Summer Random-ness (or should it be Random Summer-ness?)

I don't know why I always think of summer as a relaxing time. It sometimes tends to be busier than the rest of the year! But it's nice to not have to worry about school and homework and preschool and schedules (too much) or bedtimes (too much) and instead worry about how to squeeze in as much fun as possible!

Last week was busy-crazy and fun. My BIG "35" birthday was last week, and I just feel so old. But we had a fun day - Quentin and the girls surprised me with a yummy waffle breakfast, and my Beehive class brought me some beautiful cookies! After they left, my girls warned me that they made a big mess downstairs and this is what I found:

Yikes! I had to crawl under the streamers to find the presents they had for me. So fun! After that, our girls had ice skating lessons. From there, Quentin, the girls and I went to Ikea to browse around for a couple of hours. I just love that place! Then we met my mom and grandma at Sweet Tomatoes for an early dinner, then my mom invited us to her house for strawberry shortcake and sherbet (my faves!)

Last weekend we went camping with Quentin's brother's family. We went to Smith & Morehouse - we had never been there before, but I think it's going to be our go-to place for camping. It was so beautiful - tall pines and aspens - and the kids loved going to the lake and playing in the river. Ahhh, I love camping!

Makenna found that the butterflies loved hanging out on her finger!

Kasidee went to a princess birthday party this week. She was so excited to dress up in her Snow White dress-ups, and Makenna had a blast doing Kasidee's hair and makeup. I just thought it was so sweet that Makenna took so much time helping Kasidee get all ready. After Kasidee left, Makenna turned to me and said, "Ohhh, isn't she just so cute?"

After our camping trip, we came home and hosed off camping chairs, shoes, coolers, and life jackets. The girls thought playing with the life jackets was fun - they put them on, sat on "magic carpet" rugs, and pretended to have "Flying Lessons." They're so creative - and crazy!

Lastly, it has been fun this summer to have our very own hummingbird! One has made a cotton-y nest on top of the antenna we have mounted under our deck roof. She sits on her nest most of the day, and it's fun to see her flit around and eat the necctar from our feeder. Hopefully soon we'll be able to see the babies hatch! (This picture is not the clearest because I had to take it through my bedroom window. If we go too near the nest, the mom flies away. I can't really get my camera close enough to get a picture of the eggs either. Oh well - you can still see her sitting on her nest on our ugly antenna!)

Summer's In Swing!

Last Monday as we were coming home from the park, we noticed a fire on the mountain above our house. Yikes! We got our telescope our and sat by our living room window, watching and praying. Thank goodness it was pretty much put out by the time we went to bed.



Kasidee sure loves dressing up. This is how she greeted me the other day:



My endlessly creative neighbor Kate is the queen of getting the neighborhood kids together for playgroups and other special activities. On Friday she hosted her second annual "Sidewalk Chalk Festival." Armed with chalk, kids could make their creations on her driveway - and pause for an otter pop or cool water. This was something my girls were looking forward to - so fun!







The girls and some of their neighborhood friends decided to do a lemonade stand one day this week, and then another day they decided to add ice cream to their lemonade stand. They worked hard and had fun - but then they were tempted to try their own products! Kasidee was really enjoying her ice cream sandwich!

Cast Off!

Makenna got her cast off today, and the doc says everything looks good. She laughed at how skinny and white her arm is and how it feels like it's floating since it's not weighed down by a cast. Hopefully this will be our last broken arm for quite awhile (or ever!)

Girls

Every once in awhile Quentin and I joke that he doesn't need boys. He has 3 girls that love to hike, play soccer and other sports, fix things, build things, play Legos, play cars, shoot BB guns, do archery, etc. Not that either one of us think those things are "boy things" by any means. But I think it thrills us to have girly-girls who like to do lots of things. Anyway, Makenna and Kasidee were "fixing" their car the other day and I managed to get a couple of cute pictures:

Funny

The other day the girls and I were talking about unusual first names. I mentioned that one of our neighbors is named "Guy." They thought that was funny. A few days later, Makenna came up to me and said seriously, "Mommy, did you know that there is a guy named 'Man?'"

Makenna had a note for one of her friends from school and wanted to deliver it to her. But I didn't know where she lived and her address was not in the phone book. I told Makenna I didn't know where her friend lived. She said, "Oh I do! It's up."

Makenna is so cute with her words and I chuckle at some of the things she says. A couple of words she has invented are "Preshul" (precious/special) and "Perfectest" (I guess that's even better than perfect!)

Last Day!

'Twas the last day of school today. Finally. It seems we've had Spring Fever around here for months. Or maybe it was lack of motivation to get anything done, or even get to bed on time. So...welcome summer! Now we just need to face the trick of finding the right balance between getting things done and having fun! But I really do love the feelings summertime brings, and I especially love having my girls home!

To celebrate the last day, Kiera's friend's mom arranged to have a LIMO pick her son and daughter and a few of their friends up from school and take them out for ice cream. The mom called me last night and said her daughter would like Kiera to go. She was ecstatic! So after the flag ceremony at the school (which, by the way, is always amazing to me - you could hear a pin drop, the kids were so respectful!) the limo picked the kids up. Makenna, Kasidee and I hung out to take some pictures. Then the mom said to me, "Hey, there's still some more room in the limo - do you and your other girls want to come?" I declined, thinking some other kids would want to go. But it ended up that they were ready to go and had extra room, so Makenna, Kasidee and I joined them! It was fun - we just went to Pace's in Bountiful and back - but boy, what a fun experience and memory for my girls!

Then this evening we had a "School's Out For Summer" movie party. This is our third year (I think) to do this, and I told the girls they could each choose "a few" friends. They had a hard time narrowing down the list, but when I looked at the list I had a hard time narrowing it down too - and even more, I came up with other names too. So after debating, Quentin and I just decided to invite a BUNCH. Mostly kids from school - lots of girls, and one brave boy (besides Quentin)! Good thing they have little bodies that can squish into the little theater room! It was a fun way to kick off summer! YAY!