Summer Fun

The end of the school year and beginning of the summer is always so fun and busy.  It feels like there is ample time to soak in every minute, relax together, have fun together, and feel grateful for sunshine and warm weather.  We had great weather for a week and tried to spend lots of time outside.  Of course, the days these pictures were taken it was so hot and humid that we were dripping and sticky instantly and didn't last long outside.  But that is why we have the pool on the deck.  It's super classy.  It's a good thing the neighbors on either side of us do the same thing or I might feel embarrassed.  Not that embarrassment has ever kept me from doing something before...and it certainly wouldn't stop me from preventing the ScreamFest/Monkey-in-the-Middle game happening in the video below.

Abby was so excited for her field trip to Green Springs Garden!  Her clothes were laid out the day before, hair planned, lunch packed, sunscreen at the ready, and 2 water bottles set to go.  My Abby is a planner. :)

Lydia can pose anytime, anywhere.

Sam was smart.  He found the shade when he needed to rest.

Andrew loves his watermelon.  And any other food he can get his hands on.

Creek Walk

One of our favorite warm weather activities is to walk on the Cross County Trail just outside of our neighborhood and find places to throw rocks and sticks, take a long stroll, get muddy, and build dams.  We went yesterday before it got too hot and we had to tear the kids away.  It was a lot of fun and a great distraction from the chores in store for us that afternoon and a nice change of rhythm for a teething, cranky baby.

DC Temple Afternoon

We went to the DC LDS Temple today and got to enjoy the new children's exhibit.  The kids loved playing the different games on iPads, singing along with the interactive videos, and enjoying the gorgeous flowers on the grounds.  It was a perfect way to spend our afternoon. 

Sam was very excited to take pictures of a few of the especially beautiful flowers:

 Do you notice a theme in his color choice?

We had to get one of the three who will smile on demand:

I think my favorite conversation of the week was the following with Sam:

Sam: "What does Bob mean?"

Me: "It's a name."

Sam: "Oh, I get it!  Baba is 2 Bobs put together!"

   (FYI: We call Roy's dad Baba or Baba Z)

Pictures and Stories Dump

When our kids hit 7 months old, we start taking pictures of them in the bathtub to get the perfect happy shot that captures their personality.  One of my favorite things in our whole house decorating-wise is our bathroom wall with bathtub pictures of our cute babies.  Just so there are no questions of how naked our babies are, we crop the picture around the face, make it black and white, and frame it.  I just love this unique way of capturing a piece of our nighttime routine.  So here is the winning Andrew picture:

I had to pull off pictures from my phone because I am getting a new one this week.  Man, he's grown so much!

These three are the best.  They can get each other so angry or so hysterically laughing in a heartbeat.  True sibling best friends.

#4 just has to learn to sleep wherever he can.  Poor baby :)

We moved the girls into a room a few months ago and we are slowly decorating.  I made one of these butterfly mobiles above each bed and I am quite proud of it!  Thanks to Pinterest and my Cricut (thank you, Mom and Dad!), a few afternoons and evenings of work, and the motivation of a butterfly decoration being the only thing Lydia really wanted for her birthday, I created this:

More pictures from the Marbles Museum in Raleigh a couple weeks ago:

More random old pictures from my phone:

The magic floating head (Abby and Brynne) from visiting Thanksgiving Point in Utah back in November.

Cousin Cooper and Andrew (look how tiny he is and how he can only lay down...that baby is now an independent playing baby just 5 months later!)

Sam is the kid with the grey hoodie on in the front of the room.  He got to help do a science experiment at a library science show.

We have a nature trail that has an entrance from our neighborhood.  We LOVE it!  The kids were so excited that Abby had no school on Friday and it turned out we had beautiful weather and wanted to go exploring.  We saw geese and turtles and butterflies and squirrels, the kids moved rocks and sticks around the build a dam, we found all the colors of the rainbow in the forest, and reveled in the springtime weather.  It was glorious!

A couple weeks ago, we had 3 of the girl cousins over for a sleepover.  They had a great time together and everyone actually did sleep.  They were so awesome and even let Sam join them for the fun.  He's such a trooper :)  

                                           

Then a couple nights later, we had 2 of the same girls over again so their parents could go buy a house.  I needed my front room so we had all 5 big kids sleep in the girls room.  When I went to bed, I walked into the room to find this:

                                                          

We just had to show the cousins our nature trail (seriously, we have a fabulous neighborhood with wonderful friends and this trail just makes it even better).  Here are all the kids plus our best neighbor buddy Brennan.  Andrew and his little buddy Kellen are hanging out with the moms behind the camera.  Taking these 9 excited and happy kids on a long walk was so much fun!

