This summer got away from me …

Last summer it seemed we were forever waiting on trips to Utah.  We visited my grandpa before he died, then we went back for his funeral.  Then we went down for my brother’s farewell and for a family reunion.  I spent the time between trips recovering from the last and anticipating the next one.  At the end of the summer, I felt like I’d missed out on a lot of summer things that we never got around to.  So, I decided we would make time for those things this summer. 

We got out the little sprinkler and just let the kids play.

I signed the kids up for two sessions of swimming lessons.

I hurried out and bought L a bike (which I’d needed to do last year …).

And we had A BLAST!!!

 

While the kids played, I worked on refinishing my sis-in-law’s dining room table and sewed a quilt (which will get its own post).

And just when we were all played out, we got to August … and things got busy … and I stopped posting pictures …

We went down to my parents’ house, first.  They recently moved into my Grandpa’s house, which he designed and built himself.  I LOVE that they are there.  That house is just about as close to a “home” as I have (and when my other grandparents sell their house, I will shed buckets of tears).  My dad’s putting in a deck out back, and we put the kids’ handprints in the cement.

My brother-in-law helped each of the grandkids leave their prints.

Then we went up to Snowbird, up Little Cottonwood Canyon.  For the very first time, I saw a moose!  (And I know this sounds like a little thing, but C and I went on our honeymoon to Yellowstone while my family went to Snowbird.  While we couldn’t find a single moose, they saw three!)

Oh, there’s a moose!  Take a pic, quick!

She’s hanging around.  Take more pictures …

Hello, Moose!

She didn’t seem to mind us being there at all.

Of course, the kids didn’t mind her, either.  They’d found a caterpillar, which was infinitely more amusing.

One so you can see how close we were.  She wasn’t more than thirty feet up the mountainside.

My kids loved Snowbird.  They’re getting big enough to go on short hikes without having to carry them out … well, except for J, who rode on my shoulders for the second half of our White Pine adventure.

I love that they get to spent time with my grandparents.

And time with their cousins, of course! 

And they learned how to water the trees in the forest … a skill they will thank me for when they are teenagers and go to girls’ camp!

We played in a mountain stream … and slipped into it!

L has learned to roll her eyes when I pull out my camera.

S didn’t want to smile because she wanted to remember, in the picture, that she’d gotten all wet.

Then she hurried back to the water.

My mom read books to the grandkids and generally spoiled them.

And we came home completely wiped out. 

Raspberries!

The local community college horticulture department has a “you-pick” garden.  I hadn’t been before, but I loaded the kids up and took them over to the garden to see what we could get.  What we ended up with was 4.5 lbs of fresh raspberries!

I forgot my camera, but I tried to get some of the evidence of the trip when we got home.  We all had purple fingers, and my arm was criss-crossed with red scratches – but it was worth it!

S came to me a few times to show me how much was in her basket, and when she saw how my pile was growing, she began to take her task very seriously.  I showed L how to lift up the bottom branches and find what other people had missed, but she didn’t care to get her arms scratched.  J kept coming back to me to show me his basket was empty.  I’d help him pick a few and I’d dump some from my basket into his … and he’d come back with purple lips and an empty basket again a few minutes later. 

(I was worried about taking my kids to a you-pick place and having them eat while picking.  Then the girl who showed us what rows to pick and showed the girls to pick the purple berries assured us, “And we don’t spray, so you can eat them right off the bush as you go!”  I was glad to not worry about J eating more than he picked.)

I also got a minute to talk to the horticulture student about how to plant/grow raspberries in Idaho.  I did plant three of them this year, but they all died.  According to her, I didn’t water them near enough.  I’ll try again next summer.

My first project with the berries looked like this.  Homemade raspberry jam.  Mmmmmm!

Then L suggested we make a raspberry pie.  I’d never done that before, but I figured it was worth a try.

(There are my jam jars in the background)  The pie turned out … AMAZING.  Ok, so the crust is a bit brown, but the rest of it was heaven! 

I’m pretty sure we’ll be making a trip to the college gardens again. 

Swimming!

I completely forgot to take the camera with me for the first session the girls were in swimming lessons, so I made sure to take my camera the first day of the second session.

I’d talked to the pool manager about putting J in for the second session (even though he’s not yet 3) and they said he’d be fine.  He got in and out the first day … and then refused to have anything to do with his class or his teacher until day 7 of 8.  Oh well, L was much older before we first put her in swimming, I’m sure J will be fine. 

Speaking of L, she made great progress in her swimming this summer.  At the beginning, she was only just putting her face in.  Her first day of classes, her teacher told them to do bobs at the side of the pool, and I watched in amazement as she joined in.  Now she’s reached a point where she can actually swim and cover distance underwater!

S had pretty much figured it out, but she still doesn’t like to put her face in the water.

 

She moved up two levels this summer!

This is J on day 7 of 8 classes – watching his teacher and his class, just not sure if he wants to get in or not.

But he finally got in, and he did just fine the last two days!

