July 2012 (Most of it, anyway)

I'm trying to get my blog up to date before we go to Utah in 2 days. So, here's a photo journal of July so far (minus the 4th and birthdays, which already have their own posts). And, there are LOTS of pictures. And most of them are swimming/water pictures. I promise, I didn't even include half of them.

After weeks of battling and balancing Mariah and Elaine's water needs with Sally's, I finally took this tub outside; it's Sally's pool. She LOVES it!

Mariah is so relaxed in the water! It's so good for her.

And Lainey has gotten so much more comfortable. She was my water-phobe. No more!

A couple weeks ago, we ventured downtown to check out a splash park I was told about. The main attraction was broken, but this splash pad suited our needs. The girls had a blast! (Check out Elaine's fancy dance moves throughout.)

After playing for a while, we ate lunch, and then I put the kids in their dry clothes. They went right back to the pad and splashed around. That was fine, but then Sally sat right down in her clothes. She was shocked to find out that was not the plan. Silly girl.

Sal loves to sit in this little doll highchair.

She also loves helping me carry food inside from the outside freezer. This nutritional yeast was double bagged, but she tried to lift it over her head onto the washer. Somehow both seals opened. (If you don't know about nutritional yeast, it's about the consistency of fish food.) It was a very expensive mess.

All the girls love cherries. And I love them to eat them. Did you know cherries have serotonin in them? I really think my kids sleep better after eating a bunch of cherries.

Matching swim cover-ups. (See the clothes hanging behind them? The girls decided to jump in the pool fully clothed. I was not very nice about it.)

Elaine is really into puzzling right now. I've never seen anyone do them in quite the same way, though. She stacks the puzzles on top of each other. Here she's working on her 4th puzzle, on top of the other 3. I think that would just really confuse me.

And, Happy Pioneer Day from my 3 pioneer children. They insisted on dressing up like pioneers this morning. This is the best we could do. We had a "play" in which I played and sang every single pioneer song in the children's songbook, and the girls acted out the words. It took at least 30 minutes, if not longer, and they stayed in character the whole time. The whole thing was Mariah's idea.

The end.

May 2012

Photo journal of May. Seems like ages ago.

Another trip to the zoo. We got to see both the front and backside of this peacock struttin' his stuff. (Um, Dude, she's not looking. In fact, I think she's hiding her head.)

M and E fed the goats.

While S sat with me. Goats make her nervous.

Sal running away from goats.

Sally got a little more comfortable on her strider.

Ward playdate at the park.

Lots of drawing. I came out of my room one morning to see this joint effort.

Sal helping me make coconut cream for something.

More drawing.

Sal waiting for her "dee-buh-dee-buh-die" (sweet potato fries).

Flying.

Wearing Mom's shoes.

More drawing.

Mariah slipped this under my door one very early morning. (She went through a stage (thankfully short) where she would get up very early to draw pictures for everyone.) The note says, "I love you to!"

We had some pretty awesome storms in May.

This is just a random video of the girls riding their bikes. Mariah has a bigger bike now, so she no longer looks so silly, and Sal can reach the ground much better now.