It happened this summer

June 5 -
"Lollipop" by the Chordettes is Bella's new favorite song. So it's no wonder she was drawing lollipops of all sizes on her drawing board today. Now to teach her more than two words of the lyrics...

June 12 -   
Bella: I crazy
Me: That's because you're mine.
Bella: Mommy crazy, Bella crazy. (Then, she fumbles with her fingers before holding them up properly.) TWO CRAZIES.

June 15-
 Beautiful day to be outdoors. Worked in the vegetable garden and picked two beautiful bright yellow squash. Ethan enjoyed cutting the grass and the girlies have been out all day. Kabobs for lunch kept there from being a break in play. :)

Bella's singing the beginning of the My Little Pony theme song, but the ahhh part is the line from Coldplay's "Paradise" - hilarious!

June 17 - 
After a superhero themed grill out on one of the first truly hot days of this mild summer (naturally), Brian, Ryan, and Dad went head to head in the First Annual Father's Day Mento Geyser Wars.  I think Brian's geyser won, but Ryan's performance was most America's Funniest worthy.

 So there's some kind of bird right outside our house that sings all night long. Loudly. The first night or two I thought it was kind of cute and interesting. Now I'm just starting to think it's psychotic.

June 22 - 
Fairy Rose had a lovely time at Fairy Garden camp

June 25 - 
Psycho Bird is at it again!

June 27 of the summer of extremes - 
Today is still at a beautiful 77, but the forecast for the next five days is 100, 108!!, 100, 104!, 104! - then it cools down to the nineties. That, my friends, is crazy. 

June 28-
Ethan has set up a spa. He charges 30 cents for a lotioned foot massage and an additional 20 cents for a pedicure. He's almost done with his second customer.

July 1 - 
Rosie won free birthday cupcakes on a Facebook contest.  I have the best friends.

via Brian ~ It appears that the alternator belt just broke on the van. Thankfully, Alicia was at church,so she has a cool place to wait for the tow truck. [Yeah, and the car broke down right after he lost his job and is still waiting to be fixed, but God was gracious, a church friend came and brought the part and worked on it, the out neighbor mechanic fixed it the next morning all at no charge.]

July 7 - 
Rose: I used to think heaven was like you can just ask and have a piece of cake or a cup of water or a cup of milk and someone would bring it to you. As often as you want. And you would never get fat!

July 9-
Iced coffee + donuts + grapes = a breakfast picnic at the lake!

My little sister Rachel's profound observation today - "Generally people are happy when they're eating steak."

July 11 - 
 I just wrote Happy 7th Birthday in the artificial snow on the door. Seven. How can that be? The way the years fly past us. It takes a mama's breath away.

Turn from old ways, lift your eyes
For the kingdom of God is here
(Hillsong, "The One Who Saves")

July 15-
 Brian asked Bella, "Who is the bomb diggity?" Bella replied, "I'm Green Lantern, I AM the bomb diggity!"

July 18-
Brian's grandma finally moved into her newly built apartment at Brian's parents' house today. 

July 19- 15 years married to my love.
 The girl who went to Men in Black on her honeymoon and Armageddon on her first anniversary, finally got to see a strictly romantic movie on her anniversary. Finally saw The Lost Valentine. Loved it.

July 21 - 
 Cleaned up the most epic throw up in my career as a mother. It covered half the bathroom, and took a whole roll of good paper towels to eradicate, in addition to the towel and bath mat that I just threw out. Crowned this eventful night by drink my coffee black for the first time. It really wasn't so bad, and Rachel and I are going to be thinner by Christmas or kill each other trying.

July 25-
 Brian's working and listening to elevator music. On purpose. He actually said, "What? Don't you like this song?" And I told him that if it was playing in an elevator, I would get off on the wrong floor.

July 28-
  We read the book, "What Do Babies Need?" So before we began, I asked Bella. She didn't hesitate. "Chocolate milk."


July 29-
Walking in the sun today, Bella commented, "It's a hot day." I smiled and agreed, and she continued, "Hot days make my hair wet." She paused, "and cold days make my hair dry." :)

August 1 - 
 Sign left on Ethan's door tonight:

Do not disturb I'm sleeping (consiquences bellow)
1.dropped from the killer canyon
2.drowned in beta lagoon
3.strung over Violent Volcano

August 7- 
Anna -
"You may kiss the bride." That's just not fair. The groom's allowed to kiss the bride, but the bride's not allowed to kiss the groom. When I get married, I'm not doing it like that. They're going to say, "You may kiss each other."

Every time we get out of the van, Bella has to run to her garden to "check her oh-ma-toes."  She eats every red one.  If there's more than five or so, she might share one. :)

from Brian ~ This morning at family worship, when we read the words, "And you shall be my people, and I will be your God," Bella (3) exclaimed, "Ah! [her word for yes] I will hug him! I will be happy!"

August 10-
 Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

 My poor little orange garden spider has no luck. Every night she builds a beautiful web outside my front door. And every night someone walks through it or, like tonight, a storm washes it away. She even got smart this time and built it beside rather than over the steps and slightly under the edge of the porch where I was sitting watching the storm. But the wind got so strong that it started blowing the web back and forth (almost into my face!), and about the time I moved to Brian's lap, then started getting soaked and running back inside, another web had bitten the dust.

August 12 - 
13 meteors in a little over an hour - 4 were absolutely epic!! 

