smith family reunion since I didn't have my camera, grr, but what can you do?

I took a quick jaunt over to Hannibal, MO (say it singing!) with the 3 littlest and a friend and her two kids -- it was fun!  And Mark Twain paradise.

 ::panning for jewels!

 

 ::white washing the fence

 ::being Tom and Becky

 ::scouting out Tom's cave

 ::dressing up at the museum

 ::taking a trolley ride all over town with the most hilarious tour guide evah!

 ::overlooking the great Mississippi

 ::standing in front of Mark Twain's house in a new bonnet

 ::two pics of baby just because he's a cutie patootie, and musical to boot

 

 ::White Place annual 4th of July parade and block party

 ::swimming in the boulevard

graduation!!!

Howdy! I don't have much time, but I did want to update with some photos so... enjoy! 

::yes, who's a cute baby?

::graduation was very scintillating

::who's a pretty girl?

::in retrospect, a more scenic photo spot could have been sought out...

::squishy!

::and happy!

::time is flying by -- I can't believe he's so big!

I know I sound like a broken record, but... whew!  Are we ever busy!!!  And my baby doesn't like to sit and play quietly like I guess Phin did, not that I remember Phin being a baby very clearly because I don't, but I do seem to recall that I was able to crank out a few more blog posts back then.  May has been insane!  And I'll catch up with some photos.

::One left over from April -- baby turned 8 months.  I'll get his 9 month one up soon!

 ::The grand end of year dance recital -- the girls all did great and it was so fun to watch!  The baby was good and slept through most of it.  The other boys were not invited.

 ::It took us awhile to get one with her airborne!

 ::Isabela-boo's birthday!  She is such a sweet girl and really my  most helpful child, and pleasant as the day is long!

 ::Seminary Graduation!  Yes, I am that old.  More graduation things coming up this weekend.  We are very proud of Ella for getting up for her 5:50 a.m. seminary class for the last four years.  I hear she even stayed awake and participated in the discussions!  We are all relieved it is over for the summer...

We also had the end of year choral concert, orchestra concert, carnival, soccer games, track meets, etc. and many of them were on the same night -- one memorable Tuesday evening had four different important events!  And I also hosted my mother's day tea which was a great success once again.  Alas, none of these things were captured on film.  I mostly regret not getting any of Ella in her soccer uniform, but perhaps we can wrangle up a few from the school.

So, here we are on the cusp of another summer vacation -- full of possibilities and plans!  I love summer!!!!  First, the teenagers need to find jobs so that we can plan the rest of our schedules.  And they are trying!  And, of course, I always want to use them for slave labor, but that never works out very well.  It isn't so far this year either.  Oh well, we're only two days in.  We have all the time in the world...

Whew!  We are just busy!  But it is good.  I am really enjoying the sunny, albeit rather windy, spring and feel like we dodged the bitingly cold winter bullet this year.  It is so comforting to have the grass greening up and the leaves back on the trees where they belong. There is something about this time of year that makes me restless!  Spring fever, as it were.  My friend moved a couple of weeks ago (sob, sob) and it made me want to move, too!  We have halfheartedly looked around for a bigger house, but my husband relentlessly reminds me that we are reaching the peak of our full capacity -- steadily chug, chug, chugging up that first steep hill of the roller coaster, almost there to that breathless pause of no return, looking down the empty track at nothing for the sheer drop off. Then the mechanism releases and we are off, with our hearts in our throats, letting them off one by one until Matthew and I finally, out of breath, finish the ride alone.  It's all downhill from here, right?  I'm not ready for this!  So we probably don't need a bigger house, I just like to dream about it sometimes.  We might go look at one tonight (rubbing hands together in anticipation...).  I also have been plotting to just switch some rooms around to stave off my itch for change.  I'll keep you posted about that.