Belated 4th of July

We went to the little 4th of July parade this year again.  The nice part about going to a small town parade is that we can arrive 15 minutes before it starts and still find good, front-row seats. 

  On the way down the street, I pushed the stroller with J and the girls came behind.  I heard someone behind ask, “Do you want a balloon?”  I turned to see someone give their last two balloons to my girls. 

It ought to be against the law to give a family with three kids only two balloons.  Poor J only cheered up when another group of people came by and gave us little flags to wave.

We did do a few fireworks with my sister-in-law’s family, who had come to visit.

C demonstrated how to play with a sparkler without hurting yourself or anyone else.  Then we stood the kids out in the road as far apart from each other as could be and let them play.

J got left out of that one, but he did like the little poppers.  I always considered those to be daytime fireworks.  I never knew they gave off little orange sparks when they pop – but that was J’s favorite part.  He got pretty good at throwing them down and popping them, then stomping on the ones that didn’t pop.

Talking

For anyone who may not know, this little boy has been a bit of a worry for me.

 

 

He wasn't speaking as well as he "ought" to at 18 months.  The pediatrician recommended speech therapy, but I was convinced that it wasn't an actual speech problem - more just that he didn't feel the need to speak, so he didn't.  After all, he was only 18 months old, and he had two older sisters who spoke up for him and provided everything he (never) asked for.

 

On one hand, I was glad I'd been comfortable enough telling the doctor that I thought we just needed to give him time ... on the other hand, I wondered now and then what would happen if I was wrong.  If he did have a legitimate problem, it would be better to start working with him earlier.

 

Luckily, he's started talking and making progress.  We've graduated to longer sentences.  He said his name for the first time the other day, made a "p" sound for the first time and a "t" sound for the first time the next day.  I'm feeling relieved.

 

The purpose of this post was to share two things he's said lately:

1) "Dat ooks yummy!  I wa eat it."  As I put the sausage on the griddle to cook, and both of his sisters declared it looked disgusting.  I liked that it shows his little personality developing, and he doesn't always have to do just what his big sisters do.  And he ate two whole sausages.

 

2) I had put my hair up in a bun when it was wet, so it was slicked down flat on my head.  Jack pointed at my head and said, "Mama, Ouu hair all gone!  Ouu hav buy new hair!"  Hehehe.  Love that one!

Bike Riding

We'll see if this works.  I spliced the three videos together.  Don't worry - L screams at the end of J's video, but she was just fine.  If you want an example of how quickly she freaks out, watch her in the middle of S's video, when she "almost runs into the car". 

***I'm not making fun of L - I was just like her as a kid.  I just think it's cute.***

So glad it’s Summer!

I know the temps have been crazy this summer, but I can’t help loving it!  Here in Idaho, we’ve gotten used to summers in the low eighties … but this year we’ve been in the 90s!  Repeatedly!  I’ve been loving it!

Nope, these are not my kids.  My amazing friend from VA stopped by to spend a few hours with us, and I got to see her kiddos.  When we left, her oldest was still a preschooler, and she didn’t have her last two at all.  I follow her blog, so I still felt like I knew them, and it was fun to see them in person.

We tried to get a pic of all seven kids together … but they were more interested in playing than cooperating.

The falls were low, because the canals have been open for a while, but this was the first time I’d seen them low (for comparison, look at the pic at the top of my blog – I took that one a few years ago in April, before the canals opened).

Last year the summer got away from me and was over before I’d even started.  This year, I was convinced it wouldn’t happen again.  I went into the pool before L even finished school and signed up for two (non-consecutive) sessions of swimming lessons.  Then, as soon as I could, I bought L a new bike.  She needed one last year, but I kept telling her, “Oh, we’ll go get you a bike tomorrow …”  until the summer was over.

I promise I’ll take my camera to swimming lessons this time around, but I didn’t get any pics during the first session.  I do have some bike pics.

J fell asleep on the way home from getting the bikes, so when he woke up 2 hrs later, we let him ride his bike in the house a bit.

My dad put training wheels on L’s bike while I was busy at Cubscout Daycamp.

L is a lot like me.  She’s very cautious.  She takes it very slow.  And she doesn’t take to falling off very well.

 

But … she’s really getting the hang of it.  Even with the training wheels, when we first let her ride, I had to run alongside her to keep her from falling over.  Now she handles it pretty well.  She still falls, but we wipe her off and set her back on.  Ironically, it was after she was done with the bike today and started riding her scooter that she biffed it and skinned her knee.  Then it was, “Mom, THERE’S BLOOD, THERE’S BLOOD, THERE’S BLOOD!!!”

She had a small scrape on her knee.  And she decided she’d rather ride her bike again for a while.

J and S scoot along happily on their own … which makes me realize, S is a lot better this year.  Last year, I couldn’t leave her alone, because she always needed a push or some help to keep going.

We’ve been enjoying summer treats …

… and I’ve been enjoying afternoon naps.  Ok, so this doesn’t happen every day, and even when it does, it’s usually just one kid at a time.

I know the rest of the country is roasting … but we’re having a wonderful time!