We have been b-u-s-y, crossing things off our summer list left and right.  June has been the perfect mix of lazy days and crazy days.  Father's Day was really nice, muffins in the morning then Stake Conference...home by noon instead of 4:00pm, woot woot!!  A relaxing afternoon, lasagna for dinner and a movie.  Good times. We went outside a few days before and snapped this photo...and about 57 others.  Paired with the very accurate statement below, this was one of Sam's gifts.  He really is pretty much the most favorite dad of all time in the history of ever.  He's definitely my favorite guy of all time in the history of ever!                         

We built a GIANT fort (another thing on our list) to watch Oz, the Great and Powerful.  Pretty good flick!  

The only problem with a giant fort is it's not quite "giant" enough for everyone...

"Happy Father's Day, Dad.  Here's a camp chair."

I found a really cool company online called HouseParty.  It's a way for companies to advertise their products: they send you the goods, you throw a party.  Seriously cool.  I got to host a Nerf Supersoaker/Cheetos party.  They sent 6 water guns and a HuGe box of Cheetos.  We invited some friends and got our party on!

Our little neighbor, Poppy.  Couldn't you just eat her up?

The future face of Cheetos.  

The Barkers have become our next door family, our kids even fight like sisters. :)

Ice on the tramp, another item checked off the list!  We've actually done this a few times.  The kids love it and you get some really cool pictures (even if you lost the coolest ones when the blankity-blank-blank SD card got corrupted and had to be reformatted...but I'm not bitter.)

Last, but not least, the kids threw together a car wash one afternoon last week.  Good times were had by all; and the cars ended up mostly clean.

We're one month down, now.  It's bitter-sweet because it's going SO fast; but we're definitely accomplishing what we set out to do...enjoy every single minute of it.

Let the memories begin!

The days have been long and lazy so far.  Maybe a little too lazy because I think I caught a whisper of "I'm bored" a few days ago.  I stared down the offender til they went outside to play--I can be very intimidating when I want to be.  Of course the broom and dustpan I held inches from their nose probably helped.  They've found all sorts of things to do.  Brooklyn spends most days in her swimsuit, with or without water play.  There's been LOTS of jumping on the tramp (and only one trip to the emergency room-no worries, all is well.) 

One rainy day last week, Caleb, McKenna and Brooklyn built forts to read in:

Even though I hardly lifted a finger, I patted myself on the back for that one.  "Good Mom" day.

And Grace is quite the little photographer.  She has been for awhile now, she just sees things differently.  She will take pictures of odd objects from odd angles and end up with art.  I'll have to dig up the pictures she took of cheerios one morning, they're really cool.  Last week, she found some willing models and went into...yes, into a shrub across the street and captured these:

 Our cute neighbor and good friend, Audry

We also took a little trip to Cache Valley this last weekend to attend our new little nephew Charlie's blessing.  It turned out to be baby central; between the two families there were 6 brand new babies, the oldest was 4 months, and 2 were less than 2 weeks old.  There was no shortage of baby-snuggling opportunities, which is really good for me.  I need to live vicariously through others at this point.  :) I wish, wish, wish we'd gotten a picture of all the little ones, but I guess we were all too busy holding them.

We'd planned to leave Sunday afternoon, but we were having too much fun and postponed our departure to "after dinner."  Then the kids came in screaming excitedly that they'd been invited to ride horses...we postponed our departure a little longer.  (Driving at midnight is fun, right Sam?)

 

Thank you, Dallas, for a great summer memory!!