little things

Lots of little things I haven’t been able to get to yet…

We celebrated the 100th day of school.
There’s always a lot of pomp and circumstance around that special day. (My favorite artwork from that day is back here from last year. I still crack up when I think about that drawing.)

Someone who read this post about Jon Schmidt actually happens to work for him. So they sent Max some special stuff signed by Jon himself.
Now that’s a way to make this boy feel special.

Thank you Jon!

Have you watched some of these “Piano Guys” clips? That’s what I call a jump-start to some serious music-loving for kids.

We finally got these shelves put in our garage and man alive do they ever make a difference:
(Do you like my wheat-grinding station there on the floor? I’m very high tech when I grind my wheat.)

It’s a lucky thing that we got the garage cleaned out because Claire and her friend decided to host some dance classes there for their little sisters.
I’m trying my very best not to eat Lucy up I love her so.

The weather is confused here. It is Fall in the back yard:

And spring in the front yard:
It has been so beautiful lately that we try to spend as much time as we possibly can outside. (That’s the benefit of living in the desert in the winter. When the summer comes, I’ll just say, not so fun.)

Claire found a good spot to meditate:

This park has been calling our names:
The girls like to plan outings to the park with all the neighbors so we can soak it all up before the heat starts to creep in.

Everyone brings a dessert and the kids and dads play football.
Grace is prepping for braces so she had to get four teeth pulled.
A short version of the gory story of our drive home is that Lucy decided to fling everything in the bag they gave around the car so all the extra gauze was irretrievable from my driving spot in the front seat. The blood on the gauze in Grace’s mouth kept inching further and further toward the end and then started dripping in her hands. And all the while, still under the funny stuff anesthesia does to you, she just kept saying,”That was SOOOO fun!” in a dreamy voice over and over again. Oh man this girl makes me laugh.

If anyone ever needs oral surgery or teeth pulled this is the place to go. They go so far above and beyond taking care of their patients. If Grace was scared to death going in and came out jabbering on and on about how FUN it was, that place has got to be good 🙂

This is how the girls “shake the tablecloth out” after dinner:
Quite creative if I do say so myself.

Whoops, how did that one get in here? That’s me and my sister. Those were quite the mini skirts.

My brother had a birthday.
We are so lucky we get to celebrate with him but mostly that we get to live by him.

He takes such good care of our family. Every time he shows up the kids whoop and holler like it’s Christmas morning. (Do you like that collection of candles?)

Dave’s partner came to visit us from China. He is such an incredibly nice guy and took the time out to teach us some Ti-Chi moves while he was here:
The kids were mesmerized by him.

He even taught me a little about the theory behind meditation and got me convinced that I should try to make it part of my life.

I took Claire and Grace on a little date to watch the high school band concert:
I want so much for them to be exposed to culture any way they can get it here in our little corner of the planet. Our high school, though not too hot at sports, exceeds all expectations in music. Aren’t those big huge horns cool?

We went on the “Temple Walk” back on Claire’s birthday, but I didn’t post a few of the pictures back there that I liked. This is how our gym looked at 6:00 am:Crawling with teenagers ready to walk.

By 6:15 after a cool video and a little pep talk those teenagers left their grumpy, tired attitudes behind and walked the nine miles to the new temple site.
Because we were celebrating with Claire we only caught the end, but it sure was a neat experience.
Love these girls.

Claire won a really special character award at school.
We’re so proud of her.

With all the birthdays going on around here we’ve had balloons floating around the house on a continual basis.

With that, Lucy has found a new mode of expression for her artwork:
I love it.

And last but not least, Claire and Grace have decided that they want to become actresses.

In order to prep for being in plays, they have decided to produce some “family plays:”
I loved coming across this script the other day…
…I especially like that I apparently get to be the wicked stepmother.

What perfect casting 🙂