June 2015 little things

We raced back from New York City at the beginning of June to get this girl back for summer school.

My nephew is going on a mission in July.  He’s the fourth to go on Dave’s side and I’m so grateful for these amazing examples that Max has to look up to.  Dave and I got to go with him and any other family members that could make it for his first visit to the temple.  I loved being able to share that with him.  He is going to be a fabulous missionary.

Not sure what these guys are laughing at, but I love this.

Loved Lucy’s note to her Braille teacher up there…

And Claire’s darling cousins she adores and got to hang out with a bunch in June:
One of them is super good at doing hair…
Dave and some friends ran a half marathon.  Wish I could have been there to cheer them all on, but at least someone took a picture for me 🙂
So proud of all of them.

I am pretty sure Dave’s beard helped him speed along that course.

June was the “month of friends” for Lucy.  She played and played like nobody’s business. I took this picture after Dave judged their dance competition and they all won a piece of licorice.
She was also the one to work her tail off most on her summer goals.  (She’s trying to earn money for a new Lego set she’s dying for and has really caught the vision of those checkmarks.)
She read a whole slew of books:
Her nightstand always looks like this:

She loved Shiloh
and Mr. Popper’s Penguins
best so far.

(We watched Mr. Popper’s Penguins together after the reading the book, NOT the same!)

Practiced tying her shoes every day:
Rode her bike every day:
So fun to ride along-side her.  She’s to the point where she can sing and carry on conversations as she leads the way.
Max had a birthday that I wrote about back here and here, but forgot to add the family celebration along with Nana, who’s birthday was close to Max’s:
This is how our family birthday celebrations look:
I need to post the recipe for our favorite birthday cake that is usually served some time soon.

Dave grew a beard, then cut part of it off.
…and then a little more:
Wish he would have kept that for more than five minutes.  Ha!

We all missed Elle a bunch:
Max works really hard at a machine shop and comes home looking like a chimney-sweep every day.
Had to get a close-up of those clothes:
His boss was laughing because he says other workers will come out of places looking totally fine and then Max will come out looking like that.  I guess he’s working hard!

Maybe part of it is that the air conditioning is broken in Jenna (our car) ever since Elle crashed the front of it, so he commutes 40 minutes in and out broiling in the 115 degree heat.

That kid is learning a bundle.
Someone sent us this picture from India to show us our names are still there at Rising Star.  Makes me want to go back! (our trip there is back HERE)

Dave and Max took off to a volleyball tournament in California (in preparation for Nationals).  They got to do a little serious preparation for the tournament here:
Ha!

Dave let me in on some of the action through Facetime:

Meanwhile the girls and I had some pretty great quality time.  So weird to be down to these three kids at home:
Claire’s friend and her mom set up a Mom/Daughter lunch date:

We braved the isles of IKEA:
…and thought of Elle…

My friend Claudia and I took our little girls to the childrens’ museum:
Hadn’t been there forever and these two hadn’t seen each other forever either!

We also met up with our friends who used to live on our same street and moved to a different town a couple years ago.  We miss them!
Rachel and I went antique shopping and she found this bad boy:
Isn’t that the coolest? 

We met up for lunch with Claudia in her neck of the woods:
And somehow I got duped into a sleepover with these darling fake-sleepers.

Grace and I had a pre-birthday pedicure:
Another little mother/daughter lunch date:
Yes, it was some good girl time I tell you!

For Father’s Day in church we did “Mystery Dad” for the third year in a row.  The kids loved it.  I called a few dads ahead and hid them behind here:
The kids took turns coming up to ask them questions which they answered in disguised voices. 
The kids were enthralled.  When they guessed a particular dad right, we brought him out and sung him his favorite Primary song.

If the kids sung it well enough, we cut his tie right off (the secretly wore old ties and pretended they didn’t want them cut).

This was the most tame cut one.
Our Father’s Day post is back HERE, but I didn’t include our little gift to Dave.  He has always been so diligent to keep track of the kids’ heights as they have grown.  He wrote them on a door at our old house which we had to paint when we left.  We wrote down all the heights but never transferred them to anything at our new house.

So we finally got busy making Dave a height ruler.
Luckily my brother was around to help me out after the sanding and painting.
Now to get numbers and names transferred over to that thing…
Claire took a little cheer camp class and had the time of her life.

Here she is with her sweet teachers who set this up this whole camp:
We did a little after-school bag/locker/folder clean-out.
Claire was obviously enthralled…see her curled up sleeping on the tile floor up there?
After getting exasperated by so many dishes throughout the day I “gave” Claire and Lu each their own sink.

They got to make sure there were no dishes in it and shine it up a few times a day in exchange for hearts on their goal charts.  Lucy fell in love with her own sink and took such great care of that thing day after day!
She took that ownership very seriously.

Cousins and pizza-making:
Love this dear friend of Lu’s:
She supported her so sweetly through her whole dive team dealio.
She had the cutest teachers too.
That girl tried so hard but could never quite get it.  So proud of her for trying and having that experience.

She also took swim lessons that she was pretty proud of 🙂

Claire did dive team too (the super early class) and fell in love with it.

She especially loved the synchronized diving at the end.

Dave and I went out to sushi for our 20th anniversary the day before the big day which we used to celebrate Grace’s birthday (back HERE).
I know, complicated, but oh boy I sure love that man I married twenty years ago.

Here’s what we did on the big day:
We were laughing so hard at that picture because Grace got a new waterproof case for her phone (here
) which aided her and Claire to be pretty true-to-form in this pic…her the teenager into the phone and Claire just having the time of her life.

My aunt and uncle surprised us being in town one day and we were so excited to have them for dinner.

My kids are really getting into the beauty of the sky.  Grace swiped my camera to capture this darkening beauty one night:

And Claire called me back in a hustle one night to witness this beauty with her in the back yard: