we tried....

Boy cousin time!

Bennett loves it!  

We are loving having Dean, his siblings and his mom here for a few weeks!

They wrote her back!

And it made her day!

Primary

Brianna got to give the Talk (topic: Holy Ghost) and Courtney got to give the scripture (1 Nephi 10:19). They did great! The only sad part was that Bennett really wanted to get up there too! But he had his turn last week to offer the prayer.
I love that our church provides children with public speaking opportunities starting at such a young age. 

They are learning to share with others the things that have made them so happy :)

Lake nappers

We had an awesome time at the lake today.
Despite this post title and the pictures... it was actually super active - lots of water play, beach play, boating, tubing, jet skiing, and a 70 minute run for me (it was a doozy in this heat). 

 But then 3pm rolled around... and we all crashed in the shade!
So relaxing and beautiful.
Just a perfect day.

Harvesting Papa's garden!

I love that my Dad loves gardening....and sharing :)
We picked loads of snow peas, raspberries, and 3 varieties of kale. It feels so awesome to teach my children that THIS is where the best food really comes from.

Nazarene BBQ

  It's so funny to me that one of our favorite family summer activities is attending this event.

I don't feel like a freeloader - they basically beg us to come, and love that we bring all the kids to VBS. Maybe they want to "save" us, haha :)

 

  It was such a great night - perfect summer weather, awesome inflatables, incredibly delicious salads (worth blowing my calorie limit for, and so good I didn't even care about skipping the junk food there), fantastic band playing "jamming Jesus" songs, playground, and friendly people.  

Finished VBS #2

Technically #3 for the twins.

 The Nazarenes did a great job on "Hometown Nazareth: where Jesus grew up."

Super sweet week of crafts, games, songs, lessons, snacks, and God's love all around :) 

Last day of camp

Brought c&b up to Girls Camp for the final evening. Such a great experience!!!
 Zoomed down the zip line, hung out with the girls, played in the creek, watched entertaining YCL performances, had a lovely pulled pork+salad dinner, beautiful testimony meeting with out bishopric, group hug/song/prayer, then said goodnight as they set up to sleep under the stars.
 Camp is hot, dirty, smelly, and challenging....but it sure makes an amazing difference in these girls' lives!!
So grateful to be part of it.  

Caught sleeping on the job

Girls Camp!!

It's pretty amazing to me that I'm here at the Summer camp I attended as a tween/teen....but now I'm the ADULT Leader!

My goal is to make this experience as awesome for them as it was for me.

My nieces, cruising

SuperJammies

He wears them EVERY NIGHT.
 It's so cute.
But I'm going to have to hide them, since we've got 100+ degree weather coming up. 
Time to sleep in as little as possible!!

Free lunch begins!

 

A little gift for my Dad..... =)

Punishment for procrastinating...

I'm at Walgreens on Division trying to pickup a photobook I spent hours online creating for Father's Day... And the employee is on the phone getting instructions on HOW exactly to PUT TOGETHER photo books.
Lovely.
Oh, and this is 90 minutes past the time I was told the book would be ready.
I'm being patient and nice....but you better believe I won't rest til I get a freebie out of this somehow.
 So annoying.
 Bright side...the book is seriously adorable.  

Good to have friends with a boat!

And the letter of the day goes to...

Grandma Smith!

Part of her Summer Study regimen (harsh word for something she enjoys so much) is to write a letter to someone of her choice everyday.

If you would like to be considered as the letter-of-the-day recipient, LMK :)

Dads RADishes

He's quite proud of growing these Daikons :)

Bubble blower thingy

Swordfighting

Strawberry picking at Greenbluff!

Summer Study

Mom got them some educational workbooks from Costco, and I have more pages that I've picked up various spots.... so this is how I hope to spend at least part of our afternoons all summer! 

They sincerely love it!

Toddler antics

She's such a goofball... She decided to eat blueberries with her eyes closed the whole time and then laughed hysterically at herself

RAD

I was able to hook us up with some free entries (along w/ Mere and 6 of her friends! Love my job!) 
We had a great time - the kids thought it was amazing!

New dress!

4 reasons I bought this DownEast dress:
 -It's YELLOW. Yellow makes me so happy
 -I haven't purchased a new dress in forever. Like can't even remember the last time
-Stripes! 
-It was a buck at a lovely yardsale in the Northwood neighborhood (which I will now stalk for yardsales. It's almost like the Bountiful benches were!!)

Primary temple visit!

While I can get away with it...

I lovelove these vintagey dresses I find!! 

And I love that Courtney lets me dress her however I want! 

I told her it's yellow  like sunshine - so if she wears it, she will shine like the sun. Her sweet little self ate that right up.


And for the record... Brian does NOT like these dresses, but lets me get away with it still :)

Calendering the summer....

Mom dropped by with a super cute calendar all ready for the kids to fill in and decorate - complete with special stickers for birthdays, lake days, and course - VBS! They're signed up for 7 of them :) Gotta also put a chore chart with check boxes on there....then somehow actually stick with it everyday....

Jaguar Jam

Brianna has been looking forward to this annual school event all year!! Bouncy houses, carnival games, face painting, etc.
I gave in to the PTA's repeated pleadings for volunteers, and manned some games and sold tickets. It actually was a lot of fun, despite the crazy heat. If life continues as planned, we have 10 more years of Jaguar Jams!

Pottery night

Brianna loves to join me for our weekly YW activities!  Tonight we were at the Schupp's home doing some outdoor cooking in prep for camp next week, and doing pottery inside - also for a camp project. 

FIRST LAKE DAY!!!

It's SUMMER! Officially! Because we spent a lovely day at Riley Creek. Nothing - NOTHING - says Summer to me more than that.  Super hot temps, super cold lake... so perfect. Kids endlessly WORKING... at digging and building and creating.  Jet skiing all around, taking the kids on rides.... to their favorite, "secret beach" and "secret playground.  CLIFF JUMPING! With my 67 yr old dad leading the way off the big boulders! Mom relaxing on the beach, always doing head counts on the kids. Mere and I snapchatting her ppl (whoever they are...whatever snapchat is).  BEST DAY EVER!

 

cruising cousins

Charity had this look on her face the ENTIRE time. Like, "I'm definitely not sure about this but I'm going to stay in here til I know if I'm having fun or not."

Painting her own toes

I'm not doing nothing if I'm blogging about doing nothing, right?

Sometimes I struggle allowing myself to be unproductive for a little while. 

To doing nothing.

To just lay in the grass on a summer evening and watch my children run around.

Cuz there are a million things I could/should do...clean something, teach them something, organize stuff, plan tomorrow/next week/next year, paint my toes...at the very least, run around WITH them and burn some cals!

But no.

 I'm just laying here enjoying laziness....as much as my nagging guilt will let me enjoy it anyway :)

Sprinkler running & the Water Wimp

I'm not sure why our HOA thinks its a good idea to water the lawn at 6 pm... seems kind of wasteful in this hot weather.... but I'm glad they do because the kids love to run through the water!

"Flying Courtney" (she dubbed herself) got cherrybaby wet and she did NOT appreciate it :)

The morning toast operation

These kids go through a LOT of bread, honey, peanut butter and jam!

Hair

Sleeping in the toy box

An evening with the Housers!

Some of our favorite friends here are the Houser family.
Don also happens to be our CPA.
So we headed up to their compound in the boonies to finally get our taxes done (that darn April 15th deadline just didn't work for us....grateful for extensions... I WILL be more on the ball next year :)

After taxes - blueberry icecream, four wheeler rides, and tire swinging :)