Wednesday, December 22, 2010

And More Catch Up

August & September

In the Summer keeping cool is priority one.
This year, Caleb took matters into his own hands.
I'd found him on top of the bathroom counter a couple of times before this, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how he'd gotten up there! This time, I caught him in the act. He stood on the little stool the older kids use when they're brushing their teeth. This got him up high enough that if he stood on his tip toes and stretched, he could just reach the end of the faucet. Then using his very big baby hands and ridiculously strong grip (have I mentioned before that this kid is crazy strong?) he muscled himself up to his waist, swung his leg over and pulled himself the rest of the way up. Easy peasy. Seriously.

We also finished the boys' room

Which led to a little jungle exploration.
We took our traditional, hottest day of the year photo.
(The digital thermometer in the van topped out at 126 that day.)

And on Labor Day, we made a daytrip into the mountains of California to have some fun outdoors
that didn't involve a swimming pool!


 
(That's an acorn in Alaina's hand. She collected about fifty of them.)
Bye, Summer!

Catch Up

All right. Here we go!

July

We painted and switched the kids bedrooms.



















We took a trip to visit family,
attend a Highschool reunion
and get out of the heat!
(Sadly, 105 in St. George felt GREAT to us!)

              We saw a parade.





We celebrated with family and fireworks.


We drove a lot.

    We spent some quality time with old friends.



Then we said good bye

 and drove a lot more.

A whole lot.


We drove so much that poor Caleb came out with his first sentence
about 10 hours into the drive home:
"Ya, I want out!"
The feeling was mutual, but we finally made it.



Friday, October 22, 2010

Fall Things Considered

OK. it's been quite a while, and I promise I will do some catching up soon on the last several weeks for our family and friends that care to hear about them, but something happened today that I just had to share first.

I need to preface this story by explaining that I love Autumn. I love the way the light softens and changes in September as the sun travels lower in the sky. I love to watch the colors creep down the mountains and into the valleys when the temperatures start to drop at night.

(Yes, it's a real place, and we lived there.)
I love to walk into the market and see fresh cider from local growers. I love breaking out sweaters and jackets. I love to help my kids plan their Halloween costumes and decorate the house. I love taking them to a pumpkin patch and watching them run around a hay bale maze and pick out exactly the right bright orange globe. I love drinking cocoa or spiced cider on a chilly evening. I love to drive through canyons that look like this:

I love it all!

I have very vivid memories of walking to school in Kindergarten and First grade ( I lived in a town and a time when you could do that...) and having bright yellow leaves so deep on the sidewalks they came most of the way up to my knees as I shooshed through them.

My family moved away, but my husband and I ended up living in that same town after we were married and in the same neighborhood, so I got to watch my oldest son playing in huge piles of those yellow leaves from those same old trees his first four Autumns. And I miss it.

Don't get me wrong, we love Fall here as well, but mostly because it means a reprieve from the wicked Summer temperatures and a return to outdoor activities other than swimming. My two youngest have never experienced any part of the things I described above, and that makes me sad sometimes.

We have a friend who still lives in the same town we left who knows how much I love and miss this time of year. He always watches for that first magical morning when the shift from Summer to Fall happens, when you can feel and smell the change in the air, and then he gives us a call to describe it and tell us he misses us. (Really good friends are golden, and we have been lucky enough to have several in our lives. Trust me, when you're blessed enough to find remarkable people like this, you will want to hold onto them!)

Well this year, he took it a step further. When my husband brought in the mail today, he handed me this package.

It was addressed to me and came from our friend. When I opened it this is what I found.


It is one of the loveliest, kindest things anyone has ever done for me. I love Fall. :)



Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Tonight I am grateful for:






And a (finally)...

 

Good night, bub.
(Pfew!)



Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Busy

Our Summer here is really short, (school goes well into June and starts back up early in August) so we have to pack a lot into a small amount of time. As a result, we have been one busy bunch! Here's the condensed version.

We finished school and commenced Summer festivities.


We turned 4 and got cool stuff from Grandma and Grandpa.

We had a fun, crazy party with fun, crazy friends.

We climbed...
and climbed ...and climbed...
...and climbed pretty much everything that was possible. 

(And a few things that were impossible,
which explains a lot of the little bumps and bruises that seem to magically appear...)

And we celebrated
Father's Day
with one
pretty awesome Dad.
Not bad for a couple of weeks. How's your Summer so far?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Photo Finished

We tried to take a Mother's Day photo with me and the kids Sunday.
It didn't quite go the way we had envisioned....



  

Almost.

Not...
even...
close!

So, maybe it's not picture perfect, but I love my life.

 
And I wouldn't trade it for anything.