Summer shananigans

Here are some random pictures and stories from summer.  The more day to day stuff.

After about 4 years of hard work Brock FINALLY beat Jason at Chess!!!!!  Jason is not the kind of dad to let his kids win games - you have to earn it!  Brock finally figured it out and won hum fair and square.   I wanted to good picture - with Brock being all ecstatic and Jason acting all devastated.  If you know these two - they are not very emotional or willing to indulge in silly pictures.  So this is the best I got. 

The winning game board

We rode our bikes to 7-11 on 7-11 and got free slurpees! 

Madison spent the majority of her time in the front yard.  She loves to play in the front yard by herself.  She is old enough now that I can let her go in the front yard and play.  She doesn't leave the yard - she plays with the fairy garden, swings from the tree branches, plays in the sand box, or "invents" things on the porch (pictures further down)

These are Madison's inventions.  In fact I would say this was the "summer of Madison's inventions".  Almost everyday she would rig some sort pf system on the porch that would "make" things like, sports equipment, balls, wands, potions, etc.  It was pretty cute.

This is Megan swinging from the tree

The girls still like to play dress up.  Who doesn't' smile when they look out their window to find a power ranger playing in their fairy garden?  oh - this is the life!

All the kids spent many days and hours down in the preschool. Brock and Finn made this and thought it was cool enough to merit a picture. 

We went to Beauty and the Beast in the dollar theater one afternoon

They played in the (backyard) sandbox.

And I don't know who took this picture or why - but it shows 2 things.  One - the Legos.  There are ALWAYS Legos.  And two - in the back you can see a boy crouched behind the coffee table with a dart gun.  We have daily epic dart gun battles.  Our house is pretty good for it since it goes in a circle and has a few balconies.  We have several neighborhood kids that come and they have dart wars for a while.  I literally find darts everywhere!

Gymnastics

The girls took gymnastics over the summer.  They were on the same level - but I put them in different classes (but at the same  time).  It was a fun thing to do.  I had wanted them to take for a while - but neither of them was interested.  We took a free trial class and they both decided  they wanted to continue (mom's always know).  We are taking a hiatus right now for other activities - but I hope they will take antoehr session or two.

Noah's Baseball

My cute Noah played baseball this summer.  In Colorado all baseball is played June - August, so I was reluctant to ever have the kids play baseball becasue... well...there goes your summer.  But Noah really wanted too and he needed a win in life - so we scraped our summer plans and spent our summer watching Noah play baseball.  

He really liked it and took it pretty seriously.  He hit about 50% of the time.  The real problem is that it was coach pitch and our coach was a TERRIBLE pitcher. 

He had a fun time and is probably going to do it again next year.

Brock was a good sport.  He REALLY wanted to play baseball as well.  But we were late signing up and there wasn't a slot on a team for him so he got put on the wait list - and a spot never opened up.  He was obviously disappointed and REALLY wanted to play.  But he never complained and supported Noah wonderfully during the season and got REALLY into the games.

The girls, of course, enjoyed the snacks at the end of every game.

My flower garden

Over the last 5 years I have learned to love taking care of my flower garden.  I say "take care of" because I have never planted my own flower garden.  In West Jordan my Mother in law did my whole flower garden as a gift (she is so talented) and I just had to maintain it.  Then in this house I have spent the last 4 years ripping out what they had and very slowly and gently "grafting" things in from other pars of the yard, my old flower garden in Utah (they let me steel some ground cover when I was visiting once!), and other peoples garden.  I just couldn't ever justify the cost of spending money on flowers that there is a real possibility that I am just going to kill.  But this year for my end of year preschool gift all my preschoolers gave me a ton of money for Home Depot.  I was SO EXCITED.  My main goal was hydrangeas.  I LOVE Hydrangeas and I had just the place for them.

The girls and I spent an afternoon at Home Depot and picked out the perfect flowers.

I love love love my flower garden.  I love working in it, looking at it, taking picture of it.  Sometimes when the day is hard, I just go out and sit and look at my flowers.  They make me so happy.

I am a sucker for ground cover - I like a lot of different patches - I don't like them to grow together  - plus I think it is just adorable with my fairy garden.

I just absolutely love my front yard - I love it the most because I didn't do it - it came all landscaped and is my DREAM front yard.  I love love love the rocks, and the levels, and layers, and the beds, and the sand box (I did that), and the stairs, and all of it.  Actually I don't like the trees - I think I am pulling them out soon.  The only reason I keep them is because I love my front one for 2 weeks in the spring when it is in bloom (but that is not enough to justify its existence, and I love that my kids swing from it and climb it (that is enough... for now).

I was so trilled when my hydrangeas started to bloom!

These are my favorite.  I don't know what they are, but they grow in between my rocks.  I want more of them.  I LOVE them

These are how my hydrangeas are doing today.