Less Gloom, More Bloom

This was our first June bloom.  I'm still waiting for my favorite pink peonies to pop.  Then I'll know that it's really truly summer time!  The weather hasn't been hot yet, but it hasn't been as gloomy as forecasted, so for now,  I'll take it.  With less than a week of summer break behind us, things are going pretty well.  I'm enjoying my morning walks, the girls are enjoying sleeping in and staying up later (with the sun), and we're getting a fair amount of work done.   I'm trying to enforce a couple of schedules: all chores done before noon, and no more than 30 minutes of electronics time (t.v., computer, Nintendo, etc) until after dinner.  Wish me luck.

Flashback Fashion

Tonight, Katelyn wore my eighth grade "graduation" dress (specially ordered by myself, and made by my talented mother) to her eigth grade "completion" celebration.

Rebecca in her backyard (with her grandparents), 1990

Katelyn in her backyard, 2011

In my case, it really was a graduation, because I was leaving junior high and starting high school. 

 In Kate's case, it's just a "completion", because even though Katelyn will be a Freshman in the fall, she is not graduating from junior high.  Our local junior high hosts 7th-9th grades, and the high school is just 10th-12th.  And that means that Katelyn will spend more time in junior high school than she will at a high school, since she started 6th grade at a junior high school in Washington.

In Katelyn's lingo, she might say that's "Pretty grand, eh?" 

That's My Kid!

This morning, I woke up early and found Emily on the computer.  She explained that she wanted to write a poem.  In a matter of minutes, here's what she composed:
 

Happy Memorial Day!

Here's a little message for those who've passed away:

Thank you for the work you did, and who we are today.

For without you we wouldn't be! Nor this place we live.

We're honored by your sacrifice. Your lives you'd freely give.

You fought in battles, long and hard! You raised our parents well.

Because of you, we freely talk, and learn and work and dwell.

So, on this Memorial Day, We'd just like to claim:

Thank you, and we miss you! We'll try to be the same.

We'll strive to do our very best; examples, just like you!

Lastly, I'll just again say: Thank you and we love you, too!

 Emily Larson, 12 years old

Some Strange Place

To cap off our family reunion weekend in St. George, we visited Snow Canyon.  It feels like another planet!  The sand feels sweet beneath the feet, and the plants add an ocean of bright aqua.

 So bright, in fact, that as we walked through the canyon and glanced down at our arms, our skin looked blue!  Pictures don't capture the magical color. 

But they do capture some of the fun.  Gravity check:

After playing in the sand dunes, we drove through the canyon, and then some of us made the return trip to the park entrance on our bikes.  It was about a three mile ride, and 97% of it was downhill!  We smiled the entire way down.  We saw birds, butterflies, and chipmunks, and even a long black and yellow snake on the trail...Olivia joined the I Spy fun and pointed out some other familiar creatures: "See those humans?"....but no gila monsters, and no turtles.  Maybe next time.

What's Next

I always need something on my calendar to look forward to.  As soon as one anticipated event ends,  I start to ask myself, "OK, what's next?"  And I've come to realize that all of these little things I anticipate have an underlying theme: getting me closer and closer to SUMMER!  I think this is why January is always so hard for me.  There's not much to look forward to--it's all too far away!   2011 has gone something like this:

January - looking forward to Hawaii!  Then I'll come home from Hawaii and it will only be a few more weeks of winter, probably!  Spring Break will be just around the corner, and after that I'll be busy planning our Family Reunion in May.  By the time we come home from our Reunion, the girls will only have two partial weeks of school left, and then it will be SUMMER!  CAN'T WAIT!

Those were my thoughts, starting the day after Christmas.

Doug always warns me not to expect too much, because it leads to disappointment.  He's right, but somehow that lesson just hasn't kicked in yet.  I have been disappointed that winter seemed to last much longer than anticipated, and Spring has been much less thrilling than I thought it would be...in fact, it hasn't felt much like Spring at all yet.  And now that I was anticipating Summer, I'm afraid I'm going to be let down once again!

If I could just make friends with Mother Nature...but she's such a fickle gal!  She should know I'm not a very patient person when it comes to high maintenance drama queens.  I think that's why our relationship is on the rocks right now.  I'm really trying to focus on the positive, you know? 

Like this:

One of my favorite pics from the Reunion.  It shows a lot of elements that made my weekend so wonderful--family gathered together (6 of Doug's 8 brothers + their families), sunshine, playfulness (and a little bit of competitiveness mixed in), relaxation, laughter.

