Experimentation

Rowan for a week or two decided he wanted to try a new hairstyle.  Sage decided to join in the fun.

Nadia and our neighbor, Oakley, sometimes don't play well.  But if there is makeup involved, everyone is happy.

In the morning it's girls, 'cause in the evening it's girls

 I can't believe how big my girls are getting.  Love these sweet girls.

Motherhood.  It can be the best of times and the worst of times.  But the highs are worth the lows.

I gave Nadia some paper, scissors and some tape the other day to help keep them occupied while I was probably trying to clean something.  I came down to discover them like this...

Cousin Sleepover

With my mom in town over the summer, we held another cousin sleepover.  This time we had a projector my mom brought down and were able to hold an outdoor movie party.  We watched Batteries Not Included, which ended up racier than I remembered.  We're going to have to start watching more edited movies I think.  But it was a fun night and the kids had a lot of fun.

 I'm always surprised at how popular this sandbox is when kids come over.

 Rowan and Peyton pondering the mysteries of the world.

I love this slope in our backyard.  It makes for a great accelerator for the kids to take their riding toys on and the slip and slide.

The trick to getting a picture of Rowan these days is to be far enough away that he can't catch you or run out of the shot in time.

Grandma distributing the treats before the movie started.

Back when Sage was happy and tooth free.  She's been a bit of a bear when teething, which I guess should make me grateful that she didn't get any until she was 9 months old.

 Making shadow puppets before the movie started.

 Grandma discovered that Sage is happiest in front of the wheel.  I now have the kids babysit her by pushing her around in this car or caged in the trampoline.  It gives me a good 30 minutes to get some things done around the house.  She loves being outside.

 These two couldn't seem to agree who would get the best seat in the house next to the subwoofer, so they learned to cohabitate.

Another fairly successful sleepover! 

The Handyman of Oz

Steve has been surprising me as of late.  We've been married for 13 years and lately he's done a lot of things that I didn't anticipate with our history.  The first being he has gotten interested in cooking.  He bakes Russian bread and loves trying new things on the grill.  Most everything has been really good!  Part of me wonders if it because I have lost complete interest in this area.  The servitude of making meals has really worn on me as of late and I'm in a bit of a rut.  Regardless of how or why this new interest has sprung up, I'm very grateful for it.

Another thing that Steve has done lately is become quite the handyman.  We have an old house and there are things that will go wrong as a result.  But Steve has proven very adept at fixing them.  One night on the coldest day of winter, our furnace went out.  The repairman could not make it over quickly and so Steve proceeded to spend the night and day fixing it.  He's fixed old sprinkler systems that were never removed and were leaking water near the house.  He's fixed our current sprinkler system.  He's fixed car issues.  The list goes on.  The most recent being our deck.  Some of it seemed to have sunk causing a rift that made a lot of people trip when they came over.  You'd like to think it would have been a simple fix, but nothing in this house ever is.  And yet, Steve fixed it.  It's a good thing I've been laying off the cooking so he could wiggle under there.  It looked like a scene out of Wizard of Oz.

And not entirely related, here are some quick family pictures we took.  Sunday selfies if you will.  The quality was off, but hey, we're all there and kind of smiling.

Under the Stars

I truly think we are having one of our funnest summers to date.  Swimming, jumping on the trampoline, long lazy days at the library- we've been enjoying it all.  We have new neighbors, the Bennetts, with a little girl Nadia's age and a 7 year old boy and Kade, who was born the exact day/year as Rowan.  They come over a lot for impromptu play dates and that has been a lot of fun for the kids. 

My mom was kind enough to bring a projector that they weren't using over the summer at the school and we've now enacted outdoor movie nights.  The first night we invited over some neighbors, the Bennetts and Jessica Mullen with her brother and roommate and let Rowan watch Jurassic Park for the first time.  It was a lot of fun.  We got some used home theater speakers and set them up on the deck so you could feel the vibrations from the subwoofer during the exciting parts.  We hope to have several more parties with this set up in the future.  Here's some pictures of us testing it out before it got dark.

Rowan parked himself right by the subwoofer to get the full experience.  He really liked the movie and only had to come snuggle a little bit.  The girls aren't quite ready for this one, so they went to bed early.  The next movie will be a little more age appropriate.

Musical Proclivities

Sage has always liked music.  On the way from bringing her home from the hospital, she got very scared and started to cry.  We all started singing to her and she calmed down and would get upset again if we stopped.  It's been fun to see her enjoy music more now that she's older.  She dances and now, as this video details, "sings".  Cutest baby ever.

Utah Lake

I think in all the years I've lived in Utah, I've only gone to Utah Lake once and never swam in it.  My sister recently became part owner of a boat and so for the Fourth of July weekend, we took the kids tubing there.  The water was murky, but very warm and there was not many people on the lake so we had a lot of room to play around.  Rowan's last experience boating didn't go so well when some crazy teenagers were trying to throw some men off a tube at a father-son campout, so he was a little hesitant.  But by the time we were done, he declared it "the best time ever."

Nadia was, once again, my little daredevil.  This girl is so brave about stuff like this.  She had her thumb up almost every time we went, which was the sign to speed up!

L-R: Elsa, Nadia, and Caroline.  You can see her thumbs up.  After a while, Elsa started putting her thumbs up too, but I'm not sure she knew what that meant.  She was also quite the little daredevil for a three year old and loved every second.

Going easy on Payton and Nadia for the first time.


Going a little less easy on Payton and Rowan. 

All the cousins getting pulled into shore at the end.

It was a good time had by all.  It's nice to have family with fun toys.