Soccer, berry picking, soccer spaghetti, field trips, dentist visits, carnival, tooth fairy, and women's conference!

Okay, so we got Andrew home from his mission, all three girls back to school, and some of our fall soccer season.  Next up: 

Soccer Pictures (we skipped the packages and I took picture of the girls instead.  Way more fun!)

Raspberry picking (It's so much more exciting with a two year old and a baby!  Actually M. did an awesome picking berries and was absolutely delighted to discover real reindeer on the other side of this fence!)

More soccer.  Including eating spaghetti out of thermoses because that was the only way to avoid yet another night of Little Caesars Hot-N-Ready $5 pepperoni pizza.  Other parents were jealous of our real meal, naturally.

First grade field trip!  We went to the fire station, bank, library, and post office, followed by lunch at a park.  And then I slept for a week.  Phew!

Dental cleanings / check-ups for Lizzie and Sabrina.  Lizzie: 8 cavities, Sabrina: 7 cavities -- 6 of which require pulpotomies (root canal on a baby tooth).  (*breathing slowly into a paper bag*)

School Carnival!  The girls got their hair sprayed pink!!!  (I did it ahead of time at home.  Smart mama!).

I'm always impressed at the way these girls can scale a rock climbing wall.

 *side note -- while waiting in line an obnoxious older boy kept trying to sneak ahead in line.  Lizzie politely, but firmly, put him in his place.  Despite the fact that she didn't even come up to his shoulder!  It was excellently done on her part.

Lizzie lost a tooth and left this note to the tooth fairy:

 "Dear Tooth Fairy, Here is a tooth for you.  Please, before you leave, leave some evidence so I know you exist.  (P.S. Use pencil above).  Love, Elizabeth"
"This pencil is so very large for a little fairy like me!  Thank you for the tooth, Elizabeth.  Love, Your Tooth Fairy"
Apparently she believes again.

For the General Women's Conference, Mom and I went to watch with Michelle at her place.  It was very relaxing to sit together and listen to the words of such inspired leaders.  Little J was enthralled.  He sat for several minutes just staring at the speakers!

I believe this takes us through the end of September.  Life is good.

Oh What Do You Do In the Summertime, Verse 3

3. Oh, what do you do in the summertime, when all the world is green?
Do you march in parades, or drink lemonades, or count all the stars in the sky?
Is that what you do? So do I!

It's been a decade now that Michael and I have been parents.  A decade!  And this is our oldest.  The one who gets to go through the "firsts" with us.  Lizzie and Sabrina are unique and will require different parenting, but Kate... she gets all our first mistakes!  Good thing she's a pretty good sport about it.  We sure do love her.

Kate got a nice padded gig-bag for her ukulele.  It even has a nice strap for hauling it around to and from school. She also got some art supplies, including a book teaching how to draw pets.

We "stopped by" Grandma's house and Kate was surprised by a whole bunch of cousins, aunts, and uncles who put up some streamers and had a party with us!  I don't know that any adult ever could experience the unbridled joy of a not-quite-2-year-old with a frosted chocolate cupcake.

We found another excuse to get together to make a baby blanket!  This one is going to friends in China.  Kate has particularly enjoyed having a pen-pal in China.  She got to help with the blanket for the first time!

Kate and Sabrina also kept us supplied with background music via African drums.  Lizzie worked as part time photography assistant.

 

Randomly inserted here: the first two blackberries from our own yard.  We've had many more since.

Finally, on a tender note.  We made our July visit to the local cemetery and left flowers on many of the children's graves again.  Don't know how to finish this bit properly, so I'll just say I'm grateful for eternal families, but even that surety does not remove the grief and loss felt now.

Oh What Do You Do In the Summertime, Verse 2

 2. Oh, what do you do in the summertime, when all the world is green?

Do you swim in a pool, to keep yourself cool, or swing in a tree up high?

Is that what you do? So do I!

Featuring: COUSINS!

Water fun, sidewalk chalk, cupcakes, decorations...  

Lizzie shares her birthday with a cousin who is exactly one year older than her.  It just happened that he was here from Arkansas on their shared birthday!  We went to the movies and had cake and ice cream.  L's side of the cake showed "8" and P's side of the cake showed "9".  I figured out (after somewhat spectacular error) how to make zebra and leopard cakes.

Before the Arkansas cousins had to leave we all trekked to a great splash pad / playground.

Daddy had a business trip in June.  In fact, he had to be out of town on Lizzie's birthday.  So we had a girl's night sleepover in my big bed.  I don't think I got much sleep, but they enjoyed it all the same.  