Watched these with my sweet Anna girl, the only one I could wake up. :)  It was on her bucket list after all.  I saw three in about 30 seconds and came running in to get them, but we waited a good ten minutes to see the next one. But once we saw a really big bright fireball with a long trail, we were pretty hooked. We screamed after every big meteor then giggled because we were probably waking the neighbors in the middle of the night.  The ground was so wet we had to sit in chairs and got the worst crink in our necks.  And as we would slowly head closer to the door to come back in, we'd see another good one and watch a while longer. :) So grateful for that hour and a half break in the cloud cover.  What a wonderful night!'

August 15 - 
from Brian ~ Bella came outside while I was praying this morning. She must have heard me ask the Lord to bless me, because she walked over and placed her hand on my head.

August 18-
from Brian ~ Tonight as I put Bella to bed, she said, "I bless you, daddy!" She put her hand on my head as I placed mine on hers and repeated the words with me.

August 19 - 
 Bella picked so many of her grape tomatoes yesterday that I had to save leftovers in the frig. I warned her that they would be could and she cringed through eating the first one, then said, "My ohmato freaked me out."

There are so many mosquitos around our house right now that I'm sitting INSIDE being eaten just from people going in and out during the day!

Jesus is in me and Bella is in Jesus.... And Bella grow up, be like Jesus. And Rosie grow and be like Jesus, and Anna grow and be like Jesus, and Ethan grow, be like Jesus, and Mommy grow and be like Jesus, and Daddy grow and be like Jesus...And everyone will say, they be like Jesus! ~ Bella, age 3

August 20- First Day of School
Bella, while hanging around Brian's neck - "I will love you, and kiss you, and call you George."

August 21 - 
my sweet husband's facebook status:  This is for all the homeschool moms getting ready for a new school year this week. You're the moms that are up all night -- not because you are worried where your children are or what they are doing. Your children are all safely tucked in bed. You're up all night turning your home into an atmosphere of education. You're up all night making sure everything is just right - the curriculum, the field trips, the games, etc. You will have the fruit of your hands. Your works will praise you in the gates.





  

 





 









 

Squeezin' in Summer

We really had a lot of fun this summer.  Brian was out of work and had a good bit of free time.  We went to the creek and the water park and the neighbor's pool.  We had friends to dinner, and friends sleep over.  But we still didn't have nearly enough time for all of the lovely things we dreamt of doing.  The summer bucket lists still had lots of things on them (especially mine!  especially cleaning projects - bleh.)  Anyhoo, I reminded the kids that there really is still a month of summer and we're still working on checking things off. :)

Last week, we tried to to knock out a few wishes involving going downtown.  It sort of worked.  The coveted trip to the candy shop flunked a little, because it apparently went out of business recently, but we hit another store with a good variety of candy and the girls made a great karaoke dvd at the children's museum (just a few weeks left on that pass!), but we didn't get to splash in the fountains.    Hopefully we'll get another chance at that.

Yesterday I taught the 3s Sunday School  They were way too cute and very attentive - Moses has a great story!  We hurried home for lunch after a parent meeting for Ethan's new middle school class (middle school?!). I was locked in a debate about taking the kids to the minor league ball game that we had free library program tickets to by myself, but decided to try it with the promises of Brian's prayers, he's had such a lousy month with all the stormy weather, then caught the little big we passed around too.  It ended up being perfect.  I had picked up $1 team t-shirts on clearance last year and they got another t-shirt from the library program, as well as free kid meals (thanks Bi-Lo!).  Faces were painted, the Drive won in the bottom of the 9th, they received free frisbees for running the bases after, and we rode the trolley back to the parking lot (Bella did

a lot of cheering about this). I'd held off requests for treats during the game, promising a cheaper alternative after resulting in a slushie "picnic" (Bella asked, "I sit in you lap and have a picnic?" at the outdoor tables) at QT.  We arrived home in the gathering dark, and I happily succeumbed to thier pleas to try out their new frisbees.   Brian pulled out some tattered strands of energy and joined us - six players and four frisbees.  We even tried adding glow stick to the frisbees so we could see them better - that didn't really work, but it was fun trying and watching the glow stuff go slinging through the air.  The day was crowned  by earning Rose's much-coveted "Best Day Ever!" pronouncement. I agree.  It was rumored to be the best Sunday ever, particularly, and really had a stellar quality over the hectic, stressful Sundays that have too often been the norm.

Today I tackled a request from Anna's Summer Bucket List, Giggle Day.  Yes, you read that right.  Sometimes presenting yourself as the maker of family magic does backfire a tad.  Anna and Rose's lists were rather full of themed ideas that would require a bit of effort from someone (who could that be??). :)  So, a Giggle Day was requested, a day of giggles all day long.  And now, it needed to mix with school.  We took a school day, and began with a tickle fight.  Then we dressed in crazy clothes and hats.  Next came a breakfast with the cereal in cups and the apple juice in the sipper bowls and Bill Cosby telling a story about Go-Carts and parents trying to kill off their children by building playgrounds with see-saws and monkey bars.  We learned the bases with Abbot and Costello, then we studied hard, doing our reading from joke books, writing a book report on them, then doing grammar by mad libs.  We took a short history break from the giggles, but really, they were learning about the Celts in ancient Britain, one of Brian's favorite topics, how bad could it be?  Then hot dog pieces with spaghetti trailing from them and covered in cheese sauce surprised them for lunch, and they assembled for some Three Stooges.  Finally we embarked on some Bible study and shopping, but rounded out the day with pizza, ice cream, and Mr. Popper's Penguins.  Yes, Anna, I know it would have been better not on a school day, but I think we did all right.  She went to bed happy.

Soon I have some letterboxing, sleeping under the stars, a bonfire, and  using the telescope to squeeze in.  If you have a great location for a lemonade stand, let me know!