Preschool Graduation

 

Church Shots

Lately I've been taking pictures of the kids before we walk into church. I love my kids when they are shiny and clean in their church clothes. And they love sitting on these rocks and posing for me.

 

Lately when I tell Scarlett not to do something, she says, "Why?" It's a word she learned from her brothers, and she doesn't even know what it means. So our conversations sound like this:

"Scarlett, don't play in the dishwasher." She pulls out a spoon and says, "Why?" looking up at me while she puts it in her mouth. "Because it makes a mess, baby."

"Scarlett, don't take out your hair bow." She yanks it out and hands it to me. "Why?"

As she perches on the top of the couch and bangs on the window I say, "Scarlett, no." She continues banging and turns to me and says, "Why?"

She's also into climbing things. The other day at Grammy's house we heard her little voice calling, "Fall! Fall!" We found her in the bathroom, perched up on the sink and trying to get back down.

These days, any time I'm not sure where she is, I eventually find her in a bathroom sitting in a sink and drenching herself with water.

Edmond misses preschool already, and it only ended a few days ago. He is starting to read and I love working on it with him. He's a good little swimmer and I'm hoping to have him swimming on his own by the end of the summer. Even though he is a big boy now, sometimes when he is playing and I'm watching his face, I can still catch glimpses of what he looked like when he was a baby, with his big blue eyes and blonde fuzzy hair. He is so precious to me.

 

 

I'm having a hard time getting a good picture of Charlie these days. The minute he knows I'm taking a picture he pulls this "cheese" face where he squints his eyes and grits his teeth. He is my cuddle bug. My cutie pie. My squeeze cake. My buttercup. After his show is over, without fail, he says, "Carry me, Mom!" He does this because he's bugged that he can't watch TV anymore, and his head hurts because he likes to lay on his stomach and look up at the TV when he's watching. So, when he makes his request, I scoop him up and hold him for a long time. He wraps his soft little arms around my neck and holds me tight and burrows his face in my neck. It's my favorite.

He hasn't been coming to sleep in our bed anymore in the middle of the night. I miss him, but it's nice not to be squished in the middle of the bed anymore. He loves his primary teacher. He always tells me, "My teacher's name is Sawa". (Sara)

 

I love these little people in my life.

Utah - Down Time

Here is Scarlett and her cousin Patrick.

Scarlett sleeping in her pack n play. She is so beautiful.

My Mom fell asleep with Halle and Avryl sleeping next to her. We were all sitting there talking, the next thing we knew these three were asleep.

Charlene, Erik, me, Tyson and Calli. We stayed up late one night just shooting the breeze while our kids played and fell asleep in random places. We were all sitting like this on the couch talking when my Mom took our picture. This is so typical of us. My family is so huge that I have a lifetime of memories with me smooshed on a couch laughing with my brothers and sisters. It's fun to be together.

The boys are off to have an adventure in the yard somewhere.

Scarlett and Abigail are a couple months apart. I found them playing on the porch like best friends, laughing and being silly together. They already have a lot in common because they both have wild older brothers who rough them up all the time. They are cute in their matching polka-dots.

 

Utah was good to us this time. We miss it already.

Utah - Halle's Party

Halle and Lance had a birthday party. It was over-the-top cute. My sister-in-law Tasha did the decorations. She's so good at that stuff.

Scarlett kept that little white balloon tied to her wrist the entire time. She calls balloons "ball-looloons". It's cute to watch her little tongue wag around when she says that word. She's also saying her name, which she actually does pretty perfectly which is amazing because it is not an easy word for little mouths to say.

My kids spent a lot of time in the sand box, which made me cringe every time I looked down on them. I could see Charlie's little pants pockets filled to the brim with sand. I had to strip my kids before I put them in my car. I don't like sand.

The birthday kiddos.

Scarlett spent about two hours eating this rice crispy treat on a stick. She dragged it all over the yard, munching on it the whole time.

Utah - Trampoline Wars

When I asked Edmond what his favorite part of Utah was, he told me it was when Grampa came out to the trampline and they hit each other with pillows.

The rest of the time on the trampoline was spent wrestling with cousins.

There are a lot of boy cousins in my family. And a lot of them are around the same age as my two boys. They have so much fun together.

Here is Scarlett and her cousin Lance. They were cute on the trampoline together.

 

Utah - Feeding the Animals