After Daddy's trip we celebrated the rest of Lizzie's birthday.  She got the fancy white dress she was hoping for (for her baptism day) on her actual birthday, but then she got a slip-n-slide, a puppy journal, white sunday shoes, and a pretty blue and silver CTR ring.

A few days later the girls got to go to a Stuffed Animal Hullabaloo at the Museum of Art.  Cousin M came along too.  We got to have animal treats, bring stuffed animals, take pics at a photo booth, get a balloon animal, etc.

We walked through the statue garden on the way out because it's always fun.  M was excited to climb on the horse.  As you can see, it was VERY hot.

We also didn't stay long outside because the air quality was absolutely wretched.  At this time there were over half-dozen major wildfires burning in various stages of non-control across the state.  Many days we could smell the smoke from the fires and the sunlight was all sorts of strange, being filtered through so much junk.  

We were grateful that in all the worry over the fires, while some family and friends had to worry about evacuations, all remained safe and protected.

Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime?

 1. Oh, what do you do in the summertime, when all the world is green?

Do you fish in a stream, or lazily dream on the banks as the clouds go by?

Is that what you do? So do I!

We've had so much fun this summer that I've barely taken time to record it.  So here's a little peek:

The note on the fridge when the girls came home from their last day of school.

 This is the first of MANY activities we've been to at the library.  This one was the last of a series teaching children the basics of reading music.

The city festival starts off at the very beginning of June.  One activity was a city-wide Eye Spy game.  There were close up pictures of things spread through the city.  After a several hours driving around as a family stopping to check out every possible nook or cranny we came up with all but two of the locations.  Of course one of them was on a building we drive by a few times a day, lol.  The other one we had to have looked right at too.  Oh well, we had a lot of fun.

 The girls and I discovered the real joys of the Museum of Art.  We spent hours there going through the outside sculpture gardens and all the inside galleries.  (We didn't know we'd missed the best part for children!  That's coming...)

 One afternoon we got out a huge piece of plastic sheeting, duct taped it into a big envelope, and filled it a few inches deep with water.  Once it was sealed shut it made a wonderfully cool "water bed".  It was great for rolling on, jumping on, and playing on in many ways.  Took forever to put together, but it was a lot of fun.

 We made it back to the Museum of Art and found the Children's Exhibit.  Wow!  There are displays aimed at children with activities, questions, etc.  They had a wonderful time.  

 Naturally we went to the Children's Art Festival.  The girls had a wonderful time, as they have every year.  This year it was just the 4 of us.  I took a camp chair and my fully stocked "sit-and-wait" bag.  It had everything from waxed paper (to cover over not-quite-dry paint or glue) to clothespins (to clip things together or hang them on the back of my chair to dry or avoid being crushed).  Naturally I also had bottles of water, sunblock, and cookies.

 I really love the "binoculars" Sabrina brought to the parade.  They're the wonderfully classic contraption built of toilet paper tubes.  The most amazing thing to me was when a kind woman offered me an empty chair right behind my girls.  It had probably been sitting there for a full day saving a place and she said they didn't need it.  That simple act of kindness helped me enjoy the parade with the girls without being in incredible amounts of pain afterward.  I was hoping to find the woman to thank her, but she was nowhere to be found. Thank you, kind lady!

 That night we went to the concert / activities / fireworks.  We had a lovely time waiting for things to get started.  I crocheted, and the girls rolled down hills and did hand-stands.  

 But then as the sun started to go down it got cold.  REALLY cold.  ARCTIC cold.  Michael went home and grabbed armloads of blankets, jackets, scarves, etc.  and even then we only made it through 30 minutes of the concert.  Then we left and went home to warm up!

Not a bad looking place, if I do say so myself :)

We did run back outside when the fireworks started.

Perhaps this only got us through the first week of June.  I guess I'll have to pay attention to post more often, or we won't get through the summer posts before Christmas!

Relish

(To join Ketchup and Mustard)

Okay, let's see if I can finish up July in one epic post!

I loved all the yard in bloom.  The colors and richness were delightful.

Kate's Birthday

 For Kate's Birthday Activity she invited two friends.  We went and saw Kung Fu Panda 2 in the movie theater, then went out for ice cream.  It was a whole lot of fun on a hot July afternoon.

For her birthday Kate got a new bike.  She actually "got it" a couple of months ago so it would be useful all summer, so she opened a couple of little gifts on her actual birthday.  She chose clam chowder for dinner.

 This is actually from the ice cream parlor (thus the blue colored lips).  Sabrina had a bug bite on the bridge of her nose and was trying very hard to see it.  Yes, I laughed.  I still giggle at these pictures.