We came home and I looked at my calendar.  This week is pretty much empty.  Soccer has ended, school is winding down, and time seems to be slowing down...which would be perfect, if we weren't back to that January weather! 

Oh! Somebody's Got a Birthday!

...and Doug had to stop somebody else from blowing out the candles for her!  Also notice that the birthday girl can multi-task: brush little Polly Pocket-size-Rapunzel's hair, and blow the candles mid-stroke!

How we love our three-year-old Olivia!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

One recent (rainy) day, Hannah said to me, "There's sure going to be a lot of May flowers!"  I truly hope so!   We're so ready for May!

Eat Your Kids' Art

Art: Before

If you're a fan of egg salad, try it my way.  If you're not a fan of egg salad, try it my way, and you just might change your mind.

Take those colored Easter eggs that look too pretty to eat, and peel and chop about eight of them. 

Chop a "couple few" stalks of celery and throw that in the bowl with the eggs.  This adds a crucial crunch to your egg salad!  Don't skip the celery!  If you like onions, you can mince some of that and add it to the bowl, too.

Now, in a separate small bowl, combine 1/2 to 1 cup mayo (depending on how much you like/dislike mayo), the juice of 1/2 a lemon, and the following spices: 1 teaspoon ground mustard, 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon onion powder (only if you didn't already add minced onion to the other bowl), 1 teaspoon dillweed.  Oh man, the dillweed makes this delicious!  Don't skip the dill.  You can also add salt & pepper to taste, if you want to. 

Once the dressing is nicely blended, pour it into the egg mixture bowl, and stir it all up.  If you're a sandwich lover, you can slop this on some bread, and you could even add lettuce and tomato and all that good stuff to your sammy.   If you're more of a salad eater, then just wrap it up in a nice crisp lettuce leaf, and eat it like a burrito but call it a salad.   Tonight, we ate our egg salad sandwiches open-faced on buttered, toasted slices of yummy Pugliese bread from Costco.   Yummmmmy.

Art: After

Who's That Girl?

While we were warming up in St George, Doug took some of the girls to play laser tag at a local family arcade.  They played some other games and won over 400 prize tickets.  They redeemed the prize tickets for cheap jewelry, candy, and.....

a fake moustache and dark sunglasses for Lauren.  She then wore her new disguise when we went to Nielsen's to get frozen custard for dessert.  Doug prompted her while we were waiting in line, and once we got up to the counter, she drawled at the cashier, "Whaddya got on tap?"


This is how Katelyn has been disguising herself just about every weekend for the past few months:

as a flag bearer for her school's Color Guard.  We heard about this opportunity from a friend who joined last Spring, and thought it would be a good way for Kate to get involved with a school team.  She auditioned with no experience, made the team, ended up loving it, and we ended up with our jaws dropping to the floor the first time we watched the routine.  I had no idea Katelyn had that in her!  She is graceful and lovely to watch.  We're very proud of her.

Happy BirthdayTo Me!

Spring Break is an excellent week to celebrate one's birthday.  I heartily recommend it.  The entire week feels like one long birthday party!

It started off with my parents on Monday--shopping, eating, and sleeping over at Grandma's house.  Bonus: Doug's two-day business trip was cut in half, and he got home late that night! 

Tuesday, Doug took me to a really nice, quiet restaurant for dinner.  On the way home, we picked up my birthday cake: four different slices from the Cheesecake Factory!  We brought it home to share with the girls, only to find that they had been baking me a surprise birthday cake (and cleaning up the house and taking care of each other)  while we were gone!  So sweet!  So we had five different flavors of birthday cake to sample.

This morning, I woke up and smiled at the nice, firm mattress beneath me.  Yep, I got a new mattress for my birthday!  So far, so good.  (Olivia slept well in it this morning, too!  No crazy bedhead for her this time!)

Doug made breakfast--I requested oatmeal--and then I had a couple more bites of cheesecake to top it off!

After a few lazy hours at home, I took the oldest four girls with me and we all got pedicures.  Don't look too closely--my paint job looks like one of my little girls might have done it--that's what you get at the local beauty school! :)  It was really fun to do that with my girls, anyway.

And tomorrow, we're going somewhere warm and sunny to show off our cutesie tootsies at the pool! 

Happy Birthday to me!