More Shots of Summer

Noah started Safety Town.

And then finished it.  We all call him Safety Citizen now.  

 The boys cleaned up their LEGOs... again... if they didn't love LEGOs so darn much it would be much harder to tolerate them!

 Laney has spent a fair amount of time hiding from all the noise and chaos of family, friends, and visitors in the house 24/7. 

Leah got a henna tattoo from the library. 

 Which faded much more quickly that she would have liked because she had swim lessons for the next two weeks. 

One night Leah and I headed to the temple with some of our friends!

 Which of course required ice cream afterward.  Not pictured entirely is Leah's awesome outfit- shorts, t-shirt, earrings and high heels because she forgot regular shoes!

 Emma got a new art kit because.... well, because she's the middle child and because she love art and mostly because the kids were spending an entire day with some friends with ours, and everyone has a friend except for Emma.  So she got an art kit.

 That day Jason and I went to Missouri to join in on the last night of youth conference.  We have some seriously amazing youth in our stake, and the five hours of driving plus favor-calling-in and dog-sitting that it required for me to be able to join him for the evening was completely all worth it.

 

An Iowa traffic jam.  There are geese conventions going on all over town right now! 

 An early morning date with my big girl... pretty sure I'm slouching in this picture!

And the days of summer keep marching on.  Not pictured are the trips to the park, the bike rides, the night games s'mores party Leah hosted for the boys and girls in her church group, a family date to Toy Story 4, hours of playing hotel with the sweet phone Noah found for the girls, running through sprinklers, playing with friends, walks with the pup, yard projects, catching fireflies, and all around staying up a bit too late every night and enjoying the option of sleeping in (which, of course, the boys never take and the girls always do).   We're finally hitting temps in the 90s so the future plan is to swim, swim, and swim some more!  And enjoy all of the sweet visitors that are headed our way!

Wrapping Up Baseball

Baseball seems to take up so much of our time in the last weeks of the school year, and then it abruptly comes to an end and we almost (almost!) find ourselves wishing for a few more games in the season. 

Noah probably had just about enough of t-ball/dirt drawing.  Those He did a great job for his first attempt at organized sports!

Adam had lots of good games and some not so good ones too. I took this picture two seconds before he got hit in the helmet with a ball- he sure is committed to staying in the box!

Most of his games were in the early evening, 

but he had a few night games too.

And at every game he gave his best effort.  Some of the best games were not the ones that they won.

Goodness, tensions can get high at some of those games.  I'm not sure I have the nerves to be a baseball mom, but I'll support them as long as any of our kids are playing on the field!

And it was always fun for the kids to scooter and race around the ball park during the game... for two hours... more or less.

 Adam's team made into the tournament, which brought his hopes of winning it all to the next level, but they were beat by the only undefeated team in the league.

All good things must come to an end, and it never hurts to celebrate the overall success of the season with a little ice cream!

Father's Day

 Boy!  Father's Day sure is a piece of cake (or brownies if you ask Jason's preference) compared to Mother's Day.  Cinnamon rolls, a few surprises, and a nap.  I get the feeling that there just isn't the same amount of self-evaluation on Father's Day that there is on Mother's Day, and that actually made for a perfectly pleasant day for all of us.  Jason is one easy dad to please!  

Check out these handsome boys in their matching wooden bow ties from Grandpa Mark!

After church we gathered around to test Adam's super skill at Name That Tune- he guessed so many right in Primary that he got disqualified from the game!

Game faces on!

 It was a very close competition, but Adam eventually beat everyone else 15-14.  He says it's because he reads the Primary Children's Songbook a lot.  Who knew?  

 And then it was on to the gifts (sweet corn soda- disgusting but fun to laugh about!), the naps, and the tasty dinner, grilled by Jason himself.  

This sweet paper from Noah nicely sums up Jason- 

he is as big as a standing bear, he does corn stuff, and all of the kids say they love wrestling with him, even though he does plenty of other things with him.  He's at all of their baseball and t-ball games, takes them to church on Wednesday nights, takes care of all things technology and sports around the house, is always up for a game of ball in the backyard, and is even willing to share his peanut M&Ms with everyone.  And most of all, he's always, and I mean always willing to help Mom out with whatever she needs.  He is a great example to them and to me of selfless service and love.

And Noah is right, his hair could definitely be categorized as gray.

I think Jason's efforts as the provider in our family are a lot like the presence of the sun- you know it's there, and you know it's important, and you know you'd miss it if it went away, but you can't quite describe how grateful you are for all it does for you.  All the kids know is that Daddy has to be gone a whole lot more than any of us would prefer.

Noah asked Jason the other day where he had been all day, and was shocked when he found out that Daddy had been at work. 

"Wait!  Do you have to go to work every day??"

It's a really big job, and we're all grateful that Daddy's willing to do it!

A Fun Mom

A fun mom knows when it's time to stay home, and when it's time to go have some adventures!

We love Ledges.  The closest thing to hiking that we can get around here, Ledges always provides hours of stick gathering and rock throwing and boulder climbing and stream wading.

And this time we took Laney!

The water was chilly, and the mud was thick and oozy

 and her little six inch legs didn't seem to appreciate the experience too much.  Sometimes I forget that she's not a big bounding lab of some sort.

But she fluffed right back up and slept it off on the drive home.

Another fun mom day we left Laney behind, this time heading to the zoo!  We've been to the zoo so many times now... but it's always just as fun.  

Leah and I had a good laugh about this starfish.

 Look at these cute fish!

 Traditional picture by the girrafe 

 And another one!  Giraffe photobomber!

 These monkey statues are crazy realistic, and so fun.  Look out Adam!

The kids would have happily spent all day in the naturescape building with blocks and pretending to be homeless people in this hut.

And, of course, the tiny bouquet of flowers I gathered as each of the kids handed me their offerings reminded me of the incredible gift of an ordinary day, when motherhood and childhood are shared.

Some days being a fun mom means that we stay home and "do nothing" at all.  I watched the huge groups of daycare kids at the zoo being shuffled along at their leader's pace and said a silent prayer of gratitude, for the 10,000th time, that I have the privilege of being with my babies in the summer.  And my heart skipped a beat when I realized we only have five more summers like this one ahead of us before the birds start leaving the nest (and probably even a few less in which my oldest tells me that she's perfectly happy to just spend her summer days at home with her family). 

Being a a fun mom is the best job out there, and there is no other job I'd rather have.

The 'B' Word

In our family we aren't allowed to say "Boring" or "Bored"- it just means you're telling the world that you're a boring person who doesn't have much imagination to entertain yourself with.  And Noah will tell you that if you say bored then you get to clean a bathroom, so the kids are all careful not to use that phrase around me.

But with Laney here, there is never really a chance to be bored anyway.  She's always a great source of entertainment!  Have five minutes before your next big thing?  

Feed her a treat!

Or play a game of fetch.  

Or get a puppy snuggle.

Or take her outside.  

Or play find the pup in another silly place.

 Or surround yourself with all of her toys and watch her go crazy!

 Or give her a bath!

And then dress her up with a bow.

 If you sit down she'll probably come hop up onto your lap.  

There just isn't much time to be bored with a pup in the house!