Last week Charles turned sixteen!  Everyone is surprised he wasn't that old already.  He does look mature for his age, but rest assured, I am fairly certain he isn't acting older than he is.  I asked him what he wanted for his birthday since I couldn't think of anything, and he replied, "I'm content."  Amazing.  He is funny all the time and keeps us laughing.  Last week we had a kind of humorous incident.  I made the all-time best snicker doodles ever!  They were baked to absolute perfection and I ate too many.  Well, the next morning Lucy failed to see a glass in front of the microwave before she opened it and said glass crashed to the floor.  Almost simultaneously in another part of the kitchen the cookies also crashed to the floor.  Matthew put the cookies back in their container because they were just too good to throw away and then cleaned up the glass.  We felt it would be safest to put a note on the cookies explaining that the possibility, however remote, of glass being on them was there.  It said, "Be careful!  There may be small pieces of glass on the cookies.  Look before you eat."  When Charles came home from school he thought that we were just trying to keep him from eating the cookies and was horrified to learn that there really could be glass on them.  He yelled, "I should throw them away for everyone's sake!  Are you trying to kill us?  There is no way I am eating any."  I tried to assure him that if I really thought there was glass, I would have discarded them.  He was disgusted.  The next morning on the box of cereal was this note from him, "Be careful of poisonous fruit that looks like raisins in the cereal."  Ha, ha!  On Saturday I took part in the Great Cloth Diaper Change -- where people all over the world changed a diaper all in the same moment.  It was mostly to bring awareness to cloth diapering and to the fact that in every minute in the U.S. 60,000 disposable diapers are thrown away -- every minute!!!  Well, Charles thought that was THE most absurd thing he had ever heard of in all his days.  Yesterday, at our family meeting as we went over the calendar for the week he very straight faced-ly added that he was getting together with 100 other guys on Saturday at 2:00 to simultaneously pee in a urinal.  Matthew was confused to say the least, but I knew right away that I was being mocked!!!  So Happy Birthday, insolent one!  Love you!

and now it's april

April has already been a busy month, but it is so lovely and sunny, windy as usual, but all the better to dry all of my clothes -- yesterday I was able to dry three different loads they were being whipped into submission so quickly!  


On Friday my big girl turned 18!  I know!  It is truly unbelievable.  She is such a good girl.  Especially after the birth of my third daughter, people started coming out of the woodwork to oh, so kindly warn me what a horrible experience it is to raise girls!  With ulcers forming I've been waiting and waiting for the horrific nightmare to begin, but there has been no such misfortune around here.  She is funny and smart and pretty to boot.

She has, in fact, been so delightful that I joke about how she didn't prepare me very well for raising the other children... (hmm, what do I mean by that?)  The kids didn't have school on Friday so I whisked them all up to Chicago for some free food at Ikea -- and yes, they did foot our $60 lunch.  Charles tried to stump them by getting three meals, two sides, and a dessert, but they went ahead with their promise.  We really wished that we had bitten the bullet and put some swedish fish and candy bars on our trays -- missed opportunities!!!  And then shopping at a few of her favorite stores (what?  Ikea's not her favorite store, oh, that would be me).  Charles regretted his decision to join us after her second hour in Forever 21 -- live and learn, son.  We spent too much money which made for a grumpy daddy, so I am going to be really good and not buy anything ever again!  I even didn't press "buy" on the amazing water bottle that was on babyhalfoff.com this morning.  I am strong.  I can do this.

Sunday was Easter and my girls finally got to wear their beautiful dresses, from (wait for it, Jen)... FRANCE.  They looked so pretty!

::sisters

::Phin was watching me take pics of the girls

 ::the whole gang

 ::LOVE this one of Ibby

 ::Ella just pins, tucks, and voila!

 ::thanks for trying, buddy

 ::aaaah, big tears

march madness

So the first weekend in March, Ella was in the school play of Beauty and the Beast.  She was a townsperson and a book -- we failed to take any pictures of the book.
Isn't she cute?

She also is on the soccer team this year.  I keep thinking that if she did both of those things last year, she might have gotten into BYU, but c'est la vie.  Matthew keeps reminding me that maybe she's not supposed to go there.

Archie turned 7 months old!

I spent most of the month getting ready to have a yard sale which I held the day that we left for spring break -- busy!  We drove to Florida and the baby behaved about as well as we expected...  On the way we stopped in Nashville and Lucy did baptisms for the first time at the temple there.

We had SUCH a great time at my sister's house in Vero Beach and Archie met some relatives for the first time!!!  He has been so neglected, I tell you!

Hanging out with Grandma Gayle!

 Playing some rock band

 Swimming in their pool

 Boating

We made it out to the Atlantic, which made me nervous because I thought it was too wavy and shark-y

 And Phin turned four!

He didn't really want his picture taken, can you tell?  We still like him.

Uncle John made him the cake -- he definitely fed us well!!!

My sister and her family were so hospitable and it was wonderful to see my parents.  We all had a fantastic time!  And then we had to drive home again...