And now since you've plowed through 15 or so pictures, here are the funny moments of our last couple months:

• Roy was playing Candyland with the kids today, which is not Abby's favorite game.  It really isn't too fun when you're the one who seems to always pull the cards that send you back to the beginning of the game :)  I had told her a story about a time I remembered being in the same boat and I could not finish the game to save my life.  So tonight, Abby wasn't thrilled about playing the game and then decided to and said, "I'm just like Mom!  I always lose at Candyland!"
• One of Abby's good friends got baptized yesterday at the same time as Abby's 2nd soccer game of the season.  It was a hard decision for her to decide which event she would go to.  She agonized over it and shared her challenge with several people.  Roy and I felt strongly that she needed to make this choice on her own and that it would be a valuable experience for to learn how to make hard choices.  I was so proud of her when she reported that she thought it through, prayed about it, and then based her choice off of the feelings she had felt while she prayed.  
• Sam was being really whiny the other day and I was so frustrated that I told him he was being a baby.  Immediately, Lydia said, "Good one, Mom!"  
• The other week when we had all the cousins over, I realized we had kids ages 8, 7, 5, 5, 4, 3, and 8 months all in the same room.  I believe "excellent chaos" is the best description of the moment.  I really did love it!
• We just finished memorizing the Articles of Faith as a family.  I knew that Sam had internalized the 2nd one when I heard him get mad at Lydia for taking a toy from hi and say, "We believe that Lydia must be punished for her own sins..."
• Did you know Roy is doing online school right now?  He's working toward an Entrepreneurship Certificate through Stanford (yes, the Stanford and Roy Stanford jokes keep rolling from my mouth).  The kids love to laugh at him when he has to do his homework :)
• And I cannot forget to mention that in Abby's first soccer game, she stole the ball and dribbled it all the way down the field and scored!  It was beautiful!  And the best part for her was that Roy was coaching and our little family, Grandma, Baba, Mika, Ari, and Uncle Nate were all there cheering for her.  It's a moment we have replayed several times and it was just awesome!
• Sam made a new friend at the park the other day.  They had a great time playing together so I reminded him to tell the boy his name.  He replied, "I did tell him my name.  I said my name was Butt!"  I couldn't help but laugh while I asked, "What did the boy say?"  Sam told me, "The boy laughed so hard he was shaking".  We're raising a comedian here, folks. :)

Way Too Fast

I feel like Andrew is growing up too quickly.  I always feel that way, I suppose, because there are things about each age and stage that I truly love.  Andrew is a wonderful, happy, delightful, in-love-with-me baby and he's so much fun to be with.  While it is so great to see the next step in growing up, I hope some of the loving-me-best instincts stay :)  Here's Andrew from Friday, the first day he showed any interest in crawling:

North Carolina

Roy had a work trip to make to Raleigh, NC and lined it up during Spring Break.  We loaded up the van early and started the drive.  Since he had been in Tokyo the week before, the drive was a great chance to catch up and chat.  We were only in the area for 30 hours, but it was a fun-filled trip and Raleigh won me over.  I would happily live there. :)  

While Roy worked, I took the kids to the UNC Arboretum for an Easter Egg Hunt.  It was a nice chance to run around and stretch our legs. 

Then we found a really great playground and ran around like fiends.  :)  It always makes me so happy to see the kids playing happily together!  Then we ate dinner and ran around a huge mall and finally crashed at the hotel.  We had a boys bed and a girls bed..

In the morning, we took the beautiful scenic route to the Raleigh LDS Temple and took our first family selfie.  Sam and I were laughing so hard that he had a hard time keeping his toe-perch on the edge of the bench while I held on to his waist.

Then we met our good friends, the Deckers, at Marbles Children's Museum in downtown Raleigh.  That museum was seriously the best hands-on museum we have been to ever!  We had to rip our kids away after 5+ hours (honestly, I didn't want to leave either).  It was fun to explore and play and be with friends who we hadn't seen in nearly 2 years.  We have even more pictures that I still need to sort through, but here are some stand-out shots from Jen.

We drove back home all loving Raleigh and hoping to go back again soon.