Lizzie's Pneumonia

 We happened to have Michael's sisters come over for a visit one evening.  Lizzie went from doing okay (remember that long fever she'd had?) to just crashing while they were here.  One of them happens to be a pediatric nurse and just happened to have her stethoscope and a sat monitor in her car!  Lizzie was seeming really borderline -- maybe okay, maybe not.  We finally took her in to the after-hours and ended up in peds at the hospital.  Lizzie's oxygen sats kept dropping just low enough to make you worry, but not quite low enough to REALLY worry.  They put in an IV, which was a real job as Lizzie is VERY afraid of needles.  They gave her a dose of IV antibiotics, did chest x-rays, took blood for labs, and let her go home for the night.  She ended up in hospital jammies anyway because she threw up after the IV was placed.  Awesome.

 The next day she was still really borderline but we finally just took her back in.  She sounded worse than she had before and just wasn't improving.  So we went and were admitted at the hospital.  She only required one night and a few more rounds of IV antibiotics to kick it and get onto the path to health.  It was a while before it was all gone, of course, but it did turn around then.  She got to play lots of nintendo while in the hospital.  They brought in an extra bed so I could sleep in it that night with Lizzie.  The other girls were happy to come visit the next afternoon.  Another x-ray showed that her lungs were starting to clear, so that was good news.

 Daddy stayed with Lizzie the next day for a while until they let her come home.  We were so happy to be home in our own beds!  The hospital, while not ideal, was a good thing.  The nurses were wonderful (helps that we'd brought our own for the check-in night since Janice works with them all there!), the doctors were great, the food was decent, and the room was HUGE.  They even gave her a blanket she got to bring home and keep.

Fun with Cousins

 While Lizzie was busy in the hospital my sisters family came to town for a few days.  We don't get to see them often so we were sad to miss out on some of the time they were here.  While Michael was with Lizzie in the hospital I got to take the other girls to play with their cousins.

 The cousins even got to come see out house.  The sun was beautiful and I played with a few pictures (cause that's how I roll, ya know).  The teenagers were less intrigued by the Barbies and bitty bikes, but they took down that dead tree in our side yard in no time.  Those boys were FAST!  My brother in law helped them not remove any human limbs and they had the whole thing tidied up with the wood in logs stacked for fires.  It was incredible!

 The kids of many ages put on a stellar play complete with costumes, side effects, and a director (grandma).  They did a version of Cinderella.  Sabrina was the Cinderella-in-rags and when Cinderella zings into her fancy clothes they just swapped actresses!  Cousin Naomi (similar in age to Sabrina) was the Cinderella-in-finery.  It was very funny.  I did get a video of it, but you can barely hear a word of dialogue.  When I have the time (ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!!) I'll go through and subtitle it.  It's really worth it.

 Temple Square

 We went for a day at Temple Square in Salt Lake.  We got to ride all the way to the top of the Church Office Building where there's a spectacular view.  We even got to eat in the special employees only cafeteria in the basement (since we were there with one of Michael's sisters who is, in fact, an employee there).  We even ran into Grandpa and Grandma Southern there and walked around a bit.

Cousin Birthday Party

Happy First Birthday!  Celebrating another cousin's birthday.  This coming January the 50th cousin is due.  Well, that counts our three girls.  So technically our girls "only" have 47 cousins as of this coming January.  There is no shortage of insta-friends!  This was a brilliant birthday party where we played all of the birthday boy's favorite things: water, sprinklers, squirt bottles, etc.  A fabulous time was had by all.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Oh, I wish I'd made a big deal out of it!  Happy Birthday to my sweetheart.  It was kinda lame with everything else going on.  Sorry.  I love you anyway!  

Sadly,

A big part of the reason Michael's birthday was so lame: I managed to pull a humdinger of an infection in my foot.  Dumb foot.  All those circled areas got swollen, red, and awful looking.  I was given a shot of one antibiotic and put on two others orally.  When it continued to spread I was also put on a buff anti-fungal.  Apparently the combination of the meds made my anxiety soar, so I had it checked it out yet again and it was declared starting to improve.  Phew!  We were SO close to having to do IV antibiotics for me too!  Thankfully we avoided that.  The infection finally cleared.  I think I've had two sinus infections since then.  So bring on the antibiotics!  My foot is 98% better.  It keeps getting a bit red and irritated, but hasnt' been swelling any more, so we're calling it good and done.  I hate getting in the way of a good party!

Thus we come to the end of July.  It was a busy month!  In fact, you should be grateful I fit everything in so concisely.  Trust me, I could have stretched this out a lot more.  I have over 900 pictures from this month alone!  Stay tuned for August. ;)